world's commander; By east, west, north, and south, I spread my conquering might; [der." My 'scutcheon plain declares that I am AlisanBoyet. Your nose says, no, you are not; for it stands too right. Prin. The conqueror is dismay'd. Proceed, good Alexander. Nath. "When in the world I liv'd, I was the Cost. O, sir, [To NATH.] you have overthrown Alisander the conqueror! You will be scrap'd out of the painted cloth for this. A conqueror, and afeard to speak! run away for shame, Alisander. [NATH. retires.] There, an 't shall picase you; a foolish mild man; an honest man, look you, and soon dashed! He is a marvellous good neighbour, in sooth; and a very good bowler: but, for Alisander, alas! you see how 'tis; a little o'erparted :-But there are Worthies a coming will speak their mind in some other sort. Prin. Stand aside, good Pompey. Enter HOLOFERNES, armed, and Moтн, Hol. "Great Hercules is presented by this imp, Whose club kill'd Cerberus, that threeheaded canis ; And, when he was a babe, a child, a shrimp, [Exit MOTH. Dum. Long. That mint. That columbine. Arm. Sweet Lord Longaville, rein thy tongue. Long. I must rather give it the rein, for it runs against Hector. Dum. Ay, and Hector's a greyhound. Arm. The sweet war-man is dead; sweet chucks, beat not the bones of the buried: when he breath'd, he was a man-but I will forward with my device: Sweet royalty, [to the PRINCESS] bestow on me the sense of hearing. [BIRON whispers COSTARD. Prin, Speak, brave Hector: we are much delighted. Arm. I do adore thy sweet grace's slipper. Arm. "This Hector far surmounted Hannibal." Cost. The party is gone; fellow Hector, she is gone. Arm. Dost thou infamonize me among potentates? thou shalt die. Cost. Then shall Hector be hang'd, for Pompey that is dead by him. Dum. Most rare Pompey! Boyet. Renowned Pompey! Biron. Greater than great; great, great, great Pompey! Pompey the huge! Dum. Hector trembles. Biron. Pompey is moved;-More Atés,* more Atés; stir them on! stir them on! Dum. Hector will challenge him. Biron. Ay, if he have no more man's biood in him than will sup a flea. Arm. By the north pole, I do challenge thee. Cost. I will not fight with a pole, like a northern man; I'll slash; I'll do it by the sword.-I pray you, let me borrow my arms again. Dum. Room for the incensed worthies. Mer. Even so; my tale is told. [cloud. Biron. Worthies, away; the scene begins to Arm. For mine own part, I breathe free breath: I have seen the day of wrong through the little hole of discretion, and I will right myself like a soldier. [Exeunt Worthies. King. How fares your majesty? Prin. Boyet, prepare; I will away to-night. King. Madam, not so; I do beseech you stay. Prin. Prepare, I say.-I thank you, gracious lords, For all your fair endeavours; and entreat, [form King. The extreme parts of Time extremely Hath much deform'd us, fashioning our humours [love; full of Prin. Change not your offer made in heat of blood; For the remembrance of my father's death. King. If this, or more than this, I would deny, To flatter up these powers of mine with rest, The sudden hand of death close up mine eye! Hence ever, then, my heart is in thy breast. Biron. And what to me, my love? and what to me? [rank: Ros. You must be purged too, your sins are You are attaint with faults and perjury; Therefore, if you my favour mean to get, A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest, But seek the weary beds of people sick. [me? Dum. But what to me, my love? but what to Kath. A wife!-A beard, fair health, and honesty? With three-fold love I wish you all these three. Dum. O, shall I say, I thank you, gentle wife? [day Kath. Not so, my lord ;-a twelvemonth and a I'll mark no words that smooth-fac'd wooers say: Come when the king doth to my lady come, Then, if I have much love, I'll give you some. Dum. I'll serve thee true and faithfully till then. [again. Kath. Yet swear not, lest you be forsworn At the twelvemonth's end, I'll change my black gown for a faithful friend. Long. I'll stay with patience; but the time is long. Mar. The liker you; few taller are so young. Biron. Studies my lady? mistress, look on me; Behold the window of my heart, mine eye, What humble suit attends thy answer there; Impose some service on me for thy love. Ros. Oft have I heard of you, my Lord Biron, Visit the speechless sick, and still converse It cannot be; it is impossible: [spirit, Of him that hears it, never in the tongue Deaf'd with the clamours of their own dear Will hear your idle scorns, continue then, Biron. A twelvemonth? well, befall what will I'll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital. Prin. Ay, sweet my lord; and so I take my King. No, madam, we will bring you on your Arm. Sweet majesty, vouchsafe me,- Dum. The worthy knight of Troy. Arm. I will kiss thy royal finger, and take leave. I am a votary: I have vow'd to Jaquenetta to hold the plough for her sweet love three years. But, most esteemed greatness, will you hear the dialogue that the two learned men have compiled in praise of the owl and the cuckoo? it should have followed in the end of our show. King. Call them forth quickly; we will do so. Arm. Holla! approach. Enter