Page 107 - William_Shakespeare_-_The_Merchant_of_Venice_191

To render themselves fearful.° Look on beauty {them redoubted}/ them afearéd
And you shall see ‘tis purchased by the weight,
This cream,° when plied upon the face works wonders > makeup / paste / balm
Making them fairest who wear most of it.
So are those crispèd, flowing,° golden locks, {snaky}
Which make such wanton gambols with the wind;
But such pretense of beauty, as we know, / one can see
Is wig-made hair, ta’en from another’s head,° / Comes from a wig, hair from another’s head
The skull of which now lies in some lost grave.
Thus, outer show is but the guiled° shore / tempting / charming
To a most dangerous° sea; the beauteous scarf / threatening / imperilled
That veils a queen’s wretched face;° in a word: / a darkened visage
The seeming truth which cunning times put on
To trap the wise. Therefore, thou gaudy gold / To but entrap the wisest. Therefore, then
You’re as worthless to me as hardened° food / golden
71 72
Which greedy Midas could not hope to eat—
I will have none of thee. [to the silver casket] Nor of thee, silver;
Thou art the pale drudge° of common coin, / Thou art none but the stuff
Passed in exchange between the hands° of men. 73 / greed
But thou, thou meager° lead, which rather° threatens, / worthless / barren / herein
And gives no° promise of profit or gain: / Than give a
Thy plainness moves me more than eloquence. 74 / finery / regal lies
+Thus, I seek not to gain, as shown° by gold,, /told / proff’ed / lured
+Nor then to get, as offered° by silver,, / vaunted / proffered / promised
75
+But e’er° to give, as demanded° by lead., / Only // required / mandated

context.
71. {To entrap the wisest. Therefore, then, thou gaudy gold} {Hard food for Midas, I’ll none of thee}
The first line, as found in Q1 has 13 syllables, and anomalies in the meter; thus most editions rectify the extra
syllable by eliminating ‘then.’ Then, to keep the line in verse, the first two syllables and the fifth and sixth are
elided (combined into one syllable). Hence, the most common rectification would read as follows: T’en trap the
wisest. T’fore thou gaudy gold.
Hard food for Midas: Refers to the legend of King Midas who was granted the wish that everything he touch
turn to gold—which included his food and drink. Thus, gold, which in normal circumstance would have great value,
was in this instance was the hard food (and therefore worthless) which Midas could not eat.
72. / To trap the wisest. Thus, thou gaudy gold,
You’re as worthless to me as hardened food
That none, not even Midas, could hope to eat.
73. / You are none but the stuff of common coin, | E’er passed between the drudging hand of men.
74. The original ends in a two-line rhyme schema:
{Thy plainness moves me more than eloquence:} / Thy plainness moves me more than regal lies,
{And here chose I. May joy be the consequence!} / And here I choose—may heaven be my prize!
The last line of the original [And here chose I. May joy be the consequence!] is herein expanded into five lines
which further explains Bassanio’s reasoning, and heart-set, which lead him to chose the lead casket. Simply stated: a
heart that loves seeks only to give (as demanded by lead) and not to gain or get which would be the motivation
prompting one to chose the gold or silver casket. This stance of love and selfless giving is that of a true romantic
hero—which Bassanio is not—but which he, in this instance, has the potential to be. If Bassanio’s speech truly and
wholly reflected that of a romantic hero (or a flawed hero who, in this moment, rose to the occasion as assumed the
virtue of a hero) it would certainly contain more generous and auspicious images (rather than the harsh and critical
constructions found in the original). For one version of a possible speech, worthy of a romantic hero, (and which
could replace the speech found in the original) see Additional Notes, 3.2.7XX.
75. / as is sanctioned / as sanctionèd / as betokened / as warranted