DUKE Never crave him; we are definitive.
MARIANA Gentle my liege –
DUKE You do but lose your labour.
425
Away with him to death.
[to Lucio] Now, sir, to you.
MARIANA [kneeling]
O my good lord – sweet Isabel, take my part;
Lend me your knees, and all my life to come
I’ll lend you all my life to do you service.
DUKE Against all sense you do importune her.
430
Should she kneel down in mercy of this fact,
Her brother’s ghost his paved bed would break,
And take her hence in horror.
MARIANA Isabel!
Sweet Isabel, do yet but kneel by me;
Hold up your hands, say nothing: I’ll speak all.
435
They say best men are moulded out of faults,
And, for the most, become much more the better
For being a little bad. So may my husband.
O Isabel! Will you not lend a knee?
DUKE He dies for Claudio’s death.
ISABELLA [kneeling] Most bounteous sir:
440
Look, if it please you, on this man condemn’d
As if my brother liv’d. I partly think
A due sincerity govern’d his deeds
Till he did look on me. Since it is so,
Let him not die. My brother had but justice,
445
In that he did the thing for which he died:
For Angelo,
His act did not o’ertake his bad intent,
And must be buried but as an intent
That perish’d by the way. Thoughts are no subjects;
450
Intents, but merely thoughts.
MARIANA Merely, my lord.
DUKE Your suit’s unprofitable. Stand up, I say.
I have bethought me of another fault.
Provost, how came it Claudio was beheaded
At an unusual hour?
PROVOST It was commanded so.
455
DUKE Had you a special warrant for the deed?
PROVOST No, my good lord: it was by private message.
DUKE For which I do discharge you of your office.
Give up your keys.
PROVOST Pardon me, noble lord;
I thought it was a fault, but knew it not;
460
Yet did repent me after more advice.
For testimony whereof, one in the prison
That should by private order else have died,
I have reserv’d alive.
DUKE What’s he?
PROVOST His name is Barnardine.
DUKE I would thou hadst done so by Claudio.
465
Go, fetch him hither, let me look upon him.
Exit Provost.
ESCALUS I am sorry one so learned and so wise
As you, Lord Angelo, have still appear’d,
Should slip so grossly, both in the heat of blood
And lack of temper’d judgement afterward.
470
ANGELO I am sorry that such sorrow I procure,
And so deep sticks it in my penitent heart
That I crave death more willingly than mercy;
’Tis my deserving, and I do entreat it.
Enter Provost with BARNARDINE, CLAUDIO,
muffled, and JULIET.
DUKE Which is that Barnardine?
PROVOST This, my lord.
475
DUKE There was a friar told me of this man.
Sirrah, thou art said to have a stubborn soul
That apprehends no further than this world,
And squar’st thy life according. Thou’rt condemn’d;
But, for those earthly faults, I quit them all,
480
And pray thee take this mercy to provide
For better times to come. Friar, advise him;
I leave him to your hand. – What muffl’d fellow’s that?
PROVOST This is another prisoner that I sav’d,
Who should have died when Claudio lost his head;
485
As like almost to Claudio as himself.
[Unmuffles Claudio.]
DUKE [to Isabella]
If he be like your brother, for his sake
Is he pardon’d; and for your lovely sake
Give me your hand and say you will be mine.
He is my brother too: but fitter time for that.
490
By this Lord Angelo perceives he’s safe;
Methinks I see a quickening in his eye.
Well, Angelo, your evil quits you well.
Look that you love your wife: her worth, worth yours.
I find an apt remission in myself.
495
And yet here’s one in place I cannot pardon.
[to Lucio] You, sirrah, that knew me for a fool, a coward,
One all of luxury, an ass, a madman:
Wherein have I so deserv’d of you
That you extol me thus?
500
LUCIO Faith, my lord, I spoke it but according to the
trick: if you will hang me for it, you may: but I had
rather it would please you I might be whipped.
DUKE Whipp’d first, sir, and hang’d after.
Proclaim it, Provost, round about the city,
505
If any woman wrong’d by this lewd fellow,
– As I have heard him swear himself there’s one
Whom he begot with child – let her appear,
And he shall marry her. The nuptial finish’d,
Let him be whipp’d and hang’d.
510
LUCIO I beseech your Highness, do not marry me to a
whore. Your Highness said even now, I made you a
duke; good my lord, do not recompense me in making
me a cuckold.
DUKE Upon mine honour, thou shalt marry her.
515
Thy slanders I forgive, and therewithal
Remit thy other forfeits. – Take him to prison,
And see our pleasure herein executed.
LUCIO Marrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death,
Whipping, and hanging.
DUKE Slandering a prince deserves it.
520
She, Claudio, that you wrong’d, look you restore.
Joy to you, Mariana; love her, Angelo:
I have confess’d her, and I know her virtue.
Thanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness;
There’s more behind that is more gratulate.
525
Thanks, Provost, for thy care and secrecy;
We shall employ thee in a worthier place.
