“Nothing Undervalued to Cato’s Daughter”: Plutarch’s Porcia in the Shakespeare Canon

“Nothing Undervalued to Cato’s Daughter” : Plutarch’s Porcia in the Shakespeare Canon John W. Velz Shakespeare’s first mention of Portia in The Merchant of Venice makes a pointed comment on her name and its source: she is Of wondrous virtues. . . . Her name is Portia, nothing undervalued To Cato’s daughter, Brutus’ Portia.l These lines are an explicit invitation to place Bassanio’s Portia side by side with the Porcia of Plutarch’s “Life of Marcus Brutus”—and, by extension, to place her side by side with the Portia Shakespeare had not yet portrayed when he wrote these lines, Brutus’ Portia in Julius Caesar. No one, so far as I know, has ever accepted that invitation.2 If we do accept it we may perceive an extraordinary correlation between Shakespeare’s two Portias, a correlation that suggests an interpretation of The Merchant of Venice. Furthermore, when we once free ourselves from the assumption that the “Life of Marcus Brutus” was important to Shakespeare only mechanically and immediately, in the composition of Julius Caesar, we may enter a path of investigation that will show Shakespeare’s continuing interest in Plutarch’s Porcia through many years and some five works in the canon. Examining Shakespeare’s several responses to the character and situation of Marcus Brutus’ wife may throw light on his attitude toward marriage and on his conception of pos­ sibility in his sources. The confrontation of Brutus and Portia in the orchard in Julius Caesar 2.1 is anticipated by some striking analogues of situation, characterization, and even language in 3.2 of The Merchant of Venice, the scene in which Bassanio wins Portia and immediately afterward is faced with the grim news that 303 304 Comparative Drama Antonio’s ships have all miscarried and that the bond with Shylock is forfeit. In both scenes a woman sees the outside world impinge on, indeed threaten, her marriage. The later Portia gives a vivid account of the way Brutus’ preoccupation with public life has disrupted both bed and board (237-56), and the earlier Portia sees Bassanio who has just pledged himself to her turn pale as he reads the letter from Antonio about the forfeiture. Bassanio’s Portia, who says she will not consummate her marriage while Bassanio has “an unquiet soul” about An­ tonio’s danger (305-06) prefigures Brutus’ Portia, who com­ plains that her husband’s mind is so overcharged with “some sick offense” (268) that he has “ungently . . ./ Stole from [her] bed” (237-38). Both women demand to be taken into their husbands’ confidences, each woman believing (though the first Portia says nothing about it in Bassanio’s presence) that she can bear a man’s part in the affairs of the world. Each of the women bases the demand that her husband confide in her on the claim that marriage has metaphysically fused her identity with her husband’s. In Julius Caesar: I charm you, . . . By all your vows of love, and that great vow Which did incorporate and make us one, That you unfold to me, your self, your half, Why you are heavy . . . . (271-75) In The Merchant of Venice: With leave, Bassanio—I am half yourself, And I must freely have the half of anything That this same paper brings you. (248-50) In both plays this fusion of husband and wife in mutual confidence is insisted on—Brutus’ wife distinguishes between wives and harlots in terms of the fusion: Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus, Is it excepted I should know no secrets That appertain to you? Am I your self But, as it were, in sort or limitation? To keep with you at meals, comfort your bed, And talk to you sometimes? Dwell I but in the suburbs Of your good pleasure? If it be no more, Portia is Brutus’ harlot, not his wife. (280-87) John W. Velz 305 As the lines about the “great vow/ Which did incorporate and make us one” clearly show, marriage here is not just a meeting of true minds or a question of fidelity, but a metaphysical relation­ ship with supernatural sanction. In the earlier play Portia, her marriage...