The Merchant of Venice, Act 2 Scene 6 — Summary & Analysis

What happens

Outside Shylock's house, Gratiano and Salarino wait for Lorenzo. Lorenzo arrives and greets them, then calls up to Jessica, who appears at a window in boy's clothes, carrying a casket of her father's jewels and gold. Lorenzo and Jessica exchange vows of love. Jessica throws down the casket, descends, and joins Lorenzo as his torchbearer for the masque. Antonio arrives, interrupting the scene to hurry them toward Bassanio's ship, which is leaving with the tide.

Why it matters

This scene crystallizes the play's central anxiety about conversion and betrayal. Jessica's elopement—stealing her father's money and goods while disguising herself as a boy—is presented as romantic, even heroic. Yet the scene forces us to see it through Shylock's eyes too. She's not just leaving a restrictive father; she's committing theft and apostasy in a single act. Lorenzo's love for her is genuine, but it's also inseparable from the fact that she comes with ducats and jewels. The casket she throws down is both a symbol of her love and proof of her theft. Shakespeare doesn't resolve this tension—he leaves it hanging, letting the audience feel both the thrill of young love and the sting of betrayal.

The scene's language shifts between the poetry of romantic devotion and the prose of practical logistics, mirroring the gap between what Jessica and Lorenzo want to believe about themselves and what they're actually doing. Jessica's shame about her 'exchange'—becoming a boy, leaving her faith—suggests she knows the cost of what she's chosen, even as she chooses it. The arrival of Antonio, barking about the ship and the tide, yanks the scene out of sentiment and back into the world of commerce and obligation. Jessica's transformation from Jewish daughter to Christian wife, from woman to 'boy,' happens in the space of a few lines, as if disguise and conversion are interchangeable. This speed is both comical and unsettling—it suggests how easily identity can be shed, and how little resistance it meets.