Bitter, lonely brooding
upon these things strengthen the Jew's obsession, till the words, "I can
cut out the heart of my enemy," become the message of his entire nature.
Half the evils in life come from the partial vision of people in states
of obsession. Shylock's obsession grows till he is in the Duke's court,
whetting his knife upon his shoe, before what Pistol calls "incision."

Portia has been much praised during two centuries of criticism. She is
one of the smiling things created in the large and gentle mood that
moved Shakespeare to comedy. The scene in the fifth act, where the two
women, coming home from Venice by night, see the candle burning in the
hall, as they draw near, is full of a naturalness that makes beauty
quick in the heart. Shakespeare enjoyed the writing of this play. The
construction of the last two acts shows that his great happy mind was at
its happiest in the saving of these creatures of the sun from something
real.

_The Taming of the Shrew._

_Written._ (?)

_Published._ 1623.

_Source of the Plot._ The induction and that part of the play which
treats of Petruchio and Katharina is based upon a play, published
in 1594, under the title _The Taming of A Shrew_, author not known.
The other part is based on _The Supposes_ of George Gascoigne, a
comedy adapted from Ariosto's _I Suppositi_.

_The Fable._ Christopher Sly, a tinker lying drunk by a tavern, is
found by a lord, who causes him to be put to bed and treated, on
waking, as a nobleman newly cured of madness. Part of the treatment
is the performance of this play before him.

The play has two plots. In one of them, Petruchio woos and tames
the shrew Katharina; in the other, Katharina's sister Bianca is
wooed by lovers in disguise. The two plots have little connection
with each other. That which relates to Petruchio and Katharina is
certainly by Shakespeare. The other seems to be by a dull man who
did not know his craft as a dramatist.

In the Induction, and in the speech of Biondello (in Act III)
Shakespeare enters a mood of memory of the country. In the song at the
end of _Love's Labour's Lost_ he showed a matchless sense of country
life. That sense, at once robust and sweet, now gives life to a few
scenes in the plays. These scenes are mostly in prose; but they have the
rightness of poetry. In writing them, he wrought with his daily nature,
from