HOLOFERNES, NATHANIEL, MOTH, Cos- This side is Hiems, winter: this Ver, the spring: Song. I. Spring. When daisies pied, and violets blue, Cuckoo, cuckoo,-O word of fear, II. INTRODUCTION TO THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. THE Merchant of Venice is founded on two cious and covetous, the other generous and expopular medieval tales, both of which are met travagant. The latter, having expended all his with in several collections, and under a consider- money, was reduced to the necessity of applying able variety of form. As might, therefore, be to the elder brother, who, insisting upon an anticipated, few plays have been more sugges-equivalent of some kind, the younger one was tive to writers on the history of fiction; but a thoughtlessly induced to sell him a hand's brief notice of these remote originals will satisfy breadth of his flesh, and made the bargain before the readers of Shakespeare, the poet having been the necessary witnesses. On the contract being most probably indebted for his materials to more insisted upon, a prince interferes to save the life modern versions of the above-mentioned narra- of the younger brother; and he does so by intives, which, for the sake of distinctness, may be geniously obtaining from him a grant of his designated the stories of the Bond and the Caskets. blood, and then informing the elder brother that The incident of the Bond is probably of oriental his own life will be forfeited if he spills a drop origin. It was introduced into this country at a of his relative's blood. This story is found, under very early period, a version of it having been dis- a different form, in the well-known collection of covered by Mr. Wright in a manuscript in the medieval tales called the Gesta Romanorum, but British Museum, written about the year 1320, mixed up with a love story; and concludes by the (MS. Harl. 7,322). This manuscript is a collec-knight's mistress coming into the court disguised, tion of Latin stories for preachers; and the tale of the Bond is related of two brothers, one mali • Scum. + Wild apples. and saving her lover by the same ingenuity, which, in the play, is attributed to Portia. The similarity to Shakespeare is still further to be noticed in the next version of the tale, which occurs in the Pecorone of Giovanni Fiorentino, written towards the close of the fourteenth century. In this novel, the Lady of Belmont is mentioned; the trial is conducted in a manner more similar to the description in Shakespeare; and the whole concludes with the stratagem respecting the ring. It is evident, therefore, that Shakespeare was indebted in some way, probably indirectly, to the Pecorone. The second story, that of the Caskets, is found in a simple form in the Greek romance of Barlaam and Josaphat, written about the year 800. "The king commanded four chests to be made, two of which were to be covered with gold, ani secured by golden locks, but filled with the rotten bones of human carcases. The other two were overlaid with pitch, and bound with rough cords; but replenished with precious stones and the most exquisite gems, and with ointments of the richest odour. He called his nobles together, and placing these chests before them, asked which they thought the most valuable. They pronounced those with the golden coverings to be the most precious, supposing they were inade to contain the crowns and girdles of the king. The two chests covered with pitch they viewed with contempt. Then said the king, I presumed what would be your determination, for ye look with the eyes of sense. But to discern baseness or value, which are hid within, we must look with the eyes of the mind. He then ordered the golden chests to be opened, which exhaled an intolerable stench, and filled the beholders with horror." The incident adopted by Shakespeare is found in the Gesta Romanorum. A young princess is to choose one of three caskets. The first was made of gold, ornamented with precious stones, but, within, full of dead men's bones, with the inscription, "Who chooseth me shall find what he deserves." The second was of silver, but filled with earth, and inscribed, "Who chooseth me shall find what his nature desireth." The third was made of lead, filled with gems and precious stones, and inscribed, "Who chooseth me shall find what God hath disposed." The princess wisely chose the last, and the Emperor says: "Bona puella, bene elegisti; ideo filium meum habebis." This story had appeared in English, in Robinson's translation of the Gesta, as early as 1577. obtained from the entry of the play on the registers of the Stationers' Company, in 1598, is of considerable importance, when viewed in connection with another circumstance--the allusion to an old play called the Jew, in Gosson's Schoole of Abuse, which contained "a pleasaunt invective against Poets, Pipers, Plaiers, Jesters, and such-like caterpillers of a Commonwelth," 16mo, 1579. A play so called, says Gosson, was one of the few which were "without rebuke." It was exhibited at the "Bull;" and Gosson describes it as representing the greedinesse of worldly chusers, and bloody minds of usurers. The coincidence of this description with the subject of