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The Merchant of Venice

Portia likens her situation of having to marry whoever chooses the right casket to the myth of Hesione, who was stripped naked and tied to rocks by the sea to be sacrificed to a sea monster. Just as Hercules saved Hesione, Portia hopes Bassanio will choose the right casket and save her from an unwanted marriage that would feel like being devoured. She has no control over her fate and must rely on a male savior, like the Dardanian wives who could only watch Hesione's sacrifice. The passage criticizes the patriarchal tradition that treats women as sacrifices and denies them agency over their lives.

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186 views2 pages

The Merchant of Venice

Portia likens her situation of having to marry whoever chooses the right casket to the myth of Hesione, who was stripped naked and tied to rocks by the sea to be sacrificed to a sea monster. Just as Hercules saved Hesione, Portia hopes Bassanio will choose the right casket and save her from an unwanted marriage that would feel like being devoured. She has no control over her fate and must rely on a male savior, like the Dardanian wives who could only watch Hesione's sacrifice. The passage criticizes the patriarchal tradition that treats women as sacrifices and denies them agency over their lives.

Uploaded by

AnjushreeBanerjee
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

Act III, sc ii
https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Mortals/Hesione/hesione.html

 The passage in The Merchant of Venice is as follows:

Now he goes

With no less presence but with much more love

Than young Alcides, when he did redeem

The virgin tribute paid by howling Troy

To the sea monster. I stand for sacrifice.

The rest aloof are the Dardanian wives,

With blearèd visages come forth to view

The issue of th' exploit.—Go, Hercules!

Alcides and Hercules are two names for the same person. In the passage, Portia is likening her fate
in being forced to marry whoever chooses the right casket to what happened to Hesione of Troy
("the virgin tribute"). Hesione in Greek mythology is stripped naked by her father, King Laomedon,
and attached to rocks by the sea to be devoured by a sea monster. Hercules comes along and
saves her from this horrible fate. The Dardanian wives are the women who stand "with bleared
[crying] visages [faces]" to watch Hesione being sacrificed to the sea-monster.

At this point, Portia is waiting to see which casket Bassanio will choose. If he chooses the right
casket, she will be saved from a fate which, to her, feels like being chained helplessly to a rock as
she waits helplessly to be devoured by a monster. To her, being married to a man she could not
love would be the equivalent to being eaten alive. She hopes that Bassanio will be her Hercules
and unchain her. She feels completely helpless because of the way her father has set up a casket
game. She has no agency and can only rely on her male savior to deliver her from a terrible fate.
Further, no other woman, like Nerissa, can help her: they can only look on helplessly as the
Dardanian wives did with Hesione.

The passage is a sharp and critical comment on the way the patriarchy metaphorically ties women
up and leaves them exposed to terrible fates, without any agency. Portia reveals here her deep
distress at what her father has done to her. She doesn't try to justify his decision to marry her this
way as looking out for interests and caring about her, as Nerissa had earlier tried to argue. Portia
understands she is simply a sacrifice of one man to another man, who may well be a monster.
This is particularly ironic, for Portia shows her intelligence and education by making this speech. It
seems ridiculous to make such a superior woman the pawn in a silly marriage game rather than
trust her to make the right marriage choice. It is also poignant, because the comparison to Hesione
shows how deeply distressed and vulnerable Portia feels. It suggests as well how deeply satisfied
she will later feel to be able to show agency by disguising herself as a lawyer and saving Antonio.
Finally, Hesione likewise saved another man, Priam, from death, as Portia saves Antonio, so that in
comparing herself to Hesione, Portia is foreshadowing what is to come.

_____________

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