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breathes!”
    CHORUS: Secretly, Jessica is overjoyed, not only because the flotsam fellow lives, but because she has been wishing for just such a delivery: a slave of her very own. While many well-to-do Venetians own slaves, the practice is forbidden to Jews and so Jessica is tasked by her father to keep house, cook, and perform other duties that a less tightfisted father might hire to have done.
    But alas, here comes the old Jew now.
    “ There you are, Jessica. I am off to the Rialto.”
    “Farewell, Papa.”
    “Girl, why do you squat on the boat landing?”
    “Having a wee, Papa.”
    “In front of the house? Just like that? When I have had built a perfectly good privy in the house?”
    “I didn’t want to disturb you. See, my skirts are around me. No one can even see.”
    “That your mother cannot see you thus—peeing on the boat landing like a dog—for that I am grateful. I will return at noon for lunch. Do the washing-up.”
    “Yes, Papa.”
    CHORUS: So, Shylock thus disposed, Jessica turned her devices to preparing her new slave for presentation later to her father, which would require some scrubbing, removal of his chains, and perhaps restoring the jester to consciousness, but even though her slave was slight, she found she was not strong enough to drag him up the ramp and into the house by herself.
    “I’m not strong enough to get him up the ramp.”
    CHORUS: She said with great superfluity, as the narrator had only just pointed out that selfsame thing.
    “I was talking to Gobbo, you knob. No one likes you, you know? Skulking about in the margins acting as if you know everything.”
    CHORUS: And, indeed, with uncommon stealth and no little sneakiness, the blind old beggar Gobbo had tapped his way down the walkway to pause at the top of the boat ramp, thus surprising the narrator, who is seldom underinformed about such goings-on.
    “Signor Gobbo, help me get this fellow into the house. I’m not strong enough to move him.”
    “What fellow?”
    “This poor fellow who is nearly drowned, and has washed up on the boat ramp.”
    “Do you think it could be my son? My boy, long lost?”
    “Fine. Your son. Help me get your son into the house, Gobbo.”
    “Well, why didn’t you say so?”
    CHORUS: So, with the help of old Gobbo, Jessica was able to move the battered and sodden fool to the house, but as they pulled him up from the ramp, she heard what sounded like a small fish jumping, and spied, out by the end of the gondola docks, a sleek shadow moving beneath the jade green water of the lagoon.

    CHORUS: And so, while the fool slept the sleep of the dead, the beautiful Jewess snipped off the tip of his willy.
    “What!” said I, somewhat emphatically, when I awoke from my premature burial and submarine mermaid bonking. “Unhand my willy, young woman!”
    “Settle down, slave, I just need to snip a bit of the tip off so Papa will let me keep you.”
    She was a lovely thing, wild dark hair and blue eyes; strong high cheekbones; and a long, straight nose like the desert princesses adorning the pillaged Egyptian obelisks that stood in the piazzas of Rome. Truly told, I didn’t notice her features at the time, as she was holding the tip of my willy with two fingers of one hand, while in the other brandishing, with great concentration, a butcher knife the size of a rowboat. “He’ll never let me keep a Gentile slave. I’ve seen the mohel do this simply dozens of times. Easy peasy. Now, hold still.”
    Lest you think me a cad, let me say I have never struck a woman—except for the playful taps delivered in passion, and relished by ladies of more decadent tastes—but I have never struck a woman with the intent of doing harm (unless you count poisoning as striking, which I don’t really think it is)—but in that moment, a strange tart with a blade trained on my manhood, my years of training and natural instincts as a warrior became my spirit, and drove me to action. In a wink I snatched the nipple of her