the Merchant of Venice, is so remarkable, that when we add to it the identity of title, little doubt can fairly remain that the play mentioned by Gosson, in 1579, contained similar incidents to those in Shakespeare's play, and that it was, in all probability, the rude original of the Merchant of Venice. The Merchant of Venice, as has been already remarked, was entered at Stationers' Hall in 1598, and it is mentioned by Meres in the same year. We have no other certain information respecting the date of its composition; but it was probably written before the year 1596; for in Wily Beguiled, an old play which contained more than one sly borrowing from Shakespeare, there occurs a palpable imitation of a well-known scene in the Merchant of Venice. The date of its composition would thus be placed in 1595, or very early in the following year. The first edition of the play appeared in 1600. The second edition was "printed by J. Roberts," in the same year, with variations which seem to indicate that its source was not so pure as that from which the other edition was printed. The play was reprinted in the folio of 1623, with a few variations, chiefly arising from the action of the statute of James I., directed against the profane use of the name of the Deity in dramatic performances. Our text is chiefly taken from the earliest quarto. The Merchant of Venice exhibits, to use the words of Gosson, "the greedinesse of worldlychusers, and bloody mindes of usurers;" and there is more concord in the union of these subjects than might at first be imagined. Intense desire of revenge is not unfrequently found joined with the ardent love of gain; and the character of Shylock, in this respect, is strictly true to nature. Severely persecuted in every direction on account of his creed, the revenge It appears with sufficient clearness, from the he attempts to take is, in regard to its severe above, that Shakespeare was indebted for the chief character, that of any bad man who has been incidents of his play, either directly or indirectly, deeply injured under similar circumstances; for to the Pecorone and the tale of the Caskets, in the religious intolerance and persecution have inGesta Romanorum. The origin of the episode of variably produced a deeper feeling of resentment the loves of Lorenzo and Jessica must be looked than other kinds of injustice. The form taken for elsewhere; and Dunlop refers us to the four-by his revenge is appalling; but had it been less teenth tale of Massuccio di Salerno, who flourished about the year 1470; in which novel we have an avaricious father, whose daughter elopes by the intervention of a servant, and robs her parent of his money. On discovering her flight, the father's grief is divided between the loss of his daughter and the robbery of his ducats. Instead, however, of supposing that the poet obtained his materials from three unconnected works, a very easy and probable solution of the question is suggested by the circumstance, that the Merchant of Venice was originally also entitled the Jew of Venice. This fact, which is frightful, our sympathies would have turned to the Jew. Shylock had been trampled upon till his desire for retaliation triumphed over his love of money, and resolved itself into that one feeling which it appears to have been the object of the poet to illustrate in the play. Shakespeare has almost imperceptibly so arranged the course of Shylock's arguments, that, while they appear to, and do actually, arise perfectly naturally out of his desire for revenge, they are made the medium of inculcating the liberal doctrine, that a man cannot justly be deprived of his rights on account of his religious belief. LORENZO, in love with Jessica. SHYLOCK, a Jew. TUBAL, a Jew, his Friend. [lock. LAUNCELOT GOBво, a Clown, Servant to Shy OLD GOBBO, Father to Launcelot. SALERIO, a Messenger from Venice. LEONARDO, Servant to Bassanio. BALTHAZAR, Servants to Portia. STEPHANO, PORTIA, a rich Heiress. NERISSA, her Waiting-Maid. JESSICA, Daughter to Shylock. Magnificoes of Venice, Officers of the Court of SCENE.-Partly at Venice, and partly at Belmont, the seat of Portia, on the Continent. Act First. SCENE I.-Venice. A Street. Enter ANTONIO, SALARINO, and SALANIO. And such a want-wit sadness makes of me, Salar. Your mind is tossing on the ocean; Salar. And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks, To think on this, and shall I lack the thought [sad? [it, Ant. Believe me, no: I thank my fortune for 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. Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time; That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile, Enter BASSANIO, LORENZO, and GRATIANO. Salan. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman, Gratiano, and Lorenzo. Fare ye well; Ant. Your worth is very dear in my regard. Bass. Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? Say, when? You grow exceeding strange: Must it be so? We two will leave you; but at dinner-time Gra. You look not well, Signior Antonio; Ant. I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage, where every man must play a part, Sleep when he wakes, and creep into the jaundice |