(i) Where are Portia and Morocco at this time?

Question

Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow: 

Portia: Go, draw aside the curtains, and discover The several caskets to this noble prince. 

(The curtains are drawn back) 

Now make your choice. 

Morocco: Some god direct my judgement! Let me see : 

I will survey the inscriptions back again. 

(i) Where are Portia and Morocco at this time? 

(ii) Which are ‘the several caskets’? What are the inscriptions that Morocco has just read on ‘the several caskets’? 

(iii) Why does Morocco say: ‘Some god direct my judgement!’? What are the conditions Morocco had to abide by, before making his choice of the caskets?

(iv) Morocco later says, ‘As much as I deserve’. What does he deserve? 

(v) Which casket does Morocco finally choose? What two reasons does he give for his choice? What do these reasons reveal about his character?

(vi) State clearly what you feel for Morocco at the end of this scene.

Answer 1

(i) At this time, Portia and Morocco are seen in a room in Portia’s house in Belmont. As the curtain lifts, Portia and the Prince of Morocco arrive along with their train to the flourish of carnets. 

(ii) The Prince approaches the three gold, silver and lead caskets. The gold casket has the inscription “who chooses me shall gain what many men desire”. The silver casket has the inscription “who chooses me shall get as much as he deserves”. The lead casket has the inscription “who chooses me must give and risk all that he has”. 

(iii) Portia tells the Prince that one of the caskets contains her picture. She further says that if he succeeds in choosing that one, she will be his. The Prince feels great confusion in choosing the right casket, so he invokes the gods to help him. Before Prince going to choose the casket, Portia puts a condition which is to be applied at f any cost. She tells him that he has to take an oath before making selection that if he makes the wrong choice, he will never again ask a woman to marry him. 

(iv) He analyses the inscription on the casket of silver which promises the reward according to the worth of the chooser. The Prince makes a self-assessment and concludes that, in all fairness, he deserves to get Portia. He thinks that he is a royal prince by birth so he deserves her by the right of his birth. Portia is very rich and so he deserves her in this also. 

Portia is exquisitely beautiful and very talented : accomplished and virtuous. Here also he deserves because he is also extremely handsome as the most beautiful maidens of his kingdom covet him. He is valiant and virtuous also. So in his opinion he is most suitable and deserving candidate for Portia’s hand. 

(v) The Prince ultimately decides to choose the gold casket to acquire what all men desire. To him lead is too ordinary a method to contain the portrait of someone as beautiful as Portia. He rejects silver because it is one tenth the value of gold. Morocco chooses the casket for its outward appearance, and his physical desire for Portia matches with the inscription on the scroll. 

(vi) We find that the prince has no inward beauty, dnd has little time for Portia’s inne