“But I already owe you more than I can repay—”
“Your happiness, loyalty, and love will be my payment.”
“Yes,” said Iago, now steering the youth out of Antonio’s arms and hurrying him to the door. “Have I not said, put Antonio’s money in thy purse? Now go, find fortune in the Rialto, and send Rodrigo back, we would have words with him.”
Bassanio hurried out the door, then turned. “Oh, Signor Iago, do not forget your daggers at Belmont. Portia holds them for you.”
“Go now, put money in thy purse,” said Iago, closing the door. He turned to Antonio. “My daggers?”
“Portia found them among Brabantio’s things and asked me about them. I would have claimed them, but as only a soldier may carry weapons openly, I told her they were yours.”
“Well, the bloody fool didn’t carry them openly, did he? You might have just shoved them under your doublet and we’d be done with it. You should have worn them out that night with the fool’s motley.”
“Just send your man Rodrigo to fetch them and we will be done with it. You said he goes to Belmont.”
“Rodrigo knows that throwing daggers are the weapons of a cutpurse or a circus clown, not a proper soldier. I will go myself. Let us hope Brabantio didn’t keep other souvenirs of his revenge. I would wear a hand of steam if I could slap the old man’s ghost for his pigheaded plans and puzzles.”
“Puzzles that seem too clever to solve. Even if Bassanio beats the lottery of the chests, how do we know we can bring the rest of our plan to fruition?”
“You’re right, he does seem a bit thick, even if only to be a senator.”
“That’s not what I meant. I mean even if he succeeds in marrying Portia, she does not inherit as long as Desdemona’s husband stands in her way. And when we conceived of this plan, you were to be general of the navy, but with Cassio as Othello’s second in command, even that ambition is far-reaching.”
“Then Othello has to go, and Cassio with him. The Moor would not be general at all, but for the stunning defeat of Dandalo, his predecessor, so shall I ride the Moor’s defeat to my command.”
“You would have Othello lose a war so you can take his place? There is so little left of the navy that another loss will give you nothing to command.”
“No, I’ll not use weapons of war to take down the Moor, for even as I know I am Cassio’s better as a soldier, so does Othello’s skill exceed my own. No, the weapon to bring down Othello comes presently up your stairs.”
There were footfalls on the stairs, a single man ascending the floors.
“Rodrigo?” Antonio went to the door and held the bolt. “But he’s an idiot!”
“Hold your base slander, Antonio. Do I disparage your friends?”
“Well—” Antonio threw the bolt and swung the door wide for Rodrigo. “Yes.”
“Come, come, good Rodrigo,” said Iago. “I was just telling Antonio of your affections for the lady Desdemona.”
“You told him? I still wear the shame of it.” Rodrigo shielded his face from Antonio’s gaze with his hat.
Iago took the taller man’s hat and tossed it in the corner, then put his arm around Rodrigo’s shoulders. “Antonio is our friend. And there is no shame where there is no defeat, good Rodrigo. I tell you, you shall yet have your Desdemona.”
“But she is married to the Moor, and they are away in Corsica; by what means can I win her now? I am lost.”
“He says he’s lost,” Iago said over his shoulder to Antonio. “Yet even now Portia’s maid Nerissa dotes on him and grants him her charms, and she is more than lovely for a serving girl.”
“I met her when I was trying to court Desdemona,” Rodrigo explained.
“And Desdemona shall you have. I promise it.”
“But how?”
Iago grinned at Antonio, then pulled Rodrigo close. “By the means which you take command of your fate, good Rodrigo. By the means that reason satisfies passion, young stallion. If you seek Desdemona, first you must put money in thy purse.”
“Truly?” asked Rodrigo.
“Really?” said Antonio, who was asking a completely different question.
“Aye, lad, put money in thy purse. Sell your lands, your treasures, call in your debtors, and when your purse is full, we are for Corsica and beautiful Desdemona. I tell thee truly, put money in thy purse.”
“Is there any more wine?” asked Rodrigo.
“I told you,” said Antonio.
ACT II
The Watery City
This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.
—Prospero, The Tempest, Act V, Scene 1
SEVEN
La Giudecca
CHORUS: Come now to a serpentine island south of the central districts of Venice called La Giudecca. Separated from the city not by a canal, easily bridged, but by a wide water avenue called Tronchetto–Lido di Venezia that must be traversed by gondola or ferry. Here, in sight of the Basilica of St. Mark, live all the Jews of Venice, and here, only, are they permitted to own property.
On this soft September morn, the beautiful Jessica, only daughter of the widower moneylender Shylock, has found upon the cobbled boat ramp before their house a small, pale, and naked man, who was coughed up by the lagoon with the night tide.
“Oh my! He breathes!”
CHORUS: Secretly, Jessica is overjoyed, not only because the flotsam fellow lives, but because she has been wishing for just such a delivery: a slave of her very own. While many well-to-do Venetians own slaves, the practice is forbidden to Jews and so Jessica is tasked by her father to keep house, cook, and perform other duties that a less tightfisted father might hire to have done.
But alas, here comes the old Jew now.
“There you are, Jessica. I am off to the Rialto.”
“Farewell, Papa.”
“Girl, why do you squat on the boat landing?”
“Having a wee, Papa.”
“In front of the house? Just like that? When I have had built a perfectly good privy in the house?”
“I didn’t want to disturb you. See, my skirts are around me. No one can even see.”
“That your mother cannot see you thus—peeing on the boat landing like a dog—for that I am grateful. I will return at noon for lunch. Do the washing-up.”
“Yes, Papa.”
CHORUS: So, Shylock thus disposed, Jessica turned her devices to preparing her new slave for presentation later to her father, which would require some scrubbing, removal of his chains, and perhaps restoring the jester to consciousness, but even though her slave was slight, she found she was not strong enough to drag him up the ramp and into the house by herself.
“I’m not strong enough to get him up the ramp.”
CHORUS: She said with great superfluity, as the narrator had only just pointed out that selfsame thing.
“I was talking to Gobbo, you knob. No one likes you, you know? Skulking about in the margins acting as if you know everything.”
CHORUS: And, indeed, with uncommon stealth and no little sneakiness, the blind old beggar Gobbo had tapped his way down the walkway to pause at the top of the boat ramp, thus surprising the narrator, who is seldom underinformed about such goings-on.
“Signor Gobbo, help me get this fellow into the house. I’m not strong enough to move him.”
“What fellow?”
“This poor fellow who is nearly drowned, and has washed up on the boat ramp.”
“Do you think it could be my son? My boy, long lost?”
“Fine. Your son. Help me get your son into the house, Gobbo.”
“Well, why didn’t you say so?”
CHORUS: So, with the help of old Gobbo, Jessica was able to move the battered and sodden fool to the house, but as they pulled him up from the ramp, she heard what sounded like a small fish jumping, and spied, out by the end of the gondola docks, a sleek shadow moving beneath the jade green water of the lagoon.
CHORUS: And so, while the fool slept the sleep of the dead, t