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not one of the sources, but the one source, of the play, I may take as a proof that it is not familiar to modern readers even of the studious sort; and since it is a very pretty story very prettily told, and loses nothing-I might say, gains considerably by the entire omission of the only part which has excluded it from good company in modern times, an account of it may be acceptable to many. Its bearing upon the question concerning the secret purpose of the play will be seen when it is before us.

Giannetto, the youngest son of a rich merchant in Florence, receives from his dying father a letter addressed to his dearest friend, Ansaldo, the greatest of the Christian merchants in Venice, who, being a childless man and Giannetto's godfather, had long been anxious to adopt him. This letter, he tells him, is to be instead of any other provision. "Behave well," he says, "and you will certainly be a rich man." Ansaldo welcomes his godson with delight, orders his servants to attend to him as to himself, gives him the keys of his money-boxes, and desires him to spend all freely in distinguishing himself and entertaining his friends; and to remember that "the more he gains the good will of everybody the more dear he will be to him." Giannetto follows his direction, quickly distinguishes himself in all the qualities of a gentleman, becomes a universal favorite and the most accomplished youth in Venice, and behaves in all ways to his godfather's entire satisfaction. Such a man, it is thought by his friends, should have something more to do—should see more, and be more seen --and two of the most intimate, intending a mercantile voyage to Alexandria, urge him to go with them in a ship of his own. He would like to go if Ansaldo will give him leave; Ansaldo is willing to furnish him if he would like to go. He is provided with a fine ship richly freighted, and the three friends set sail together. The ships keep each other company until Giannetto, early one morning, seeing a fine port and hearing that it is the port of the Lady of Belmonte—a beautiful widow, but dangerous to visit, every visitor being obliged to undertake a certain task on condition that if he accomplishes it he shall take her for his wife and be lord of the port and all the country, but if he fails he shall give up to her all that he brings with him, and many had gone in rich and come out with nothing-resolves to take his chance; sails in, unperceived by his companions; is received with festive welcome; after due warning of the conditions, goes to his trial; fails; loses all; and returns to Venice, much ashamed, and obliged to say that his ship had been wrecked and all on board lost except himself. Ansaldo makes light of the accident. Since his son has come back safe, all is well; he may

be cheerful and easy; they have enough left. But when the two friends with whom he had set out return rich from their voyage, and tell him that if he will go with them again the next spring he may easily gain as much as he has lost, Ansaldo, seeing that he could not be happy without making the trial, provides him with another ship, more richly freighted than the first; and the three set out again in company, as before. But Giannetto, whose real aim was to get without their knowledge into the port of Belmonte, contrives to elude them; sails in; is recognized and received as before; undertakes the same task again; again fails; and returns again to Venice, having lost all, and saying that he had suffered another shipwreck. These repeated losses had nearly exhausted Ansaldo's means, but not his affection or his patience; and when the two friends return again very rich from their second voyage, and he finds that Giannetto can not be happy without one more effort to recover his losses, he sells all that he has in order to provide a third ship for him; and because all that he has is not enough to do it as handsomely as he would, and he "wants still ten thousand ducats, he applies himself to a Jew at Mestri, and borrows them on condition that if they are not paid on the Feast of St. John, in the next month of June, the Jew may take a pound of the merchant's flesh from any part of his body he pleases. Ansaldo agrees, and the Jew has an obligation drawn and witnessed with all the form and ceremony necessary, and then counts him the ten thousand ducats of gold, with which Ansaldo buys what was still wanting for the vessel. . . . When it is time to depart, Ansaldo tells Giannetto that, since he well knows of the obligation to the Jew, he entreats him, in case any misfortune happens, that he will return to Venice, that he may see him before he dies, and then he can leave the world with satisfaction. Giannetto promises to do everything he conceives may give him pleasure. Ansaldo gives him his blessing, they take their leave, and the ships set out."

Giannetto, still secretly bent upon the Lady of Belmonte, contrives again to give his companions the slip and find his way into her port; is recognized and received as before, and makes himself as popular; but this time, by the help of a friendly hint from a sympathetic damsel who thinks it hard that such devotion should be so rewarded, he avoids the cause of his previous failures, accomplishes his task triumphantly, marries the Lady of Belmonte, is proclaimed sovereign of the country, to the great joy both of herself and all the people, and is still absorbed in the duties and enjoyments of his new fortune, when one day, seeing a procession with torches passing the window, and being told that it is a

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company of artificers going to make their offerings at the church of St. John, the day being his festival, he suddenly remembers with horror that St. John's festival was Ansaldo's pay-day, and he had forgotten all about it! His wife, observing his emotion, draws from him the confession that "his father was engaged for ten thousand ducats, that the term was expired, and if they were not paid that day he must lose a pound of his flesh." She at once desires him to take a hundred thousand ducats, mount his horse, and not stop till he arrives at Venice; and, if he arrives in time to save him, to bring him to Belmonte.

