Summary: Act V, scene i
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stategems, and spoils.
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus.
See Important Quotations Explained
In moonlit Belmont, Jessica and Lorenzo compare themselves
to famous lovers from classical literature, like Troilus and Cressida, Pyramus
and Thisbe, and Dido and Aeneas. The couple goes back and forth
with endless declarations of love, when a messenger suddenly interrupts
them. The messenger informs them that Portia will soon return from
the monastery, and Lorenzo and Jessica prepare to greet the mistress
of the house. Launcelot enters and announces that Bassanio will return
to Belmont the next day. Lorenzo calls for music, and he and Jessica
sit on a grassy bank beneath the stars. Lorenzo contemplates the
music made by the movement of heavenly orbs, which mortal humans
cannot hear while alive. The musicians arrive and begin to play,
and Lorenzo decides that anyone who is not moved by music deserves
the worst cruelties and betrayals.
Portia and Nerissa enter and hear the music before they
reach the estate. Portia believes that the music is made more beautiful
by the night, and the flickering candles lighting up her estate
enchant her. She decides that the worth of things is determined
largely by the context in which they are experienced. Lorenzo greets
Portia, and she requests that he not mention her absence to her
husband. Trumpets sound as Bassanio, Antonio, and Gratiano arrive.
Portia greets Bassanio, who introduces her to Antonio, who reports
in turn that he has been acquitted in the courts of Venice. Gratiano
and Nerissa begin to argue over the ring with which he promised
never to part. Nerissa chastises her husband not for hurting her
feelings, but for breaking his own promise. Gratiano insists that
he gave the ring to a lawyer’s clerk as a fee, and Portia criticizes
him for parting with so precious a gift, saying that her own husband
would never have parted with his ring. Gratiano corrects her and
reveals that Bassanio has, in fact, given his ring to the lawyer
who saved Antonio. Portia declares that her husband’s heart is as
empty as his finger, and she promises never to visit his bed until
he produces the ring.
Bassanio pleads with Portia to understand that he gave
the ring to a worthy man to whom he was indebted, but Portia dismisses
his reasoning, saying it is more likely that Bassanio gave the ring
to another woman. Portia vows to be equally unfaithful, threatening to
offer the same worthy man anything she owns, including her body
or her husband’s bed. Antonio intercedes on behalf of Bassanio and
Gratiano, asking the women to accept his soul should either Bassanio
or Gratiano prove unfaithful again. Portia and Nerissa relent, giving
each of their husbands a ring and suggesting that they exercise
more care in keeping these rings. Bassanio and Gratiano recognize
these as the same rings they gave to the lawyer and his clerk, and
Portia and Nerissa claim that they lay with the gentlemen in order
to get back the rings. Before either Bassanio or Gratiano can become
too upset at being cuckolded, however, Portia reveals that she was
the lawyer in Venice, and Nerissa her clerk. Antonio receives news
that some of his ships have miraculously arrived in port, and Lorenzo
is told that he will inherit Shylock’s fortune. The company rejoices
in its collective good fortune.
Read a translation of
Act V, scene i →
Analysis
In comparison to the preceding trial scene, Act V is decidedly
lighter in tone. The play delivers the happy ending required of
a comedy: the lovers are restored to their loving relationships,
Antonio’s supposedly lost ships arrive miraculously in port, and
no threatening presence looms in the distance to suggest that this
happiness is only temporary. The idyllic quality of life in Belmont
has led some critics to declare that The Merchant of Venice is
a “fairy story” into which the dark and dramatic figure of Shylock
trespasses. Certainly the language of the play returns to the realm
of comedic romance after Shylock’s departure. Before Shylock shocks
the play with his morbid reality, Salarino is free to envision a
shipwreck as a lovely scattering of “spices on the stream” (I.i.33).
Now that Shylock has been banished, Lorenzo imagines that the each
star in the sky produces music as it moves, “choiring to the young-eyed
cherubins” (V.i.61). In describing the “sweet
power of music” to Jessica, Lorenzo claims that such sounds have
the ability to tame even the wildest beasts (V.i.78).
Thus, as the music plays on the hills of Belmont, the characters
seem confident that the forces requiring taming—Shylock and his
bloodlust—have been suppressed, leaving them to enjoy the “concord
of sweet sounds” (V.i.83).
But if the play’s end seems reminiscent of a fairy tale,
it is also likely to evoke some of the same ambivalence with which
we greet Shylock’s demise. For example, Jessica and Lorenzo begin
Act V by comparing themselves to a catalogue of famous lovers. They
mean to place themselves in a pantheon of romantic figures whose
love was so great that it inspired praise from generations of poets,
but all of the lovers named—Troilus and Cressida, Pyramus and Thisbe, Dido
and Aeneas, Medea and Jason—end tragically. Newlyweds should not
necessarily hope to take their place in this lineup, as it promises
misunderstanding, betrayal, and death.
Shakespeare spares us such tragedy, but he does load
the ending with misunderstanding and betrayal, albeit in a comic
form. Portia and Nerissa work their husbands into a frenzy, but
they also know when to stop. As soon as Bassanio declares himself
a cuckold, Portia begs him to “[s]peak not so grossly” and unveils
the means by which she secured his ring (V.i.265).
Thus, Bassanio and Gratiano are folded back into their wives’ good
graces. The play ends with Gratiano asserting that “while I live
I’ll fear no other thing / So sore as keeping safe Nerissa’s ring”
(V.i.305–306). The
line suggests that he will not only safeguard the band of gold his
wife gave him, but will also strive to keep her sexually satisfied
so that she has no reason to cuckold him. But here, too, a shadow
steals over the finale of celebratory reconciliation, for we wonder
if Bassanio and Gratiano have what it takes to keep up with their
wives. Nowhere in the play—not even when Bassanio chooses the correct
casket—do the men come close to matching Portia’s wit or cleverness.
Although Shakespeare leaves these issues offstage, we cannot help
but feel that dangers have not so much been expelled from the world
as kept at bay. Happiness reigns in Belmont, if only for the time
being. As Portia approaches her estate to find a candle burning
brightly, she notes with surprise, “How far that little candle throws
his beams— / So shines a good deed in a naughty world” (V.i.89–90).
Here, she frames a glimmer of light, of happiness or hope, as a
surprisingly beautiful but always temporary condition in a dark
and dangerous world. As far as happy endings go, perhaps we can
ask for little more.