Antonio Ermolao Paoletti, Italian
“You Call THAT Making Out? You Should’ve Seen Them Last Night When We Were Playing Spin the Botticelli,” Before 1912
Oil on canvas
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Artist info is pointed to in my comment at another blog entry.
/// Portia’s late father’s cryptic bequest:
he who’d marry her must pass a test.
Among three caskets choose;
pick a wrong one— you lose.
Here Bassanio outwits the rest.
/// Suitor One made the gold one his pick,
but he hadn’t deciphered the trick.
Silver for Suitor Two,
but his chance, he too, blew.
The lead casket is what won the chick.
/// See Bassanio Winning the Heart
of Portia, who had, from the start
wanted him for her mate.
They’d once been on a date.
Did she help him win? (He’s not that smart.)
/// Of course, Portia would not ever cheat…
except, maybe, so that she could beat
a Jew, Shylock, in court,
where this girl would resort
to a cruel and malicious deceit.
/// She dressed up as a lawyer, (a boy),
and proceeded with Shylock to toy.
This imposter, when through,
had bankrupted the Jew
and, on pain of death made him turn goy.
/// Shylock asked for the flesh near the heart.
A pound with which the merchant must part
if the loan’s not repaid.
It’s the gold-lending trade.
Earning non-kosher meat? Not so smart.
/// The rich merchant, a bigot, agreed
to those terms to get cash they would need
for Bassanio to woo
wealthy blonde Portia, who
would much later about mercy plead.
/// He should not have agreed to that bond.
(Of each ounce of his flesh he was fond.)
Shylock, crazed, went too far,
and that kid, Balthazar,
saved the merchant. (“He’s” really the blonde.)
/// Shakespeare’s plot can be somewhat confusing.
Shylock is both abused and abusing.
Though he had been mistreated,
he is soundly defeated
in a way groundlings all found amusing.