(Balthazar paces a while, in medieval cl...

(Balthazar paces a while, in medieval clothes, clutching a dim lantern, until his brother approaches from the other direction.)

Balthazar: Halt! Who goes there?

Jedediah: Your brother, and your mortal enemy.

Balthazar: That you are my brother, I doubt not. And that we are mortal, I regret, since perforce, one must stand at the other’s grave, unless, by chance, we end our days as we began, in the same hour. And as for enemies, despite our masters’ enmity, surely not, unless it is as rivals for our mother’s love, who overflows with that…

Jedediah: As she does with everything.

Balthazar: Welcome back, brother.

Jedediah: Bah.

Balthazar: What news of Venice?

Jedediah: Shylock is dead.

Balthazar: Oh worthy man, how so? And such a doting father.

Jedediah: Or it’s as if he were, his daughter married to a gentile, and all his goods are confiscate.

Balthazar: How can this be?

Jedediah: Shylock, being an honest man, and thrifty, had piled up a little fortune, that he loaned to one Antonio, to hazard on ships of trade, sure to bring a healthy profit to the gentleman. For such a perilous venture, Shylock feared that said Antonio might wink at his debts, if the ships were lost. So to spur the aging man to fiscal recollection, he included a clause, to wit, were the debt to be unmet, Shylock could take a pound of flesh from the gentleman’s hide.

Balthazar: A very sharp proviso. How faired the ships?

Jedediah: Not well. Shylock, thinking other worthy men of Venice would never allow such recompense, while they had cash to serve, pressed home his point, not for himself, but so that bankers, such as ourselves, should not be held in light regard when Christian gentlemen default in the face of calamity.

Balthazar: How did the venture end?

Jedediah: All the ships were seeming lost, and then, in court, the law held sway to Shylock, though Antonio’s friends wailed and pleaded for mercy, though not a jot of money was offered in recompense. Shylock, his blood distempered by his daughter’s new-found love, one Lorenzo, a gentile gentleman, pushed home his suit. Antonio, true to his word, was ready to surrender to the blade, when a young clerk, comely to look at and quick of tongue, arrived, carrying most learned and heavy books. This clerk declared that Shylock could remove the flesh, as was his right, but were he to spill a single drop of blood, it would amount to murder in the eyes of Venice, and he himself would hang and all his goods be confiscate.

Balthazar: No!

Jedediah: And then, when Shylock renounced his claim, the court held him bound for his attempt on Antonio’s life. Half his goods were taken by the Doge, and the rest, passed over to his daughter Jessica, who has now become a Christian wife.

Balthazar: Daughters in love may be the ruin of us all.

Jedediah: So it is, brother.

Balthazar: What fickle friends these Christians are. When, through our sound guidance they venture much and prosper, they call us sage, and sorcerer, hanging on our every syllable, and saying that we conjure money from the very air, but then, when they fail, through their own policies, they call us rogue and usurer, and spread poisoned lies about our practices. The law conspires against us, and all our goods are confiscate.

Jedediah: But there is more. The boyish clerk, who like a ministering angel had flown to old Antonio’s aid, was soon revealed as Portia – a most silver-tongued and learned lady.

Balthazar: I am amazed.

Jedediah: I have always said that a man’s learning coupled to a woman’s wit might conquer half the world.

(A pause.)

Balthazar: I fear for the future.

Jedediah: As do I. Though he would have me flogged to say it, Lord Capulet had diverse loans, at good interest, out to Shylock, all of which are now dissolved. My master’s house teeters on the brink of ruin.

Balthazar: As does mine.

Jedediah: How is’t possible? Lord Montague is a wealthy gentleman, and his estates well managed, though his men are a querulous rabble, forever attacking my master’s servants.

Balthazar: They take as much as they give in that regard.

Jedediah: No matter.

