Emotional effects: increase of tragic passion;
But it is of course passion and emotional interest which are mainly affected by the union of light and serious: these we shall appreciate chiefly in connection with the Trial Scene, where the emotional threads of the play are gathered into a knot, and the two personages who are the embodiments of the light and serious elements face one another as judge and prisoner. iv. i, from 225.In this scene it is remarkable how Portia takes pains to prolong to the utmost extent the crisis she has come to solve; she holds in her fingers the threads of the tangled situation, and she is strong enough to play with it before she will consent to bring it to an end. 178.She has intimated her opinion that the letter of the bond must be maintained, 184-207.she has made her appeal to Shylock for mercy and been refused, she has heard Bassanio's appeal to wrest the law for once to 214-222.her authority and has rejected it; there remains nothing but to pronounce the decree. 225.But at the last moment she asks to see the bond, and every spectator in court holds his breath and hears his heart beat as he follows the lawyer's eye down line after line. 227-230.It is of no avail; at the end she can only repeat the useless offer of thrice the loan, with the effect of drawing from Shylock an oath that he will not give way. 230-244.Then Portia admits that the bond is forfeit, with a needless reiteration of its horrible details; yet, as if it were some evenly balanced question, in which after-thoughts were important, she once more appeals to Shylock to be merciful and bid her tear the bond, and evokes a still stronger asseveration from the malignant victor, until even Antonio's stoicism begins to give way, and he begs for a speedy judgment. 243.Portia then commences to pass her judgment in language of legal prolixity, which sounds like a recollection of her hour with Bellario:—
For the intent and purpose of the law
Hath full relation to the penalty,
Which here appeareth due upon the bond, &c.
255-261.
Next she fads about the details of the judicial barbarity, the balance to weigh the flesh, a surgeon as a forlorn hope; and when Shylock demurs to the last, stops to argue that he might do this for charity. At last surely the intolerable suspense will come to a termination. 263.But our lawyer of half-an-hour's standing suddenly remembers she has forgotten to call on the defendant in the suit, and the pathos is intensified by the dying speech of Antonio, calmly welcoming death for himself, anxious only to soften Bassanio's remorse, his last human passion a rivalry with Portia for the love of his friend.
iv. i. 276.
Bid her be judge
Whether Bassanio had not once a love.