According to salarino, what was the reason of antonio's sadness?
Answers
Salarino and Antonio have a conversation in the opening scene of the play, Act I scene i of The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare. Antonio says he is feeling sad but does not know the cause. Salarino can see that Antonio is despondent and proceeds to give three separate speeches, uninterrupted by any response from Antonio, about what he is sure is the cause of Antonio's malaise.
Salarino says he is certain the cause of Antonio's bad feeling is that he is thinking about all his ships being tossed about on the ocean, ships full of cargo that will make him rich or make him poor if they are lost. Salarino tries to reassure Antonio that his ships are perfectly safe but then says that, if it were his ships at risk, he would be doing exactly the same thing--worrying.
...I should be still
Plucking the grass, to know where sits the wind,
Peering in maps for ports and piers and roads;
And every object that might make me fear
Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt
Would make me sad.
As if that were not enough, Salarino makes a third speech, detailing all the ways in which he would be worrying about his ships and their cargo if he were Antonio, finishing with these simple lines:
I know, Antonio
Is sad to think upon his merchandise.
After all that, after thirty-four uninterrupted lines of descriptive reasons why Antonio is worried about his ships, Antonio briefly answers that losing his ships does not bother him at all. Salarino moves blithely on to his next guess: love.
The answer is as follows:
According to Salarino, Antonio's melancholic mood was due to his preoccupation with his argosies on the ocean, which looked like the pageants of the sea.
Salarino further tells that the thought of his ships on the ocean would 'blow him to an ague,' and his sighs would be cooling his broth at the thought of what great dangers his ship might run into at sea.
He would not look at the sandy hourglass as it would remind him of the shallows and flats where his ship would be docked.
If he went to the Church, the 'edifice of stone' would remind him of the dangerous rocks in the ocean and how on striking them, all the spices, silks, and wealth would spread in the ocean.
Salarino thus believes that such thoughts are making Antonio sad.
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