Lorenzo

Play

The Merchant of Venice

Summary

Lorenzo is a young Christian gentleman and friend to Antonio and Bassanio who elopes with Shylock's daughter Jessica, taking her away from her father's house along with ducats and jewels. He and Jessica end up at Portia's Belmont estate in her absence, and their moonlit love duet in Act V — a lyrical exchange of famous lovers' names — provides the play's most purely romantic poetry before the action resolves.

Notable Quotations

"How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! / Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music / Creep in our ears." *(V.i)*

"The man that hath no music in himself, / Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, / Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils." *(V.i)*

Cross-references

• The Merchant of Venice — the play
• Comedies — genre
• character_shylock — whose daughter and ducats he takes in elopement
• character_bassanio — his fellow Venetian gentleman
• character_portia — in whose Belmont home he and Jessica reside