The Jew in the mean time had seized Ansaldo; but, in consideration of his wish to see Giannetto before he died, consents to wait some days, provided that the delay do not invalidate the bond. "But,' says he, if he comes a hundred times over, I will cut off the pound of flesh, according to the words of the obligation.'

Ansaldo answered that he was content."

This determination to reject all proposals to redeem the bond by paying the money with cost and interest, which goes for so little with Shylock's modern apologists, is carefully marked and brought out by the teller of the story, who evidently thought it an important feature in the

case.

“Every one,” he adds, “at Venice who had heard of the affair was much concerned. Several merchants would have jointly paid the money; the Jew would not hearken to the proposal, but insisted that he might commit this homicide (anzi voleva fare quello homicidio), to have the satisfaction of saying (per poter dire) that he had put to death the greatest of the Christian merchants."

Giannetto again, as soon as he arrives, offers to pay the whole debt, and as much more as the Jew would demand. The Jew replies he will take no money, since it was not paid at the time due: he will have the pound of flesh. "Every one blamed the Jew," says the narrator; "but, as Venice was a place where justice was strictly administered, and the Jew had his pretensions grounded on public and received forms, nobody dared to oppose him, and when the merchants of Venice applied to him he was inflexible. Giannetto offered him twenty thousand, which he refused; then thirty thousand; afterward forty, fifty, and at last one hundred thousand ducats. The Jew told him if he would give him as much gold as the city of Venice was worth he would not accept it. And,' says he, 'you know little of me if you think I will desist from my demand.'"

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While matters stood thus there alighted at an inn in Venice a young man, described by his ser

vant as “a lawyer (un gentil' huomo giudice) who had finished his studies at Bologna, and was returning to his own country." And what followed I must give from the old story, without abridgment:

The landlord upon this shows his guest great civility; and when he attended at dinner, the lawyer inquiring how justice was administered in that city, he answered, "Justice in this place is too severe.' "How comes that?" says the lawyer. "I will tell "You must know that how," says the landlord.

some years ago there came here a young man from
Florence, whose name was Giannetto; he was rec-
ommended to the care of a relation, who is called
Ansaldo. He behaved here so well as to possess the
esteem and affections of every living creature, and
never was a youth so well beloved. Now, this An-
saldo sent him out three times, each time with a ship
of great value. He every time was unfortunate;
and to furnish the last Ansaldo was forced to borrow
ten thousand ducats of a Jew, on condition that if
he did not repay them in June, at the Feast of St.
John, the Jew might take a pound of his flesh.
This excellent young man is now returned, and of-
fers to pay a hundred thousand ducats. The wick-
ed Jew won't take them, although the best merchants
in the city have applied to him, but to no purpose."
Says the lawyer, "This question may be easily an-
swered." "If you can answer it," says the landlord,
"and will take the trouble to do it, and save this
worthy man from death, you will get the love and
esteem of a most deserving young man and of all
the best men of this city." The lawyer caused a
proclamation to be made that whoever had any law
matters to determine they should have recourse to
him. So it was told to Giannetto that a famous law-
yer was come from Bologna, who could decide all
cases in law. Giannetto proposed to the Jew to ap-
ply to this lawyer. "With all my heart," says the
Jew; "but, let who will come, I will stick to my
bond." Giannetto and the Jew each told the merits
of the cause to the judge, who, when he had taken
the bond and read it, said to the Jew, "I must have
you take the hundred thousand ducats and release
this honest man, who will always have a grateful
sense of the favor done to him." The Jew replied,
"I will do no such thing." The judge answered,

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It will be better for you.' The Jew was positive to yield nothing. Upon this they go to the tribunal appointed for such judgments; and our judge speaks in favor of Ansaldo, and, desiring that the Jew may stand forth, “Now," says he, “do you" [to the Jew] 'cut off a pound of this man's flesh where you choose." The Jew ordered him to be stripped naked, and takes in his hand a razor, which had been made on purpose. Giannetto seeing this, turning to the judge, "This," says he, "is not the favor I asked of you." "Be quiet," says he; "the pound of flesh is not yet cut off." As soon as the Jew was going to begin, "Take care what you do," says the judge; "if you take more or less than a pound I will order your head to be struck off, and I tell you

