Jessica (The Merchant of Venice) scene—Act 2, Scene 6—Lorenzo and his friends come to Shylock's house, and Jessica greets them from a window, dressed as a boy. She asks Lorenzo to confirm his identity before lowering a casket of her father's Ducats. Lorenzo bids her descend, but Jessica demurs, ashamed of her disguise. Lorenzo persuades her, and she goes inside to bring more of Shylock's Ducats. Lorenzo praises her to his friends: "For she is wise, if I can judge of her, / And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true, / And true she is, as she hath proved herself. / And
Antonio (The Merchant of Venice) person … lie[s] all unlocked to your occasions" ("MoV" 1.1.146), seem to allude to a sexual dimension in Antonio's love for Bassanio. However, there is also evidence that the two shared a strictly fraternal, familial bond, as indicated by the line "Bassanio, your most noble kinsman …" ("MoV" 1.1.60) Other scholars maintain that all attempts to read Shakespeare's characters as gay or straight in terms of the modern understanding of the word are culturally and historically flawed. Alan Bray's book "Homosexuality in Renaissance England" argues that in the time period of "The Merchant of Venice's" composition, "homosexuality" did not refer