Merchant of Venice. - Repositories

130 NOTES [ACT I.
SCENE
Belmont. Mrs. Jameson imagines Belmont as "on some
lOvely promontory " northeast of Venice, and " overlooking the
blue Adriatic," with hills or mountains "for its background."
In her fancy this writer sees Portia treading " among marble
palaces, beneath roofs of fretted gold, o'er cedar floors and
pavements of jasper and porphyry, amid gardens full of statues,
and flowers, and fountains, and haunting music." Doubtless
Shakespeare himself dreamed of nothing less beautiful or
romantic for the environment of his heroine.
Portia. We may imagine the dress of Portia made of costly
silk and velvet, cut in some old Venetian style, and looped and
embroidered with pearls and jewels. Chains of pearls would
probably be around her neck and in her hair, and a dainty reticule
hung from her girdle.
Nerissa was not an ordinary servant, but a gentlewoman,
suited to be the companion, as well as the attendant, of her
mistress. Her name signifies " black." If she was dark, would
her complexion resemble that of Portia, or not ?
1. 1. troth. Another form of what word, and meaning the
same as what word in the first line of Scene i. ? Portia is in a
mood similar to that of what other person in the play ?
L 8. in the mean. We speak commonly of "the golden
mean" between two extremes.
I. 8, What expression is there in this line that we had in
another form in I., i,, 3 ? Is it familiar to you in conversation ?
II. 8, 9. It will be easier to understand the comparison in
II