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>Yes--but doesn't the contrast say a lot? There's no Paulina hounding >Shylock, no sense in the text that he should be haunted by her ghost, >not even much to activate the latent sense of Leah as second-best sister >(fit for a second-best bed). It seems to me a truly striking moment of >pathos because it's equally uncharacteristic of Shakespeare and of >Shylock. At the risk of sounding naive, I think it's a stroke of genius >in the play. This seems to me quite right. It's a moment comparable to Hamlet's suddenly discovering to us, and himself, the scene of himself riding around on Yorick's back, kissing his lips, watching his father and mother roaring with laughter at their grown-up dinner-party, which he has been allowed to join for once. Gaping gulfs of backstory that both characters have almost visibly to choke back. Quite gratuitous and all the more astonishing for it. I'm not sure it's uncharacteristic, but certainly worth risking naivety for. T