Act 3, scene 2 of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is set in a room in Portia’s home in Belmont, where Bassanio has come to make his choice of one of the three caskets of gold, silver, and lead, which will determine whether he will have Portia for his wife.
Shakespeare draws this scene out to a considerable length to arouse in the audience the greatest possible anticipation of Bassanio’s choice.
First, Portia begs Bassanio not to make his choice today.
PORTIA: I pray you, tarry; pause a day or two,
Before you hazard; for, in choosing wrong,
I lose your company; therefore, forbear awhile.
Portia is afraid that Bassanio will make the wrong choice, as all of Portia’s suitors have done so far, and she doesn’t want to lose him, because Bassanio is Portia’s choice for a husband.
Bassanio tells Portia that he can’t wait any...
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longer to make his choice, “For, as I am, I live upon the rack.”
Portia then engages in some time-wasting wordplay with Bassanio until he becomes anxious and asks her to “let me to my fortune and the caskets.”
Portia agrees to let him make his choice, then takes twenty-two lines to ask for music to play while Bassanio thinks about his choice.
Taking up even more time, Portia sings a song while Bassanio quietly deliberates over the caskets.
Then, when the song is finished, Bassanio gives a lengthy monologue about the caskets—drawing out the scene even further—until he finally makes his choice.
During his monologue, Bassanio considers how the outward attractiveness of the gold and silver caskets might be intentionally misleading.
BASSANIO: So may the outward shows be least themselves;
The world is still deceiv'd with ornament.
Bassanio compares the gold and silver caskets to cowards who give the outward appearance of bravery and strength and “wear yet upon their chins / The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars” but who, inwardly, “have livers white as milk”—in other words, that they’re “lily-livered.”
BASSANIO: And these assume but valour's excrement
To render them redoubted!
By “valour’s excrement,” Bassanio means that excreting or growing a beard like Hercules or Mars in order to be admired for their courage doesn’t make a coward any less of a coward in their heart.
Bassanio summarizes his thought process and makes his decision.
BASSANIO: Therefore, thou gaudy gold,
Hard food for Midas, I will none of thee:
Nor none of thee, thou pale and common drudge
'Tween man and man [meaning silver coins]. But thou, thou meagre lead,
Which rather threat'nest than dost promise aught,
Thy plainness moves me more than eloquence,
And here choose I.