Antonio is a merchant of Venice and dear friend to Bassanio. His decision to enter a bond with Shylock, risking a pound of his own flesh for Bassanio’s debt, is one of the two major plots of the play. Antonio is an interesting character insofar as he tends to feel in extremes, but he speaks in a moderate and balanced way. His hatred for Shylock is never disputed – he’s quick to assert that while he’s spit on Shylock before, he’d be happy to do it again. Shylock repeatedly tells us Antonio has been awfully and unnecessarily cruel, and this hatred for the Jew is balanced only by Antonio’s deep and seemingly inexplicable love for Bassanio. Repeatedly throughout the play, Antonio offers and risks everything he has for his friend – even his own life – and never regrets it.

While the two men have what they both agree is a deep friendship, Antonio’s involvement with (and his generosity to) Bassanio definitely invites some speculation. Antonio opens the play with a discussion of his great sadness. He explicitly says his merchandise isn’t the source of his woe, and we’re left to wonder what’s going on with him – until Bassanio enters. As soon as Antonio has a chance to speak to his friend privately, the first thing on his mind is the woman Bassanio is wooing. It becomes clear that Antonio has asked about it before and has been promised an answer this day. One might clearly draw a link between Antonio’s sadness and the weight of Bassanio’s impending courtship – Antonio is suffering because he is about to lose his friend.

The question in the subtext is whether the feelings Antonio has for Bassanio go well beyond the bounds of friendship and cross over into the territory of romantic love. This might explain Antonio’s sadness, his willingness to do anything for Bassanio, and most importantly, his constant need to contrast his friendship with the man to Portia’s love for him. He calls Bassanio away from what should be his wedding night to see him in Venice, and as he prepares to die in court, tells Bassanio to have Portia be the judge of these proceedings. She will have to decide whether “Bassanio had not once a love.” (That is, if he had ever had a love before.)

Antonio cannot love Bassanio the way he wants to, and can give him neither marriage nor money (as Portia can). If he were to sacrifice his life for Bassanio, he would be doing one thing greater than Portia ever would or could. His offer of a pound of flesh is a symbolic chance for his flesh to be meaningful to Bassanio. Even once Antonio is off the hook, he pressures Bassanio to give away Portia’s ring, claiming that his own love to Bassanio and what Balthazar deserves should be greater than Portia’s commandment.

This tension is weakly resolved at the end of the play when it is revealed that Portia has given Antonio his life back twice – once in court disguised as Balthazar, and once more with the news of the successful ships. Antonio has been warmly welcomed by Portia, but her actions have managed to assert that her love for Bassanio, and her power (shown by what she can give) subordinate Antonio’s friendship with Bassanio to her marriage.

One of the play’s great ironies is that Antonio ends up alone. In this way there is a link between Antonio and Shylock, as each has no chance of being accepted into any pairing or love at the end of the play. Antonio, like Shylock, is ultimately left outside. In the clearest sense, Antonio is excluded from marriage, but he’s also relegated to something of an outsider position in Bassanio’s life, not as his main love, but as a friend. Throughout the play, Antonio’s speech has been resigned and dotted with flourishes of vitality only when he speaks of his love for Bassanio. It seems Antonio might suffer the same limitations of being an outsider that many other characters do: Shylock because he is Jewish, Portia because she is a woman, and here Antonio because he loves Bassanio, a man, more than anything else.

Antonio’s personal exile might do wonders to explain (though not justify) his cruel treatment of Shylock. Once again, the two merchants of Venice are in the same boat: Antonio, like Shylock, might be a victim of circumstances beyond his control. Ultimately, whether Antonio is cruel, repressed, a raging anti-Semite, loving, or generous to a fault, it is certain that he himself declared his role in the play’s first scene: if all the world is a stage where every man has his part, then Antonio’s role is surely a sad one