The New Swan Shakespeare commentary, from the beginning, was full of praise for one of Lorenzo's speeches in the final act, declaring it some of the best lines ever written on the subject of music. But I didn't want to skip acts, so I accepted the suspense. And it was wonderful at first.

I enjoyed Antonio's Job-like dialogue with his friends ("It wearies me, but you say it wearies you") and Portia's dismissal of her courters ("I am much afeard my lady his
mother played false with a smith"!).

However, my untrained-ness betrayed itself again and I couldn't proceed many more pages without fast-forwarding to Act 5, where the introduction once again heaped praises on Lorenzo's ode to music. Which exact lines were being referred to here? So I skimmed and skimmed until, alas, I found it:

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

Wow. Ok. I confess my hair isn't blown back immediately but I'm in for the learning. The music of the night is sweet and drop-dead beautiful? Music is present even in the orbiting of the planets in the sky ("the floor of heaven")? Whose harmony mirrors or brings forth the music of angels? I can buy that (smile). 

Such a divine cosmic harmony, such purity of purpose and depth, one can also find in souls. Only we can't feel this heavenly song in our hearts given our earth-boundedness ("this muddy vesture of decay"). Except perhaps during the "soft stillness of the night" when the moonlight caresses the landscape and evoke within us our truest cry of connection with the heavens. (A little over-board, but better to err on the side of trying too hard than not hard enough, eh?).

I asked a student today if she's read this particular play. She said yeah and her favorite portion is also one of the most famous in Shakespearean repertoire, voiced by a disguised Portia (see pic above): 

This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood
The words expressly are "a pound of flesh"
Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh;
But, in the cutting it, if thou dost shed
One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods
Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate
Unto the state of Venice.

No wonder Lynn Collins is on the verge of breaking out in smile.