Contents

CONTENTS

The Cast

The Stage

Map of Venice

Map of Italy

Act I: Fortunato’s Fate

One: The Trap

Two: The Dark

Three: A Spot of Bother

Four: How Much for the Monkey?

Five: Ladies of the Lagoon

Six: The Players

Act II: The Watery City

Seven: La Giudecca

Eight: A Pound of Flesh

Nine: Two Thousand Nine Hundred and Ninety-nine Golden Ducats

Ten: Intrigue Beneath the Bawd

Eleven: Siren Ascending

Twelve: To Belmont and Beyond

Act III: The Moor of Venice

Thirteen: Bold and Saucy Wrongs

Fourteen: A World of Sighs

Fifteen: What Wicked Webs

Sixteen: A Nasty Piece of Work

Seventeen: A Fool’s Ransom

Act IV: The Green-eyed Monster

Eighteen: Cloak, Dagger, Wimple, and Veil

Nineteen: Well Met in Corsica Once More

Twenty: The Art of Persuasion

Act V: A Pound of Flesh

Twenty-one: Savage Puppets

Twenty-two: No Shit, Shylock

Twenty-three: The Trial

Twenty-four: The Verdict

Twenty-five: Arise! Black Vengeance!

Twenty-six: Off Jolly Rogering!

Afterword

About the Author

Credits

Also by Christopher Moore

Copyright

About the Publisher

The Cast

THE CAST

Chorus—a narrator

Antonio—a Venetian merchant

Brabantio—a senator of Rome, father of Desdemona and Portia

Iago—a soldier

Rodrigo—a gentleman soldier, friend of Iago

Pocket—a fool

Portia—a lady, younger daughter of Brabantio, sister to Desdemona

Nerissa—maid to Portia

Desdemona—a lady, elder daughter of Brabantio, sister to Portia

Emilia—wife of Iago, maid to Desdemona

Othello—a Moor, commanding general of the Venetian military

Shylock—a Jew, Venetian moneylender, father of Jessica

Jessica—Shylock’s daughter

Bassanio—friend of Antonio, suitor to Portia

Lorenzo—friend of Antonio, suitor to Jessica

Gratiano—young friend of Antonio, a merchant

Salanio—young friend of Antonio, a merchant

Salarino—also a young friend of Antonio, interchangeable with Salanio, may have been born of a typo

Drool—a fool’s apprentice

Jeff—a monkey

Cordelia—a ghost. There’s always a bloody ghost.

The Stage

THE STAGE

The stage is a mythical late-thirteenth-century Italy, where independent city-states trade and war with one another. Venice has been at war with Genoa, off and on, for fifty years, over control of the shipping routes to the Orient and the Holy Land.

Venice has been an independent republic for five hundred years, governed by an elected senate of 480 men, who in turn elect a doge, who, advised by a high council of six senators, oversees the senate, the military, and civil appointments. Senators come mostly from Venice’s powerful merchant class, and until recently could be elected, by neighborhood, from any walk of life. But the system that has made Venice the richest and most powerful maritime nation in the world has changed. Recently, privileged senators, interested in passing the legacy of power and wealth to their families, voted to make their elected positions inheritable.

Strangely, although most of the characters are Venetian, everybody speaks English, and with an English accent.

Unless otherwise described, assume conditions to be humid.

Map of Venice

MAP OF VENICE