The Merchant of Venice Summary: Shylock, the Bond and the Trial
What The Merchant of Venice is about
Shakespeare wrote The Merchant of Venice between about 1596 and 1598. The setting is Venice, a trading city built on credit, contracts and ships at sea, with a second world at Belmont, the country estate of a wealthy heiress.
The plot starts with a favour. Bassanio, a young Venetian of noble rank, has run through his estate and wants to court Portia of Belmont. To look the part he needs 3,000 ducats. He asks his friend Antonio, a rich merchant who has bailed him out before. Antonio is willing but cash poor, because his money is tied up in cargo bound for Tripolis, the Indies, Mexico and England. So he agrees to stand as guarantor if Bassanio can find a lender.
The lender is Shylock, a Jewish moneylender. Antonio has insulted him in public and has undercut his trade by lending without interest. Shylock hesitates, lists the abuse he has taken, then offers the loan interest free on one condition. If the bond is not repaid on the day, he may take a pound of Antonio's flesh. Bassanio begs him not to sign. Antonio, reading the lack of interest as generosity, signs anyway.
While Bassanio travels to Belmont, Antonio's ships are reported lost. The bond falls due. Everything then moves towards a courtroom.
The main characters
Antonio is the merchant of the title, generous to his friends and openly hostile to Shylock. His money is all risk and no reserve, which is what makes the bond deadly.
Bassanio is charming, broke and dependent on other people's goodwill. His courtship drives the plot without him ever quite controlling it.
Shylock is the role the play is remembered for. He is a man repaying contempt with contempt, hardened further when his daughter Jessica elopes with the Christian Lorenzo, converts, and takes a large part of his wealth with her, including a turquoise ring his late wife Leah had given him. His speech beginning "Hath not a Jew eyes?" is one of the most quoted passages in Shakespeare, a plea for common humanity from a man who is also demanding a man's life.
Portia is the heiress of Belmont, bound by her dead father's will. She is the quickest mind in the play. Her speech on "the quality of mercy", which "is twice blest: / It blesseth him that gives and him that takes", is the other great set piece.
Around them sit Nerissa, Portia's handmaid, Gratiano, Bassanio's likeable but tactless friend, and the Duke of Venice, who wants to save Antonio but cannot simply tear up a legal contract.
The caskets at Belmont
Portia cannot choose her own husband. Her father's will states that each suitor must pick one of three caskets, gold, silver or lead. The Prince of Morocco takes the gold one, reading "Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire" as a description of Portia. The vain Prince of Aragon takes silver, "Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves". Both leave with nothing. The lead casket repels them, since it promises only that the chooser "must give and hazard all he hath". Portia wants Bassanio to succeed. As he weighs the choice, a song in her household warns that "fancy" is bred in the eye and fed by gazing. He picks lead.
The themes
Justice against mercy is the spine of the play. Shylock asks for nothing more than the law allows. The Christians ask him to want less than he is owed. Shakespeare refuses to make that easy.
Revenge runs under it. Shylock's demand is not really about money, which is why doubling the sum does not move him.
Money and class shape everything else. Loans, dowries, cargo and inheritance decide who may marry whom and who may live.
Prejudice is the hardest thread. The First Folio lists the play as a comedy and it has the shape of one, yet it is remembered for its cruelty. Critics still argue over whether the play is antisemitic, since Shylock's universal plea for the dignity of the despised sits alongside his insistence on a pound of human flesh.
How it ends (spoilers)
The climax is the trial before the Duke. Bassanio, funded by Portia, offers 6,000 ducats, twice the debt. Shylock refuses and demands the flesh. The Duke passes the case to a visiting "doctor of the law" called Balthazar, carrying a letter from the respected lawyer Bellario of Padua. Balthazar is Portia in disguise, with Nerissa as her clerk.
Portia asks for mercy, is refused, then turns Shylock's own literalism against him. The bond grants flesh, not blood. If he spills one drop of Antonio's blood his lands and goods are forfeit under Venetian law, and he must cut exactly one pound, with death if the scale moves by a hair. Shylock is beaten and tries to take the money instead.
Why it still matters
It is one of Shakespeare's most performed and most argued over plays, and it does not let an audience sit comfortably. Two of its speeches are known to people who have never seen it staged. The questions it asks about contracts, cruelty and who the law protects have not dated.
