A few words will be sufficient to point out how the effects of the main plot are assisted by the Rings Episode, which, though rich in fun, is of a slighter character than the Jessica Story, and occupies a much smaller space in the field of view. The dramatic points of the two minor stories are similar. Like the Jessica Story the Rings Episode assists the mechanical working out of the main plot. An explanation must somehow be given to Bassanio that the lawyer is Portia in disguise; mere mechanical explanations have always an air of weakness, but the affair of the rings utilises the explanation in the present case as a source of new dramatic effects. This arrangement further assists, to a certain extent, in reducing the improbability of Portia's project. The point at which the improbability would be most felt would be, not the first appearance of the lawyer's clerk, for then we are engrossed in our anxiety for Antonio, but when the explanation of the disguise came to be made; there might be a danger lest here the surprise of Bassanio should become infectious, and the audience should awake to the improbability of the whole story: as it is, their attention is at the critical moment diverted to the perplexity of the penitent husbands. and their interweaving;The Story of the Rings, like that of Jessica, assists the interweaving of the two main stories with one another, its subtlety suggesting to what a degree of detail this interlacing extends. Bassanio is the main point which unites the Story of the Jew and the Caskets Story; in the one he occupies the position of friend, in the other of husband. iv. i. 425-454.The affair of the rings, slight as it is, is so managed by Portia that its point becomes a test as between his friendship and his love; and so equal do these forces appear that, though his friendship finally wins and he surrenders his betrothal ring, yet it is not until after his wife has given him a hint against herself:
An if your wife be not a mad-woman,
And know how well I have deserved the ring,
She would not hold out enemy for ever
For giving it to me.
The Rings Episode, even more than the Jessica Story, assists in restoring the balance between the main tales. The chief inequality between them lies in the fact that the Jew Story is complicated and resolved, while the Caskets Story is a simple progress to a goal; when, however, there springs from the latter a sub-action which has a highly comic complication and resolution the two halves of the play become dramatically on a par. And the interweaving of the dark and bright elements in the play is assisted by the fact that the Episode of the Rings not only provides a comic reaction to relieve the tragic crisis, but its whole point is a Dramatic Irony in which serious and comic are inextricably mixed.
and assists in the development of Portia's character.
Finally, as the Jessica Story ministers to Character effect in connection with the general ensemble of the personages, so the Episode of the Rings has a special function in bringing out the character of Portia. The secret of the charm which has won for Portia the suffrages of all readers is the perfect balance of qualities in her character: she is the meeting-point of brightness, force, and tenderness. And, to crown the union, Shakespeare has placed her at the supreme moment of life, on the boundary line between girlhood and womanhood, when the wider aims and deeper issues of maturity find themselves in strange association with the abandon of youth. The balance thus becomes so perfect that it quivers, and dips to one side and the other. i. ii. 39.Portia is the saucy child as she sprinkles her sarcasms over Nerissa's enumeration of the suitors: in the trial she faces the world of Venice as a heroine. iii. ii. 150.She is the ideal maiden in the speech in which she surrenders herself to Bassanio: iv. i. 184.she is the ideal woman as she proclaims from the judgment seat the divinity of mercy. Now the fourth Act has kept before us too exclusively one side of this character. Not that Portia in the lawyer's gown is masculine: but the dramatist has had to dwell too long on her side of strength. He will not dismiss us with this impression, but indulges us in one more daring feat surpassing all the madcap frolics of the past. Thus the Episode of the Rings is the last flicker of girlhood in Portia before it merges in the wider life of womanhood. We have rejoiced in a great deliverance wrought by a noble woman: our enjoyment rises higher yet when the Rings Episode reminds us that this woman has not ceased to be a sportive girl.
It has been shown, then, that the two inferior stories in The Merchant of Venice assist the main stories in the most varied manner, smoothing their mechanical working, meeting their special difficulties, drawing their mutual interweaving yet closer, and throwing their character effects into relief: the additional complexity they have brought has resulted in making emphatic points yet more prominent, and the total effect has therefore been to increase clearness and simplicity. Enough has now been said on the building up of Dramas out of Stories, which is the distinguishing feature of the Romantic Drama; the studies that follow will be applied to the more universal topics of dramatic interest, Character, Plot, and Passion.