Shylock. I am very glad of it: I’ll plague him; I’ll torture him: I am glad of it.
Tubal. One of them showed me a ring that he had of your daughter for a monkey.
Shylock. Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal: it was my turquoise; I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor. I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.
Tubal. But Antonio is certainly undone.
Shylock. Nay, that’s true, that’s very true. Go, Tubal, fee me an officer; bespeak him a fortnight before. I will have the heart of him, if he forfeit; for, were he out of Venice, I can make what merchandise I will. Go, go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue; go, good Tubal; at our synagogue, Tubal.
We cannot fail to remark how the contrast between Shylock’s emotions (when bemoaning the loss of his ducats at one moment, and cursing the daughter who has robbed him and eloped with a Christian at another) serves to bring out his peculiar character.
Contrast of character is brought out in every great play. Horatio and Hamlet, Cordelia and her sisters, Macbeth and his wife, suggest themselves as examples. The third act of King Lear, where the jester’s jibes are interpolated between the fearful outbursts of the king, is a striking example of character, as well as of emotional contrast.
It may be well to remark that the two parts of a contrast do not always occur in succession. Do not the last three or four speeches of Shylock depend, for their effect, upon the keeping in mind by the audience of his emotions and bearing during the former scenes? Let the audience forget these, and they have lost a most significant æsthetic detail. Similarly, when King Robert utters the speech beginning, “Thou knowest best,” the whole effect is lost unless we bear in mind that never for three years has his answer to the angel’s question been other than, “I am, I am the king.”
The following examples will afford good practice:
Sheltered by the verdant shores, an hundred triremes were riding proudly at their anchors, their brazen beaks glittering in the sun, their streamers dancing in the morning breeze, while many a shattered plank and timber gave evidence of desperate conflicts with the fleets of Rome.—Regulus to the Carthaginians. Kellogg.