THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.

(WRITTEN ABOUT 1596.)

..

INTRODUCTION.

This play takes a place by itself, midway between the group of Shakespeare's early comedies and that more brilliant group of comedies which clusters about the year 1600. With the early comedies it is allied by the frequent rhymes, the occasional doggerel verse, and the numerous classical allusions; with the later group it is connected by its centring the interest of the drama in the development of character, and by the variety, depth, and beauty of the characterization. No person depicted in any preceding comedy can compare in vigor of drawing and depth of color with Shylock; and Portia is the first of Shakespeare's women who unites in beautiful proportion, intellectual power, high and refined, with unrestrained ardor of the heart. The story of the caskets and the story of the pound of flesh had been told separately many times and in various countries. The former is first found in the mediæval Greek romance of Barlaam and Josaphat, by Joannes Damascenus (about A.D. 800); in another form it is told by the English poet Gower, and the Italian novelist Boccaccio. But points of resemblance are most striking between Shakespeare's version of the casket incident and that given in the collection of stories so popular in the Middle Ages, the Gesta Romanorum. The incident of the pound of flesh also appears in the Gesta; it is found in a long religious poem, written in the Northumbrian dialect about the end of the thirteenth century, the Cursor Mundi, in an old ballad, "showing the crueltie of Gernutus a Jew," and elsewhere; there are Persian and Egyptian versions of the tale, which itself perhaps originally came from the East. The form in which we have it in Shakespeare is most closely connected with the version found in a collection of tales, Il Pecorone, written by Ser Giovanni, a notary of Florence, about A. D., 1378. Here, and only here, the incident of the ring, which forms the subject of the fifth act of The Merchant of Venice, is given; and here the name Belmont appears. It is probable, however, that Shakespeare to become acquainted with these stories had not to go to Il Pecorone and the Gesta Romanorum. Stephen Gosson writing in 1579, in his Schoole of Abuse, about plays which were "tollerable at sometime," mentions "the Jew. showne at the Bull. representing the greedinesse of worldly chusers and bloody mindes of usurers." The greediness of worldly choosers seems to point to the casket incident, and the bloody minds of usurers to that of the pound of flesh; we therefore infer that a pre-Shakespearian play existed which combined these two incidents. And it is highly probable that Shakespeare's task in the case of The Merchant of Venice, as afterwards in that of King Lear, consisted in creating from old and worthless dramatic material found among the crude productions of the early English theatre those forms of beauty and of majesty with which we are familiar. Although the play is named after the merchant, Antonio, he is not the chief dramatic person; he forms, however, a centre around which the other characters are grouped: Bassanio, his friend; Shylock, his erring and would-be murderer; Portia, his savior. Antonio's part is rather a passive than an active one; he is to be an object of contention and a prize; much is to be done against him and on his behalf, but not much is to be done by him; and therefore, although his character is very firmly conceived and clearly indicated, his part is subdued and kept low, lest it might interfere with the exhibition of the two chief forces of the play-the cruel masculine force of Shylock, which holds the merchant in its relentless, vice-like grip; and the feminine force of Portia, which is as bright as sunlight, and as benefi ent. Yet Shakespeare is careful to interest us in Antonio, and to show us that he was worth every exertion to save. The distinction of Portia among the women of Shakespeare is the union in her nature of high intellectual powers and decision of will with a heart full of ardor and susceptibility to romantic feelings. She has herself never known trouble or sorrow, but prosperity has left her generous and quick in sympathy. Her noble use of wealth and joyous life, surrounded with flowers and fountains and marble statues and music, stands in contrast over against the hard, sad, and contracted life of Shylock, one of a persecuted tribe, absorbed in one or two narrowing and intense passions-the love of money-bags he clutches and yet fails to keep, and his hatred of the man who had scorned his tribe, insulted his creed, and diminished his gains. Yet Shylock is not like Marlowe's Jew, Barabas, a preternatural monster. Wolf-like as his revenge shows him, we pity his joyless, solitary life; and when, ringed round in the trial scene with hostile force, he stands firm upon his foothold of law, there is something sublime in his tenacity of passion and resolve. But we feel that it is right that his evil strength should be utterly crushed and quelled, and when Shylock leaves the court a broken man, we know it is needful that this should be so. The date of the play is uncertain. Perhaps 1596 is as likely a date as we can fix upon; but the precise year matters little if it be remembered that the play occupies an intermediate place between the early and the middle group of comedies,

Enter ANTONIO, SALARINO, and SALANIO.
Ant. In sooth, I know not why I am so sad :
It wearies me; you say it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn;

And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself.

11

Salar. Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
There, where your argosies with portly sail,
Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood,
Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea,
Do overpeer the petty traffickers,
That curtsy to them, do them reverence,
As they fly by them with their woven wings.
Salan, Believe me, sir, had I such venture
forth,

The better part of my affections would

Be with my hopes abroad. 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 20
Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt
Would make me sad.

Salar.
My wind cooling my broth
Would blow me to an ague, when I thought
What harm a wind too great at sea might do.
I should not see the sandy hour-glass run,
But I should think of shallows and of flats,
And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand,
Vailing her high-top lower than her ribs
To kiss her burial. Should I go to church
And see the holy edifice of stone,
And not bethink me straight of dangerous
rocks,

30

Which touching but my gentle vessel's side,
Would scatter all her spices on the stream,
Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks,
And, in a word, but even now worth this,
And now worth nothing? Shall I have the
thought

To think on this, and shall I lack the thought
That such a thing bechanced would make me
sad ?

But tell not me; I know, Antonio
Is sad to think upon his merchandise.

OLD GOBBO, father to Launcelot.
LEONARDO, servant to Bassanio.
BALTHASAR,

STEPHANO

servants to Portia,

PORTIA, a rich heiress.

NERISSA, her waiting-maid.
JESSICA, daughter to Shylock.

Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of Justice, Gaoler, Servants to Portia, and other Attendants.

SCENE: Partly at Venice, and partly at Belmont, the seat of Portia, on the Continent.

Ant. Believe me, no I thank my fortune
for it,

My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,
Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate
Upon the fortune of this present year:
Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad.
Salar. Why, then you are in love.
Ant.

Fie, fie!
Salar. Not in love neither? Then let us

say you are sad,

Because you are not merry: and 'twere as easy
For you to laugh and leap and say you are

merry,

Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed

Janus, 50 Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time: [eyes Some that will evermore peep through their And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper, And other of such vinegar aspect

That they'll not show their teeth in way of
smile,

Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.
Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO.
Salan. Here comes Bassanio, your most
noble kinsman,

Gratiano and Lorenzo. Fare ye well :
We leave you now with better company.
Salar. I would have stay'd till Î had made
you merry,

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If worthier friends had not prevented me.
Ant. Your worth is very dear in my regard.
I take it, your own business calls on you
And you embrace the occasion to depart.
Salar. Good morrow, my good lords.
Bass. Good signiors both, when shall we
laugh? say, when?

You grow exceeding strange : must it be so?
Salar. We'll make our leisures to attend
on yours.

[Exeunt Salarino and Salanio. Lor. My Lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio,

We two will leave you but at dinner-time,71
I pray you, have in mind where we must meet.
Bass. I will not fail you.

Gra. You look not well, Signior Antonio ; You have too much respect upon the world : 40 They lose it that do buy it with much care :