Jessica (The Merchant of Venice) are interrupted by Stephano, a messenger. No sooner has Stephano informed them that Portia and Nerissa will soon arrive than Gobbo comes with the same news for Bassanio and Gratiano. They decide to await the arrivals in the gardens, and ask Stephano to fetch his instrument and play for them. Portia and Nerissa enter, followed shortly by Bassanio, Antonio, and Gratiano. After they are all reunited, Nerissa hands Lorenzo a deed of gift from Shylock, won in the trial, giving Jessica all of his wealth upon his death. The generally accepted sources for "The Merchant of Venice" are Giovanni Fiorentino's
The Merchant of Venice be a "happy ending" for the character, as, to a Christian audience, it saves his soul and allows him to enter Heaven. Regardless of what Shakespeare's authorial intent may have been, the play has been made use of by antisemites throughout the play's history. The Nazis used the usurious Shylock for their propaganda. Shortly after Kristallnacht in 1938, "The Merchant of Venice" was broadcast for propagandistic ends over the German airwaves. Productions of the play followed in Lübeck (1938), Berlin (1940), and elsewhere within the Nazi territory. In a series of articles called "Observer", first published in 1785, British playwright