Portia and Bassanio

Brave Portia's lot was cast
Inside a mocking case of lead,
Morrocco came and passed,
Then Arragorn, arrived and left, forlorn.
A list of louts came, failed, and went
Before Bassanio played his turn...
Poor rich Portia's patience spent,
Nerissa's lady solace yearned

Antonio, Bassanio, a troubled pair
A wily shark a loan arranged,
Whose bite, though small,
Beyond compare aimed deepest
To the matters of the heart.

Antonio, about to lose his fortune,
Bemoaned the losing of a friend,
The foiling of a fortune, sunk.

Shylock, certain of his pound of flesh,
Summarily dismissed by gentile gender-bending,
Played as a fool by a woman posing as a man,
Who drove a lawyer's visage in a Portia.

All ended well, at least for "Christian" men...
Life sweetened by the turning of a Jew,
No matter his conversion at duress...
Straight away Portia and Nerissa turned back
A ******* borrower who had landed on his feet,
And sprang their traps to tame their husbands' heat.

Oh Bassanio,
why are you such a mystery?
I can't find any evidence,
you're the cause of my misery.

You are a low-life racist,
You nearly killed your friend!
I'll say,
you are a fiend.

Bassanio,
why don't you just die?
Then,
I can gleefully say 'Bye Bye'.

Dear Friends, this poem was composed many years ago and posted on ‘Poemhunter.com’. Time here is compared to the money lender and miser Shylock in Shakespeare’s ‘Merchant Of Venice’, where Shylock insisted on cutting out a pound of flesh from the merchant Bassanio, for having failed to pay back the loan taken from Shylock! Hope you like it, - Raj


                TIME THE GREAT USURER
      TIME the great usurer, is a great miser too,
      Always knows the cost of things to be paid
      back by you!
      It readily loans you the desired amount in
      number of years.
      Smilingly assures and allays all your doubts
      and fears.
      It makes the loan to appear like a free gratis,
      So you hardly bother to take any notice!

       But with the passage of growing years and
       life depleting with time,
       In paying back your interests, you got to
       default sometime.
       Precisely at that moment, the usurer knocks
       rather loud,
       And through death takes back its’ principal
       amount !
      
       Alas, Time the great Shylock knows the cost
       of everything.
       When will it learn to appreciate the value
       we attach to things?
                                             -Raj Nandy, New Delhi.

(To Ellen Terry)

I marvel not Bassanio was so bold
To peril all he had upon the lead,
Or that proud Aragon bent low his head
Or that Morocco’s fiery heart grew cold:
For in that gorgeous dress of beaten gold
Which is more golden than the golden sun
No woman Veronese looked upon
Was half so fair as thou whom I behold.
Yet fairer when with wisdom as your shield
The sober-suited lawyer’s gown you donned,
And would not let the laws of Venice yield
Antonio’s heart to that accursed Jew—
O Portia! take my heart:  it is thy due:
I think I will not quarrel with the Bond.