Forgive him, Angelo, that brought you home
The head of Ragozine for Claudio’s:
Th’offence pardons itself. Dear Isabel,
530
I have a motion much imports your good;
Whereto if you’ll a willing ear incline,
What’s mine is yours, and what is yours is mine.
So bring us to our palace, where we’ll show
What’s yet behind that’s meet you all should know.
535
Exeunt omnes.
The Merchant of Venice
This play first appeared in print as a Quarto entitled The Comical History of the Merchant of Venice in 1600. An alternative early title seems to have been The Jew of Venice, focusing attention on Shylock, a role which has proved to be popular with actors but controversial with readers and audiences. The Merchant of Venice is one of the six comedies by Shakespeare listed by Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia (1598), and it is generally thought to have been written between 1596 and 1597, after Love’s Labour’s Lost and A Midsummer Night’s Dream but before Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It and Twelfth Night. At much the same time Shakespeare was writing the King He
nry IV plays, which also contain a character who threatens to upset their moral and aesthetic balance: Falstaff.
The main plot is very similar to one found in Il Pecorone, a fourteenth-century collection of stories first printed in Italian in 1598, in which a merchant called Ansaldo borrows money from a Jew on the surety of a pound of flesh so that his godson, Giannetto, can go to sea to seek his fortune. Instead, Giannetto courts and wins the Lady of Belmont, returning to find his godfather’s life at risk. The Lady disguises herself as a lawyer, defeats the Jew, and begs her own ring from Giannetto as payment. Scholars assume that Shakespeare must have known an English version of this story, now lost, and that he (or the author of the lost version) added the story of the three caskets which is found in various medieval sources including John Gower’s Confessio Amantis (late 1380s) and Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron (1353). He was also influenced by Christopher Marlowe’s play The Jew of Malta (c. 1591), in which the Jew’s daughter elopes with a Christian. Officially, Jews had been expelled from England in the reign of Edward I, but if they conformed outwardly they were not persecuted. Officially, lending money for interest was condemned, but the Globe Theatre was built on borrowed money and Shakespeare himself lent money as a business practice.
The 1600 Quarto claims that The Merchant of Venice had been ‘divers times acted by the Lord Chamberlain his servants’, Shakespeare’s regular company, but there are no specific records of early performances apart from two at Court before James I in 1605. An adaptation by George Granville called The Jew of Venice displaced Shakespeare’s version on the stage from 1701 until 1741, when Charles Macklin restored The Merchant. Edmund Kean, who first played Shylock in 1814, broke with the tradition of presenting him as a comic villain and made him a sympathetic and ultimately tragic figure – an interpretation which was followed by actors from Henry Irving to Laurence Olivier. While Shylock generally dominated the play, several actresses triumphed as Portia, including Sarah Siddons, Helen Faucit, Ellen Terry and Peggy Ashcroft. In the many books and essays on Shakespeare’s heroines written by women in the nineteenth century (including Faucit’s memoirs) Portia receives pride of place, and is held up as a demonstration that a woman can (at least in fiction) be an intellectual and a professional without losing her attractiveness to men.
The Merchant of Venice became something of a problem play in the twentieth century, the systematic massacre of Jews in the Holocaust making it impossible for us to take the anti-semitism of the Christian characters lightly. Although many performers have aroused sympathy for Shylock, he cannot be sentimentalized beyond a certain point: he makes his claim for humanity (‘Hath not a Jew eyes?’ etc., in 3.1), but he does so as a sanction for vindictiveness and he remains a villain who seeks the life of his enemy. The play requires us to celebrate his defeat and to see his involuntary conversion as an opportunity for salvation.
The Arden text is based on the 1600 First Quarto.
LIST OF ROLES
The DUKE OF VENICE
suitors to Portia
The Prince of ARRAGON
ANTONIO
a Merchant of Venice
BASSANIO
his friend, and suitor to Portia
friends to Antonio and Bassanio
LORENZO
in love with Jessica
SHYLOCK
a Jew
TUBAL
a Jew his friend
LAUNCELOT GOBBO
a clown, servant to Shylock
Old GOBBO
father to Launcelot
Leonardo, SERVANT
to Bassanio
servants to Portia
STEPHANO
PORTIA
an heiress, of Belmont
NERISSA
her waiting-woman
JESSICA
daughter to Shylock
Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of Justice, a Gaoler, Servants and other Attendants
1.1 Enter ANTONIO, SALERIO and SOLANIO.
ANTONIO 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:
5
And such a want-wit sadness makes of me,
That I have much ado to know myself.
SALERIO Your mind is tossing on the ocean,
There where your argosies with portly sail
Like signiors and rich burghers on the flood,
10
Or as it were the pageants of the sea,
Do overpeer the petty traffickers
That cur’sy to them (do them reverence)
As they fly by them with their woven wings.
SOLANIO Believe me sir, had I such venture forth,
15
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,
Piring 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.
SALERIO My wind cooling my broth,
Would blow me to an ague when I thought
What harm a wind too great might do at sea.
I should not see the sandy hour-glass run
25
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
30
And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks,
Which touching but my gentle vessel’s side
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 362