Page 71 - William_Shakespeare_-_The_Merchant_of_Venice_191

Why, ‘tis love’s nature to remain in hiding,° 20 / concealed
And I° should be concealed.° / I too {obscured}

—Lorenzo So are you, sweet,
21
22
E’en in the lovely° garnish° of a boy. / lowly / outfit
But come at once +and tarry you no further,: 23
For the cov’ring of night soon runs away° 24 / will soon depart
And we are stayed for° at Bassanio’s feast. 25 / And we’re expected

—Jesssica
I will make fast the doors, and guild myself 26
With some more ducats, and be with you straight.

Exit above

—Gratziano
Now, by my word,° she’s more gentile than Jew. {by my hood} / I do swear

—Lorenzo
27
You can berate me if I do not love her
For she is wise—if I can be the judge;° {if I can judge of her}

20. {Why, ‘tis an office° of discovery, love,} / a matter / a function
/ Why, love is best when kept behind close doors.
Jessica is here reflecting some of her father’s manner, desiring to keep things hidden behind closed doors.
21. {Even} To preserve the iambic meter, even would be pronounced as e’en.
22. lowly: Q1 has louely, which is an old spelling of lowly but could also be read as lovely. Lowly does not quite fit,
since the garb of a boy is not lowly: lovely ties in more closely with sweet, and would be said in playful jest,
especially is light of Jessica’s embarrassment.
23. {But come at once}. The line is truncated for no appreciable reason and is likely in error. In Q1, these four
syllables are added to the end of the previous line, thus producing a line with seven iambs (as opposed to five):
{Even in the lovely garnish of a boy, but come at once}. This line could be preserved in its truncated form or
emended with three additional iambs:
/ But come at once +and make no more delays,
24. {For the close night doth play the runaway}
/ The cov’ring night doth quickly run away
close: covering, secretness; darkness of night, which conceals.
play the runaway: is running away, is speeding by, is passing quickly. This is also a reference to Jessica, who is
running away.
25. It seems that someone at Bassanio’s feast is waiting for them. Thus they are urged to hurry in order to make a
clean getaway before arousing suspicion (by their absence at the masque).
stayed for: waited for. The term stay (wait) also appears in 59 (Our masquing mates by this time for us stay)
and 63 (‘Tis nine o’clock: our friends all stay for you). [See Additional Notes, 2.6.48]
26. guild myself: provide myself with more ducats. It also carries the implication of dressing or gilding herself with
more gold, in the same way that an ornament might be gilded with gold. [See Morocco’s choice of the gold casket,
which takes place in the next scene, and which carries the ominous warning he finds on the scroll: Gilded timbers do
worms enfold (2.7. 69)]
Here again we see a conflict in Jessica: she wants to remain hidden (and not hold a candle to her shame);
she wants her affections to remain behind closed doors, yet here she is gilding herself in gold, and putting herself in a
position to be seen. Certainly, though she acts in hiding, everyone is going to hear about her actions—and some
might even see her actions as directly linked to Shylock’s anger and his demand for payment on the bond.
27.{Beshrew me but I love her heartily}
/ Forswear me if she is not my beloved / Reprove me but with all my heart I love her
Beshrew me: A mild swear akin to ‘curse me’ > derived from the injury which comes from the bite of a shrew.
but: if not, if I don’t > “Let me be bitten by a shrew if I don’t love her heartily”