Jessica (The Merchant of Venice) intends to collect on the "pound of flesh". Jessica informs them that she has heard her father speaking with his fellows, saying he "would rather have Antonio's flesh / Than twenty times the value of the sum / That he did owe him." Portia dispatches Bassanio to Venice to assist his friend, pausing only long enough for them to be married. Then announces that she and Nerissa, her maid, will stay in a nearby convent while their husbands are away. In her absence she asks Lorenzo and Jessica to manage her estate. In Act 3, Scene 5, Jessica and Gobbo
Jessica (The Merchant of Venice) followed the First Folio, not the Second. Malone's response was simply that "In answer to Mr. Steevens, I have to state that I printed this play in 1784, and that Mr. Reed's edition did not appear till 1785. I may add that I communicated to that gentleman this very correction." The back and forth continued in notes on Jessica's line in Act 5, Scene 1: "I am never merry when I hear sweet music." Steevens opinied that: For this point, Steevens cites the word's use in "Measure for Measure" and a similar usage of "dulcia" by Horace in his "Art