Balthazar: My master is a bold man, and one led to Christian zeal by his wife’s devotions. Hearing that the King of Portugal intended one last crusade to free the Holy Land, he loaned him a considerable mound of silver, winning the praise of men of god, and the promise of plunder were the Holy City to be taken. But on the way, they tarried near Carthage, where Dido lost her heart and life to faithless Aeneas. Promised boldly by a prodigal son, they thought to aid a father’s overthrow, in return for that son’s succor in pressing on to Jerusalem.

Jedediah: A foolish bargain, by any measure.

Balthazar: Just so. Meeting on the field of battle, far inland from the safe harbor of the foreign fleet, the father and son reconciled, and turned, together, on the Portuguese, who were slain, king and nobles all, their armor stolen and their treasure lost. All royal debts are cancelled, and it is rumored that Portugal may soon fall prey to the greedy eyes of Spain.

Jedediah (aside): I fear our masters’ ruin will be quickly followed by our deaths.

Balthazar(Drawing his sword): Take out your sword brother.

Jedediah: How can I have given such offense?

Balthazar (under his breath): I fear we are watched by my master’s men. If we do not meet in anger, we may be murdered for our conspiracy.

Balthazar (shouting out loud so that he may be heard): Do you bite your thumb, sir?

Balthazar (under his breath): Bite your thumb.

(Jedediah bites his thumb.)

Balthazar (under his breath): Now say “I bite my thumb, sir”.

Jedediah (trying to talk with his thumb in his mouth): I bith my thmb ssh.

Balthazar (under his breath): Without the thumb.

Jedediah (out loud this time): I bite my thumb, sir!

Balthazar (out loud): Do you bite your thumb at me, sir?

Jedediah (under his breath): You asked me to do it so.

Balthazar (under his breath): Just say you bite your tongue. It is against the law if you say more.

Jedediah (out loud): I do bite my thumb, sir!

Balthazar (out loud): Look to your sword. I work for as good a man as you.

Jedediah (getting into the spirit of the thing, out loud): What no better?

Balthazar: Let our blades decide. (They start to fight in earnest but continue their discussion in a stage whisper.)

Jedediah: So we are both ruined – our masters and ourselves.

Balthazar: And when this news reaches Verona with the dawn, we will be pilloried or worse, if there is no resolution of this entanglement.

Jedediah: What resolution can there be tonight or any night. We are both destroyed?

Balthazar: Our two houses, great each in resolve and enterprise, are blocked at every turn by bloody conflict, sprung from ancient hate. But these flailing trees, that threaten to topple in the coming tempest, might hold strong if leaning each on each, like arches in the great cathedral.

Jedediah: Speak plainly brother, for I am nearly out of breath.

Balthazar: Juliet must marry Romeo.

Jedediah: God’s teeth. This midnight fencing carries your fancy to delirium.

Balthazar: No lesser course than this can bind the warring clans into a family.

Jedediah: But young Romeo is a love-soaked fool.

Balthazar: It is said that Romeo is a comely youth, but his affections so meander this way and that, that they overspill their banks into stagnant salty pools of adulation. And so, he may swiftly come to love the lady.

Jedediah: Juliet is a paragon of wit and beauty, and so imbued with good sense that though her mother is honest, she belies her parentage.

Balthazar: I think you love the lady for yourself.

Jedediah: As an uncle, Balthazar, as an uncle.

Balthazar: Then now, since we are brothers, I am an uncle too! “Our niece” will do her duty, as will the boy, if commanded – but I wrestle with how to launch this loving enterprise.

Jedediah: Lady Capulet seeks advice from me on trifles of her wardrobe. I can let slip a love note, near her chamber, embellished with a single R, praising Juliet’s eyes. There are many such, to nameless beauties, scattered in the forest. My lady’s soft deliberation may do the rest.

Balthazar: And I can council my lord, that poverty is more keen a foe than Capulet.

Jedediah: We are agreed.

Balthazar (breathless): And I am spent. (Out loud) I am done with thee, be gone!

Jedediah: (Out loud) And I with thee. Long live the Prince and Lord Capulet! (They exit in opposite directions.)

For licensing inquiries, please see Doctor Gavin