The Merchant of Venice know not why I am so sad" – and utter devotion to Bassanio has led some critics to theorise that he is suffering from unrequited love for Bassanio and is depressed because Bassanio is coming to an age where he will marry a woman. In his plays and poetry Shakespeare often depicted strong male bonds of varying homosociality, which has led some critics to infer that Bassanio returns Antonio's affections despite his obligation to marry: In his essay "Brothers and Others", published in "The Dyer's Hand," W. H. Auden describes Antonio as "a man whose emotional life, though his conduct
Jessica (The Merchant of Venice) the 1955 Arden Shakespeare second series edition of the play: "… nowhere in the play does Shylock show any tenderness towards his daughter …. … as a Jewess, loved by a Christian, Jessica stood in a fair way for the audience's sympathy …." In Munday's "Zelauto", Brisana (Jessica) opposes her father, Trinculo (Shylock), and eventually elopes with Rodolpho (Lorenzo); all presented sympathetically for the audience. Similarly, in Salernitano's 14th "novella", the daughter makes off with her father's money, to the same effect. "In both these examples, the father is avaricious …. It ranks him with the miserly fathers in Elizabethan