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besides, that if you shed one drop of blood you shall be put to death. Your paper makes no mention of the shedding of blood, but says expressly that you may take a pound of flesh, neither more nor less; and if you are wise you will take great care what you do." He immediately sent for the executioner to bring the block and ax. "And now," says he, "if I see one drop of blood, off goes your head." The Jew began to be in great fear, and Giannetto in great joy. At length the Jew, after much wrangling, told him: "You are more cunning than I can pretend to be; however, give me the hundred thousand ducats, and I am content." No," says the judge; 'cut off your pound of flesh, according to your bond; I will not give you a farthing. Why did you not take the money when it was offered?" The Jew came down to ninety, and then to eighty thousand; but the judge was still resolute. Giannetto told the judge to give what he required, that Ansaldo might have his liberty; but he replied, "Let me manage him." Then the Jew would have taken fifty thousand. He said, "I will not give you a penny." "Give me at least," said the Jew, "my own ten thousand ducats, and a curse confound you all!" The judge replies: "I will give you nothing. If you will have the pound of flesh, take it; if not, I will order your bond to be protested and annulled." Every one present was greatly pleased, and, deriding the Jew, said, "He who laid traps for others is caught himself." The Jew, seeing he could gain nothing, tore in pieces the bond in a great rage. Ansaldo was released, and conducted home with great joy by Giannetto. The hundred thousand ducats he carried to the inn to the lawyer, whom he found making ready to depart. "You have done me," says he, 'a most important service, and I entreat of you to accept of this money to carry home, for I am sure you have earned it." "I thank you," replied the lawyer; "I do not want money. Keep it and carry it back to your lady, that she may not have occasion to say that you have squandered it away idly." Says Giannetto: "My lady is so good and kind that I might venture to spend four times as much without incurring her displeasure; and she ordered me, when I came away, to bring with me a larger sum.” “How are you pleased with the lady?" says the lawyer. "I love her better than any earthly thing," answers Giannetto. "Nature never produced any woman so beautiful, discreet, and sensible, and seems to have done her utmost in forming her. If you will do me the favor to come and see her you will be surprised at the honors she will show you, and you will be able to judge whether I speak truth or not." "I can not go with you," says the lawyer; "I have other engagements; but, since you speak so much good of her, I must desire you to present my respects to her." "I will not fail," Giannetto answered. "And now let me entreat you to accept some of the money." While he was speaking the lawyer observed a ring on his finger, and said, "If you will give me this ring I shall seek no other reward." "Willingly," says Giannetto; "but as it is a ring given me by my lady to wear for her

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sake, I have some reluctance to part with it, and she may think, not seeing it on my finger, and will believe that I have given it to a woman that I love, and quarrel with me, though I protest I love her much better than I love myself." "Certainly," says the lawyer, "she esteems you sufficiently to credit what you tell her, and you may say you made a present of it to me; but, I rather think you want to give it to some former mistress here in Venice." "So great," says Giannetto, "is the love and reverence that I bear to her that I would not change her for any woman in the world, she is so accomplished in every article." After this he takes the ring from his finger and presents it to him; and embracing each the other, "I have still a favor to ask," says the lawyer. "It shall be granted," says Giannetto. "It is," replied he, “that you do not stay any time here, but go as soon as possible to your lady." "It appears to me a thousand years till I see her," Giannetto answered. And immediately they take leave of each other. The lawyer embarked and left Venice. Giannetto made entertainments and presents of horses and money to his former companions; and, having made a great expense for several days, he took leave of his Venetian friends, and carried Ansaldo with him, and some of his old acquaintance accompanied them. Everybody shed tears at his departure, both men and women; his amiable deportment had so gained the good will of all. In this manner he left Venice and returned to Belmonte.

The lady arrived some days before, and gave orders to have everything prepared, and the streets lined with tapestry and filled with men armed for the tiltings and exercises; and, when Giannetto and Ansaldo were landed, all the court went out to meet them, crying, "Long live our sovereign lord! Long live our sovereign lord!" When they arrived at the palace the lady ran to embrace Ansaldo, but feigned anger against Giannetto, though she loved him excessively; yet the feastings, tilts, and diversions went on as usual, at which all the lords and ladies assisted. Giannetto, seeing that his wife did not receive him with her accustomed good countenance, called her, and inquiring the reason would have saluted her. She told him she wanted not his caresses. "I am sure," says she, "you have been lavish of them to some of your former mistresses at Venice." Giannetto began to make excuses. She asked him where was the ring she had given him. "It is no more than what I expected," cries Giannetto, "and I was in the right to say you would be angry with me; but I swear by all that is sacred, and by your dear self, that I gave the ring to the lawyer who gained our cause." "And I can swear," says the lady with as much solemnity, "that you gave the ring to a woman, and I know it certainly; therefore swear no more." Giannetto said, if what he had told her was not true, he wished every misfortune to fall upon him that might destroy him, and that he said all this to the lawyer when he asked for the ring. The lady replied: "You would have done better to have staid at Venice with your mistresses,

