Page:Wit, humor, and Shakspeare. Twelve essays (IA cu31924013161223).pdf/305



In the elements which compose the character of Portia, Shakspeare anticipated, but without intention, the intellect of those modern women who can wield so gracefully many of the tools which have been hitherto monopolized by men. But the same genius which endowed her with a large and keen intelligence derived it from her sex, and, for the sake of it, he did not sacrifice one trait of her essential womanliness. This commands our attention very strongly; for it is the clew which we must start with.

She is still a woman to the core of her beauty-loving heart. Coming home from the great scene in Venice, where she baffles Shylock, and swamps with sudden justice the scales that were so eager for the bonded flesh, she loiters in the moonlight, marks the music which is floating from her palace to be caressed by the night and made sweeter than by day. Her listening ear is modulated by all the tenderness she feels and the love she expects; so she gives the music the color of a soul that has come home to wife and motherhood, till her thoughts put such a strain upon the vibrating strings that they grow too tense, and threaten to divulge her delicate secret. So she cries,—

"Peace! Now the moon sleeps with Endymion, And would not be awak'd."