Antonio (The Merchant of Venice) Antonio (The Merchant of Venice) Antonio is the title character in Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice". An influential, powerful and wealthy nobleman of Venice, he is a middle-aged man and a merchant by trade who has his financial interests tied up in overseas shipments when the play begins. He is kind, generous, honest and confident, and is loved and revered by all the Christians who know him. His willingness to die for Bassanio is a manifestation of his character. Antonio manifests anti-semitism by cursing and spitting at Shylock (anti-semitism was common in Europe in Shakespeare's days). He is a structural
Jessica (The Merchant of Venice) Christians (who do). Lorenzo joins them and Jessica recounts their conversation, leading to further banter between Lorenzo and Gobbo, until Gobbo leaves to prepare for dinner. In response to questioning by Lorenzo, Jessica praises Portia as great and peerless. Act 5, Scene 1—the final scene of the play, and following on from the courtroom scene in Act 4—opens with Jessica and Lorenzo strolling in the gardens of Belmont. They exchange romantic metaphors, invoking in turn characters from classical literature: "Troilus and Criseyde", Pyramus and Thisbē, Aeneas and Dido, Jason and Medea, and finally themselves in the same mode, until they