Salar. That's certain; I, for my part, knew the tailor that made the wings she flew withal. Salan. And Shylock, for his own part, knew the bird was fledg'd; and then it is the complexion of them all to leave the dam. Shy. She is damn'd for it. Salar. That's certain, if the devil may be her judge. Shy. My own flesh and blood to rebel! Salan. Out upon it, old carrion! rebels it at these years? Shy. I say, my daughter is my flesh and blood. Salar. There is more difference between thy flesh and hers, than between jet and ivory; more between your bloods, than there is between red wine and rhenish;— But tell us, do you hear whether Antonio have had any loss at sea or no? Shy. There I have another bad match: a bankrupt, a prodigal, who dare scarce show his head on the Rialto; a beggar, that used to come so smug upon the mart; -let him look to his bond: he was wont to call me usurer; let him look to his bond: he was wont to lend money for a Christian courtesy ;-let him look to his bond. Salar. Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his flesh; What's that good for? Shy. To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered me of half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies; and a bankrupt, a prodigal,] This is spoke of Antonio. But why a prodigal? his friend Bassanio indeed had been too liberal; and with this name the Jew honours him when he is going to sup with him: I'll go in hate to feed upon "The prodigal Christian But Antonio was a plain, reserved, parsimonious merchant; be assured, therefore, we should read—a bankrupt FOR a prodigal, i. e. he is become bankrupt by supplying the extravagancies of his friend Bassanio. Warburton. There is no need of alteration. There could be, in Shylock's opinion, no prodigality more culpable than such liberality as that by which a man exposes himself to ruin for his friend. Johnson. His lending money without interest, "for a Christian courtesy," was likewise a reason for the Jew to call Antonio prodigal. Edwards. what's his reason? I am a Jew: Hath not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? if you prick us, do we not bleed?5 if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? if we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? revenge; If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? why, revenge. The villainy, you teach me, I will execute; and it shall go hard, but I will better the instruction. Enter a Servant. Serv. Gentlemen, my master Antonio is at his house, and desires to speak with you both. Salar. We have been up and down to seek him. Enter TUBAL. Salan. Here comes another of the tribe; a third cannot be matched, unless the devil himself turn Jew. [Exeunt SALAN. SALAR. and Serv. Shy. How now, Tubal, what news from Genoa? hast thou found my daughter? Tub. I often came where I did hear of her, but cannot find her. Shy. Why there, there, there, there! a diamond gone, cost me two thousand ducats in Frankfort! The curse never fell upon our nation till now; I never felt it till now:-two thousand ducats in that; and other precious, precious jewels.-I would, my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear! 'would she were hears'd at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin! No news of them?-Why, so:-and I know not what 's spent in the search: Why, thou loss upon loss! the thief gone with so much, and so much to find the thief; 5 -if you prick us, do we not bleed?] Are not Jews made of the same materials as Christians? says Shylock; thus in Plutarch's Life of Cæsar, p. 140, 4to. V. IV: "Cæsar does not consider his subjects are mortal, and bleed when they are pricked," σε ουδε από των τραυματων λογισεται Καίσαρ ετι θνητων μεν αρκεί.” S.W. VOL. IV. I i and no satisfaction, no revenge: nor no ill luck stirring, but what lights o' my shoulders; no sighs, but o' my breathing; no tears, but o' my shedding. Tub. Yes, other men have ill luck too; Antonio, as I heard in Genoa, Shy. What, what, what? ill luck, ill luck? Shy. I thank God, I thank God:-Is it true? is it true? Tub. I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wreck. Shy. I thank thee, good Tubal;-Good news, good news: ha! ha!-Where? in Genoa? Tub. Your daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, one night, fourscore ducats. Shy. Thou stick'st a dagger in me:-I shall never see my gold again: Fourscore ducats at a sitting! fourscore ducats! Tub. There came divers of Antonio's creditors in my company to Venice, that swear he cannot choose but break. Shy. I am very glad of it: I'll plague him; I'll torture him; I am glad of it. Tub. One of them showed me a ring, that he had of your daughter for a monkey. Shy. Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal: it was my turquoise; I had it of Leah, when I was a bachelor:" I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkies. 6 it was my turquoise; I had it of Leah, when I was a bachelor:] A turquoise is a precious stone found in the veins of the mountains on the confines of Persia to the east, subject to the Tartars. As Shylock had been married long enough to have a daughter grown up, it is plain he did not value this turquoise on account of the money for which he might hope to sell it, but merely in respect of the imaginary virtues formerly ascribed to the stone. It was said of the Turkey-stone, that it faded or brightened in its colour, as the health of the wearer increased or grew less. To this Ben Jonson refers, in his Sejanus: "And true as Turkise in my dear lord's ring, "Look well, or ill with him." Again, in The Muses Elysium, by Drayton: "The turkesse, which who haps to wear, "Is often kept from peril." Again, Edward Fenton, in Secrete Wonders of Nature, bl. 1. Tub. But Antonio is certainly undone. Shy. Nay, that 's true, that 's very true: Go, Tubal, fee me an officer, bespeak him a fortnight before: I will have the heart of him, if he forfeit; for were he out of Venice, I can make what merchandize I will: Go, go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue; go, good Tubal; at our synagogue, Tubal. [Exeunt. SCENE II. Belmont. A Room in Portia's House. Enter BASSANIO, PORTIA, GRATIANO, NERISSA, and Por. I pray you, tarry; pause a day or two, But lest you should not understand me well, 4to. 1569: "The Turkeys doth move when there is any perill prepared to him that weareth it." P. 51, b. But Leah (if we may believe Thomas Nicols, sometimes of Jesus College in Cambridge, in his Lapidary, &c.) might have presented Shylock with his turquoise for a better reason; as this stone "is likewise said to take away all enmity, and to reconcile man and wife." Other superstitious qualities are imputed to it, all of which were either monitory or preservative to the wearer. The same quality was supposed to be resident in coral. So, in The Three Ladies of London, 1584: "You may say jet will take up a straw, amber will make one fat, "Coral will look pale when you be sick, and chrystal will stanch blood." Thus, Holinshed, speaking of the death of King John: “And when the King suspected them (the pears) to be poisoned indeed, by reason that such precious stones as he had about him cast forth a certain sweat as it were bewraeing the poison," &c. Steevens. But if you do, you'll make me wish a sin, Beshrew your eyes, They have o'er-look'd me, and divided me; I speak too long; but 'tis to peize the time;1 To stay you from election. Bass. 8 Por. Upon the rack, Bassanio? then confess What treason there is mingled with your love. Bass. None, but that ugly treason of mistrust, 7 And so all yours:] The latter word is here used as a dissyllable. In the next line but one below, where the same word occurs twice, our author, with his usual license, employs one as a word of two syllables, and the other as a monosyllable. Malone. 8 And so, though yours, not yours.—Prove it so,] It may be more grammatically read: And so though yours I'm not yours. Johnson. 9 Let fortune go to hell for it,–not I.] The meaning is, “ If the worst I fear should happen, and it should prove in the event, that I, who am justly yours by the free donation I have made you of myself, should yet not be yours in consequence of an unlucky choice, let fortune go to hell for robbing you of your just due, not I for violating my oath." Heath. 1 to peize the time;] Thus the old copies. To peize is from peser, Fr. So, in King Richard III: "Lest leaden slumber peize me down to-morrow." To peize the time, therefore, is to retard it by hanging weights upon it. The modern editors read, without authority-piece. Steevens. To peize, is to weigh, or balance; and figuratively, to keep in suspense, to delay. So, in Sir P. Sydney's Apology for Poetry :-"not speaking words as they changeably fall from the mouth, but peyzing each sillable." Henley. The true and simple meaning I believe to be poise, perhaps the word was, in those days, pronounced as it is here spelt, peize. Amer. Edit. |