Merchant of Venice Act 2, Scene 4 Modern English Translation Meaning Annotations – ICSE Class 10 & 9 English
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Original Text
Act II Scene IV
Modern English Reading
Act II Scene IV
LORENZO : No, we’ll slink away at supper time, Disguise ourselves at my house, and return all in an hour.
GRATIANO : We haven’t made a good preparation.
SALARINO : We haven’t spoken about the torch bearers yet.
Word Meaning With Annotation
Slink : go stealthily, disguise us : dress up in (he fancy costumes and masks required for the proposed procession, spoke us yet : ordered in advance. We use the verb “be speak” in the sense of “to order beforehand.” torch-bearers : each gentleman participating in the procession would be preceded by an attendant who carried a lighted torch.
Original Text
Modern English Reading
SALANIO : It’s nasty, unless they may be skillfully ordered, and I think it’s better not to be undertaken.
LORENZO : It’s only four o’clock now; we have two hours to get them. Friend Launcelot, what’s the news?
Enter Launcelot, with a letter.
LAUNCELOT : If you will please break this up, it will become clear.
LORENZO : I know the hand; in faith, it’s a beautiful hand, And the beautiful hand that wrote it is whiter than the paper it’s written on.
GRATIANO : Love news, in faith.
LAUNCELOT : Excuse me, sir.
LORENZO : Where are you going?
LAUNCELOT : Damn it, sir, to bid my old master, the Jew, to come to supper tonight with my new master, the Christian.
LORENZO : Hang on! Here, take this. Tell gentle Jessica that I will not fail her; speak it in private. Go, gentlemen, will you get yourself ready for this party tonight? I have a torchbearer.
Exit Clown.
SALARINO : Yes, damn it, I’ll be taking care of it right away.
SALANIO : And so will I.
Word Meaning With Annotation
Quaintly ordered : arranged so as to present a pretty spectacle, take this : on the stage Lorenzo accompanies the words by giving a coin to Launcelot. I am provided of a torch-bearer : evidently the idea has just come into Lorenzo’s mind that he will disguise Jessica as a boy, and smuggle her away as the attendant carrying his torch in the procession.
Original Text
Modern English Reading
LORENZO : Meet me and Gratiano at Gratiano’s house in about an hour.
SALARINO : Okay.
Exit [Salarino and SALANIO]
GRATIANO : Wasn’t that letter from beautiful Jessica?
LORENZO : I must tell you everything. She has made a plan of how I shall take her from her father’s house; what gold and jewels she has; what boy’s suit she has ready. If the Jew her father ever comes to heaven, it will be for his gentle daughter’s sake; and never should misfortune dare to cross her foot, unless she does it under this excuse, that she is daughter to a faithless Jew. Come, go with me, read this over as you go; Beautiful Jessica shall be my torch bearer.
Exeunt
Word Meaning With Annotation
Some hour : in about an hour. I must needs : “needs” is superfluous; read simply “I must” or “I feel compelled to.” page’s suit : a servant boy’s clothing, cross her foot : “Cross her path.”
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