and have sent Ansaldo here; for I hear they all wept when you went away." Giannetto's tears began to fall, and in great sorrow he assured her that what she supposed could not possibly be true. The lady, seeing his tears, which were daggers in her bosom, ran to embrace him, and in a fit of laughter showed him the ring, told everything which he had said to the lawyer, that she was herself the lawyer, and how she obtained the ring. Giannetto was greatly astonished, finding it all true, and was highly delighted with what he had heard, and went out of the chamber and told the story to the nobles and to his companions; and this heightened greatly the love between him and his lady. He then called the damsel who had given him the good advice, and gave her to Ansaldo for a wife; and they spent the rest of their lives in great felicity and contentment.

This is the story told "in a collection of tales called 'Il Pecorone,' written by Ser Giovanni, a notary of Florence, about the year 1378,"* and published at Milan in 1558; and though it is not known to have been translated into English before 1755, I suppose nobody who reads it and knows the play-two conditions which do not seem to have been generally united-will doubt that Shakespeare had either read or heard it, and that it was from this, and not from Leti's story of the Christian creditor who wanted to perform the operation upon the Jewish debtor, or from any other of the fifteen versions of the bond story enumerated by Miss Toulmin Smith, that he derived his idea not only of "the forfeiture of the pound of flesh," but of the entire train of incidents, and the characters and relations of the persons in the drama. Those who are most anxious to give him the credit of originating in the last decade of the sixteenth century "the movement which resulted in the removal of Jewish disabilities"‡ in the last half of the nineteenth will be glad to find that he was not constrained to begin the work by transferring to a Jew the crime of a Christian, and this, too, not only in contradiction of the legend, but in "defiance of all probability" (that particular mode of murder being, I suppose, one that none but a Christian would have been likely to think of), and all for the sole purpose of conciliating the audience by flattering their prejudices. That Shakespeare ever, on any occasion, flattered a popular prejudice which he did not share, I have yet to learn; but on this occasion at least he had no motive for it. The story which he had to exhibit was sufficiently in accordance with the popular prejudice, and he reproduced it in all its

essential features exactly as he found it.

* Introduction to Clarendon Press edition of "The

Merchant of Venice."

"New Shakespeare Society's Transactions," 1875'76, Part I.

"The Theatre," p. 198.

The changes which he introduced were only such as the conversion of a narrative into an actable play required. The action had to be brought within compass; the stage to be peopled; the persons to speak and act, instead of being described; new incidents to be invented or imported for entertainment and variety. But all this he did in careful conformity with the fundamental conception of the several characters as indicated in the old story. Giannetto's first two voyages being ignored, the play begins at once with the preparations for the third, which involves the bargain with the Jew; whereby, without sacrificing anything material, the action is considerably shortened. The original condition of the marriage, being at once unpresentable to a Shakespearean audience and irreconcilable with the lady's character as shown in the sequel, is rejected altogether; but, in substituting for it the device of the three caskets, care is taken to preserve all the essential features of the situation. Bassanio, having run into debt by living beyond his income, resolves to try his chance with a great heiress-a lady for whom, in her father's time, he had conceived an affection which he had reason to believe was mutual—but who could only be sought in marriage upon the perilous condition of losing all if a riddle were not rightly read. To furnish himself for the adventure he has to borrow money from his kinsman and dearest friend and benefactor, Antonio; who, in order to supply him without delay, borrows it from Shylock on the security of the pound of flesh. Thus we have Bassanio and Antonio essentially in the same position toward each other as Giannetto and Ansaldo when parting for the final voyage; while Bassanio, as soon as he has chosen the right casket, is in exactly the same position as Giannetto after the successful performance of his appointed task; and in all the scenes that follow we have only to imagine Giannetto in Bassanio's place, and we feel that he would have both spoken and acted in the same way-that the characters are, in fact, identical. So, again, the Ansaldo of the story and the Antonio of the play are only two portraits of the same man by different artists, one of whom sees further into him than the other. We are not told by the novelist that Ansaldo suffered from a constitutional depression of spirits. but it probably occurred to Shakespeare as necessary to account for that extraordinary indifference to all mortal accidents (the happiness of his adopted son excepted) which, in the degree to which it is carried in the novel, he appears to have thought impossible in nature after all, and has therefore shown in Antonio much mitigated; for whereas Ansaldo, knowing himself to be ruined, signs the bond with a clear presentiment of the consequence, and yet asks Giannetto for

