Page:Merchant of Venice (1923) Yale.djvu/118

104 'woollen' which have been suggested are swollen, wooden, and wauling (cf. caterwauling). The last is the most plausible.

 You may as well use question with the wolf, Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb. An accident in the preparation of the First Quarto caused the omission of the first three words in line 73 and the first four in line 74 in certain copies of that edition. The Folio text was set up from one of the defective copies.

 Than to live still, and write mine epitaph. Compare Hamlet to Horatio (Hamlet, V. ii. 361-363):

'Absent thee from felicity awhile,

And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,

To tell my story.'

 And for thy life let justice be accus'd. Possibly meaning that justice is wrong for allowing him to live at all; but I think it means that justice should be condemned for allowing him to live in his present purpose, which though horrible is quite legal.

 Bellario's letter. Many say that Bellario had told Portia how to circumvent Shylock; but this is not only an unnecessary supposition, it spoils the scene. If Portia did not use her mother-wit here, why not let Bellario go himself and thus have Portia run no risk? Doubtless she had persuaded him to be 'very sick.' The subsequent citation of the law proving Shylock guilty of intent to murder may very well have come from Bellario.

 A Daniel come to judgment. I.e., a just young judge has arisen. The allusion is to the History of Susanna in the Apocrypha: 'the Lord raised up the holy spirit of a young youth, whose name was Daniel,' and who proceeded to give righteous judgment where his elders had blundered.

 ''Master Lorenzo? Master Lorenzo!'' The only two authoritative texts, those of the First