Why Bassanio Deserves To Win The Casket Essays - Orientalism

Why Bassanio Deserves To Win The Casket Why Bassanio Deserves to Win the Casket Test does he love her for herself or for the opportunity she offers him to renew his wasted estate? The other main characters are tried by events; Bassanio only passes a multiple-choice test. Nerissa, making the best of Portia's predicament, observes that the right casket will no doubt never be chosen by any rightly but one you shall rightly love. And as Bassanio hastens to his choice, Portia remarks, If you do love me, you will find me out. We may assume the test's validity as given. But for hostile critics some extratextual evidence of Bassanio's worthiness may be necessary. First let us admit that in the fairy-tale world to which Belmont is often said to belong, the fair lady's fortune is always a given, having no other signification than a reward for virtue. Let us further acknowledge that in the real world of Elizabeth, an impecunious young lord had no choice but to choose his partner from the available heiresses. We will entirely miss the point if we approach this marriage with our post-Romantic notions of individual free choice and true love; these are not the ways of this world. Among availabe heiresses, Portia is obviously a precious treasure: high mettled like Brutus's Portia, virtu- ous, beautiful, _and_ rich. Bassanio is no mean catch either: he is a peer of the realm (some thirty times he is Lord Bassanio, my lord, your lordship, your worship, and your honor). But he requires wealth to do justice to his title. Magnificence At a time when relationships were everything and money nothing, Bassanio's reckless expenditures, so painful to modern sensibilities, would have been seen as a virtue. He is what Aristotle calls a Great Soul, one who has no attachment to worldly goods, who is fond of conferring benefits on others, for whom spending money is an art (Magnificence), and who spends gladly and lavishly, since nice calculation is shabby. _De Officiis_ declares that There is nothing more honorable and noble than to be indifferent to money. For him, money is a non-thing, a drudge for moving goods from one person to another, but never an end in itself. It has no more value than the water that carries the merchant's cargo, and we should deny no one the water that flows by. Bassanio is introduced as one who has disabled [his] estate/By something showing a more swelling port/Than [his] faint means would grant continuance. In dire financial straits, he expensively feasts his friends and plans to entertain them with a masque. He undertakes to hold a rival place with Portia's other suitors, both princes, and he therefore brings gifts of rich value to Belmont. He does not apologize for the noble rate of his expenditures; he trusts his luck. Later on, in another part of _The Merchant_, Jessica echoes Bassanio's prodigality, when she wastes away her little casket of gold and jewels at a rate of fourscore ducats a night and trades her father's wedding ring for a monkey, just to celebrate her marriage. And Portia knows precisely what kind of a man she is getting. Bassanio freely told her, on his first visit to Belmont, that all the wealth he had ran in [his] veins, that his state was nothing, but that didn't stop her from issuing a second invitation. She knows that he is a scholar and a soldier. He has had a good education. His military service is an even better recommendation, for, according to the leading authority on the subject, the principal and true profession of a Courtier ought to be in feats of arms. And he is well- connected, too, for he first came to Belmont in the company of the Marquis of Montferrat. The Marquisate of Montferrat belonged to the illustrious princely house of Gonzaga. Three Gonzagas participated in the dialogue of which _The Courtier_ consisted, The Lady Elizabeth Gonzaga in the chair. Thus Nerissa can say without reservation, He, of all men that ever my foolish eyes looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady. On this topic Cicero quotes Themistocles' wishes for his daughter: For my part, I prefer a man without money to money without a man. When wealth is subject to fortune, a good man is a better bet. Portia has plenty of money; what she lacks is a man. In truth, if Bassanio passes her father's test, he is as big a catch for her as she is for him. Fortune To understand the casket test one must imagine some of the consequences of a living in a highly entropic