nothing more than a promise that he will see him before he dies, Antonio, when he signs, though short of ready money for the moment, is still in the full flow of his fortunes, and laughs at the idea of being called on to pay the forfeit. It is true that when the danger fronts him, and can not be escaped, he meets it as patiently, and with as much apparent indifference, as Ansaldo-making no vain remonstrance, not complaining of the rigor of the law, but justifying its execution, and content to die provided only that he may see Bassanio again before he is put to death. But there is a great difference between accepting such a fate with equanimity when it is inevitable and deliberately incurring it when it is foreseen and may be declined.

Then, again, the absolute inoffensiveness of Ansaldo, who does not seem to have uttered a harsh word or entertained an unkind thought against anybody-with whom the very man who is avowing his determination to take his life, though all Venice were offered him to spare it, does not pretend any cause except his being the greatest of the Christian merchants-seemed to make the Jew's proceeding too monstrous to be endurable by an English audience. Such malice needed some provocation to make it credible enough for the human imagination, and a probable cause of provocation readily offered itself in the disputes which must have occurred on the Rialto between two such men. A man who would enforce his contract for the pound of flesh in such a case was sure in all his transactions to take advantages of the helpless, which a liberal and beneficent merchant would be sure to be disgusted with and interfere to thwart. On such occasions feelings would be expressed and words uttered which would not sting the less for being just and well deserved. And that this was the real history of the revengeful hatred on one side, and the contemptuous dislike on the other, we are made to understand at once, as soon as they meet, by the irritating and sarcastic speech of Shylock (finding himself for the first time at an advantage) and the angry retort which it provokes from Antonio. This revelation of their respective feelings toward each other shows ground enough for Shylock's malice to bring it within the range, not indeed of human sympathy, which was not intended, but of possibility in human nature. We can imagine nature so diseased and perverted as to be capable of it without ceasing to be human.

But, though we can accept these manifestations of dislike and scorn (the only wrongs he has to complain of) as accounting for Shylock's general disposition toward Antonio, we are not allowed to suppose that his determination to kill him (upon which the whole action of the play

turns) rested upon any such sentimental considerations. He makes a great parade about them when he replies to the remonstrances of Antonio's friends, but Shakespeare has not forgotten to inform us, through his confidential communications to himself and his own countrymen, what his real motive was for this determination. In his first soliloquy, which is the expression of his secret thoughts, he explains it frankly enough:

I hate him, for he is a Christian,
But more for that in low simplicity

He lends out money gratis, and brings down
The rate of usance here with us in Venice.
If I can catch him once upon the hip,

I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.

And when he learns from Tubal, a wealthy Hebrew of the same trade, that he has a good chance of "catching him upon the hip," he repeats both the why and the how without any reserve or flourish. "I will have the heart of him if he forfeit; for, were he out of Venice, I can make what merchandise I will." The Jew in the novel is a sentimentalist in comparison; he wants "to be able to say that he has put to death the greatest of the Christian merchants." Shylock is a mere utilitarian and man of business. Nor are we left in doubt as to the manner of Antonio's interference with Shylock's merchandise, and the arts by which he has "thwarted his bargains" and "hindered him of half a million." As evidence of the fact itself, indeed, Antonio's word will not go for much with a modern apologist for Shylock; but our question is what Shakespeare meant us to believe as to the fact, and of this Antonio's words are good evidence :

He seeks my life: his reason well I know:
I oft delivered from his forfeitures
Many that have at times made moan to me:
Therefore he hates me.

That Shakespeare meant us to understand that Shylock insisted upon the pound of flesh because he wanted to remove from his path a man who was in the habit of rescuing debtors from his clutches by helping them to pay their debts, does not in my mind admit of a doubt. That he did not mean us to regard it as an interference which Shylock had a right to resent, or his mode of resenting it as a just retaliation, or himself as entitled to one drop of pity for the miscarriage of his plot, or the delight of the bystanders at his discomfiture-who (according to the story), deriding the Jew, said, "He who laid traps for others is caught himself "—as other than the expression of a natural, just, and healthy popular sentiment, appears to me no less certain. And, yet it is true that he has contrived to enlist on his behalf "a certain measure of what Mr.

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