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Come, go with me; [gives Gratziano the letter] peruse this as thou goest.
Fair Jessica shall be my torchbearer. 20

Exeunt
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lines. Not only are these lines suspect (in this content) they break up the flow of the passage and force their way in as
an inopportune afterthought. Hence, these words do nothing more than drag the dialogue and harm Lorenzo’s
character. As these lines are misplaced—and were likely added by someone other than the author—they have been
deleted. The lines, as found in Q1, read as follows:
{And never dare misfortune cross her foot}° / And may misfortune never cross her path,
{Unless she do it under this excuse:}° / Else it befalls her under this excuse:
{That she° is issue° to a faithless Jew} / daughter
cross her foot: obstruct her path. This refers to the inauspicious omen of tripping over something when on a
journey. Here it could be applied to her ‘journey of life,’ the journey she is about to take as wife of Lorenzo.
Unless she: unless it, unless misfortune. Fate, destiny, and fortune—and in this case ‘misfortune’—were
attributed to a goddess and female in gender. Thus she refers to the goddess of misfortune and not Jessica.
faithless: a) lacking faith in Christ, b) lacking truth, untrustworthy
[See Additional Notes, 2.4.37]
20. As stated in a previous note, this reference to a torchbearer does not mean that Jessica is going to be Lorenzo’s
torchbearer at the masque but, symbolically, that she is going to light his way. We might also assume, by way of
analogy, that part of the light that Jessica will provide is the light (or brightness) of the gold she is going to gild
herself with. Compare this light-giving aspect of Jessica with Portia’s light-giving in 5.1.129.