Question

can anyone can explain merchant of Venice.... act 1, scene 2

Answer 1

We now meet Portia, who turns out to be more than a spoiled little rich girl. Portia complains to her woman-in-waiting (read: her sidekick), Nerissa, that she's tired of the world. Nerissa points out that being rich doesn't exempt one from problems.Portia retorts that it's easier to give advice than take it. Then she clues us in about why she's so bummed out. It turns out that Portia can neither choose nor refuse a husband, but must instead follow her dead father's will.Nerissa clears up exactly what was in this dead father's will. It seems that he set up a lottery to determine whom Portia would marry. The lottery involves three chests—one gold, one silver, and one lead. Whoever chooses the correct chest gets Portia. Nerissa is somehow convinced that whoever chooses rightly will truly love Portia, too. Brain snack: Portia isn't the only Shakespeare heroine who doesn't get to choose her own husband. In The Taming of the Shrew, Baptista Minola arranges his daughter's marriage to Petruchio. Although the elaborate lottery Portia's father has arranged is pretty unusual, it was typical for 16th-century dads to choose their daughters' husbands.     Nerissa thinks this whole lottery thing is a really good plan because Portia's father was virtuous guy. She adds that Portia's complaints about not being able to choose a man are frivolous, and she asks whether Portia likes any of the suitors she's seen so far.Portia asks Nerissa to list off each of the suitors so she can scorn them each individually. The Neapolitan prince talks only of his horse, which he can shoe himself to his great pleasure. Portia suggests that his mother must have been unfaithful with a smith who shoed horses. Count Palatine is too gloomy, and the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon, has too many personalities for Portia to make fun of each of them.