Black, fearful, comfortless and horrible. 20 Bast. Show me the very wound of this ill news: I am no woman, I'll not swoon at it. Hub. The king, I fear, is poison'd by a monk : I left him almost speechless; and broke out Bast. How did he take it? who did taste to him? Hub. A monk, I tell you; a resolved villain, Whose bowels suddenly burst out the king Yet speaks and peradventure may recover. 31 Bast. Who didst thou leave to tend his majesty? Hub. Why, know you not? the lords are all come back, And brought Prince Henry in their company; At whose request the king hath pardon'd them, And they are all about his majesty. Bast. Withhold thine indignation, mighty heaven, And tempt us not to bear above our power! I'll tell thee, Hubert, half my power this night, Passing these flats, are taken by the tide ; 40 These Lincoln Washes have devoured them; Myself, well mounted, hardly have escaped. Away before conduct me to the king; I doubt he will be dead or ere I come. [Exeunt. SCENE VII. The orchard in Swinstead Abbey. Enter Prince HENRY, SALISBURY, and BIGOT. P. Hen. It is too late the life of all his blood Is touch'd corruptibly, and his pure brain, Which some suppose the soul's frail dwellinghouse, Doth by the idle comments that it makes Are turned to one thread, one little hair : My heart hath one poor string to stay it by, Which holds but till thy news be uttered; And then all this thou seest is but a clod And module of confounded royalty. Bast. The Dauphin is preparing hitherward, Where heaven He knows how we shall answer And then my soul shall wait on thee to heaven, As it on earth hath been thy servant still. Now, now, you stars that move in your right spheres, Where be your powers? show now your mended faiths, And instantly return with me again, The Dauphin rages at our very heels. 80 It seems you know not, then, so much as we: The Cardinal Pandulph is within at rest, Dauphin, And brings from him such offers of our peace As we with honor and respect may take, With purpose presently to leave this war. Bast. He will the rather do it when he sees Ourselves well sinewed to our defence. Sal. Nay, it is in a manner done already; For many carriages he hath dispatch'd 90 To the sea-side, and put his cause and quarrel To the disposing of the cardinal : With whom yourself, myself and other lords, Bast. Let it be so: and you, my noble prince, With other princes that may best be spared, Shall wait upon your father's funeral. P. Hen. At Worcester must his body be in- Thither shall it then: 100 Sal. And the like tender of our love we make, To rest without a spot for evermore. P. Hen. I have a kind soul that would give you thanks And knows not how to do it but with tears. Bast. O, let us pay the time but needful woe, Since it hath been beforehand with our griefs. If England to itself do rest but true. [Exeuni 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. And such a want-wit sadness makes of me, 11 Salar. Your mind is tossing on the ocean; The better part of my affections would Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still Salar. 30 Which touching but my gentle vessel's side, To think on this, and shall I lack the thought But tell not me; I know, Antonio OLD GOBBO, father to Launcelot. STEPHANO servants to Portia, PORTIA, a rich heiress. NERISSA, her waiting-maid. 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 My ventures are not in one bottom trusted, Fie, fie! say you are sad, Because you are not merry: and 'twere as easy 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 Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable. Gratiano and Lorenzo. Fare ye well : 60 If worthier friends had not prevented me. You grow exceeding strange : must it be so? [Exeunt Salarino and Salanio. Lor. My Lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio, We two will leave you but at dinner-time,71 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 : Believe me, you are marvellously changed. Ant. I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage where every man must play a part, And mine a sad one. Gra. Let me play the fool: With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come, 80 And let my liver rather heat with wine Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster ? By being peevish? I tell thee what, Antonio- 90 And when I ope my lips let no dog bark!' O my Antonio, I do know of these That therefore only are reputed wise For saying nothing, when, I am very sure, If they should speak, would almost damn those ears [fools. 100 Which, hearing them, would call their brothers Lor. Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time : I must be one of these same dumb wise men, For Gratiano never lets me speak. Gra. Well, keep me company but two years moe, Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue. [gear. Ant. Farewell: I'll grow a talker for this Gra. Thanks, i' faith, for silence is only commendable 110 In a neat's tongue dried and a maid not vendible. [Exeunt Gratiano and Lorenzo. Ant. Is that any thing now? Bass. Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff you shall seek all day ere you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search. Ant. Well, tell me now what lady is the 130 Is to come fairly off from the great debts And if it stand, as you yourself still do, Bass. In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft, 140 To wind about my love with circumstance; I did receive fair speechless messages: strand, And many Jasons come in quest of her. 180 Neither have I money nor commodity [Exeunt. |