The Merchant of Venice

By William Shakespeare

Initially described as a comedy, Shakespeare's explorations of prejudice, duty and the nature of justice make The Merchant of Venice a far darker, more alluring play.

Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is illustrated throughout by Sir John Gilbert, and includes an introduction by Ned Halley.

The Merchant of Venice is most associated not with its titular hero, Antonio, but with the complex, unforgettable figure of the money-lender, Shylock. It is Shylock who finances Antonio's friend Bassanio in his pursuit of the beautiful Portia, and who demands a gruesome bond from the wealthy merchant.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Release date: Aug 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781509831630

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is the world's greatest ever playwright. Born in 1564, he split his time between Stratford-upon-Avon and London, where he worked as a playwright, poet and actor. In 1582 he married Anne Hathaway. Shakespeare died in 1616 at the age of fifty-two, leaving three children—Susanna, Hamnet and Judith. The rest is silence.

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Contents

INTRODUCTION

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

ACT I

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

ACT II

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

SCENE V

SCENE VI

SCENE VII

SCENE VIII

ACT III

SCENE I

SCENE II

SCENE III

SCENE IV

SCENE V

ACT IV

SCENE I

SCENE II

ACT V

SCENE I

GLOSSARY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

The Merchant of Venice is a comedy, of sorts. The merchant of the title, Antonio, opens the play with a classic comic line:

In sooth, I know not why I am so sad

Any story that kicks off like this promises a few laughs along the way, and the Merchant does not disappoint. But that is not what makes it a comedy. It is classed as such as by scholars because the play has a happy outcome, as distinct from a tragic one.

The tale does not, however, end happily for all the players. Nothing less than tragedy awaits Shylock, one of Shakespeare’s most poignant villains, as the reward for what the extended title to the first printed edition of the play called the extreme cruelty he wished to inflict on the person of the hero. Perhaps it is a premonition of his adversary’s vile intent that so troubles Antonio at the outset. We know he is not worried about the trading ships he has at sea, because he assures his friends Salanio and Salarino that my merchandise makes me not sad.

Salarino’s reply is instinctive: Why, then you are in love. Antonio denies it, but of course this is the truth. His mood is obliquely governed by a matter of love, because the merchant is anticipating unwelcome news from his closest friend, Bassanio, who has earlier in the day hinted at marriage plans. As soon as Antonio gets his friend to himself in Act I Scene 1, he asks:

Well, tell me now what lady is the same

To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage

That you to-day promised to tell me of?

Bassanio might be expected to launch into a paean to Portia, his intended bride, but first he chooses to confide to Antonio his shortage of funds; it is no more than a thinly disguised plea for a loan. He does acknowledge he is already deep in debt to Antonio in money, and in love but this does not prevent him telling his friend he now needs a lot more cash to secure the affections of the beautiful heiress, whom he finally gets round to naming, and enthusing over, when his financial troubles have been comprehensively delineated.

We might expect Antonio to dismiss this brazen imposition on his good nature by telling Bassanio where to get off. But not a bit of it. He replies that:

My purse, my person, my extremest means,

Lie all unlock’d to your occasions

Is he mad? Why would any sensible merchant willingly hand over money to this feckless wastrel? But it’s simple. Antonio loves Bassanio, and will do anything he asks. This may be, as countless students of Shakespeare have eagerly postulated over the centuries, the love that dare not speak its name. But it is just as likely that Antonio’s selfless generosity is born of the sacred bond of friendship. He is an altruist who wishes every advantage for his most noble kinsman, even though marriage would surely diffuse the close relationship between the two men – a prospect that quite reasonably makes Antonio sad.

Whatever his motives, Antonio is firmly established at this stage as a good man. He is set up as the innocent gentleman en route to a dangerous encounter with his diametric opposite, the Jewish usurer. All this exposition and dramatic tension is brilliantly achieved within the first scene of the play – a flying start to a great masterpiece of the theatre.

The Merchant was written no earlier than the second half of 1596, because the line in the first scene wealthy Andrew lock’d in sand refers to the grounding and capture of a Spanish ship, the San Andrés, in a British raid on Cadiz first gazetted in London on 30 July of that year. Shakespeare finished the play within two years, as it was listed in the Stationers’ Register on 22 July 1598.

The story is not of the Bard’s invention, but closely based on an old Italian tale, Il Pecorone (The Simpleton) by Giovanni Fiorentino said to have been written in 1378 and known to Shakespeare from an Italian edition published in 1558. Other borrowings conceded by scholars include the characters of Shylock and his daughter Jessica, inspired by the horrid and ill-fated Barabas and his daughter Abigail in

Christopher Marlowe’s play The Jew of Malta, first staged about 1589. Jessica, who has a happier fate than Abigail (murdered by the rampaging Barabas), might have been partly inspired by a contemporary of Shakespeare, the prolific balladeer and dramatist Anthony Munday in his play Zelauto of 1580.

Some of the names of the protagonists are plainly derived. Portia, as the author explains through Bassanio, is taken straight from ancient history:

Her name is Portia, nothing undervalued

To Cato’s daughter, Brutus’ Portia

Portia was indeed the child of the Roman statesman Marcus Portius Cato (The Younger) and became the wife of Brutus, the conspirator who, according to Shakespeare’s version of the events of 44 BC, delivered the coup de grace to the emperor in Julius Caesar. The play, written two years or so after The Merchant of Venice, depicts this Portia as the agonised bearer of Brutus’s terrible secret, which she had wheedled from him, that Caesar is to be killed. Like Brutus, she has honourable intentions but is appalled by the consequences of unfolding events and dies by her own hand. She is a very different character from her wise and witty Venetian namesake.

The name Shylock appears to be of Shakespeare’s own invention, an artful stereotype for the avaricious moneylender now, like Dickens’s Scrooge, indelible in the English vocabulary. It might be derived from Hebrew shallach for a cormorant, an allegedly greedy bird, but while the mystery of its devising is unlikely ever to be solved, it looks set to continue to provide for endless semiotic debate. But the theme of the Jewish usurer is, of course, a much older one; there was nothing original in the archetype represented by Shylock.

Anti-Semitism, itself a term coined in late-nineteenth-century Germany as a quasi-sociological euphemism for the more visceral Judenhass (Jew-hatred), had become an institution in England in 1290 when King Edward I expelled all Jews under an edict that stayed in force until Oliver Cromwell sidelined it in 1656. In the long interim, including Shakespeare’s time, those Jews who were acknowledged (or more likely were undetected in these deeply intolerant times) had to live as Protestants – just as Roman Catholics did – but officially did not exist.

Nevertheless, there were Jews even in public life, and one of those known to history might very well have been the model for Shylock. Roderigo Lopez was a Portuguese Jew who trained in medicine at Salamanca in Spain and in 1559, probably to escape the Inquisition, moved to England. While it is axiomatic in medieval history that Jews commonly became moneylenders because credit was always needed but good Christians were forbidden usury, it is less well-known that Jews also worked widely as doctors. They were among the few able to read important Arab tracts such as Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine that were then (and for centuries more) among the only sensible written sources of medical wisdom. The Church forbad these works to doctors. The teachings of the Classical and Islamic worlds were considered heathen.

Lopez rose rapidly, becoming a house physician at St Bartholomew’s hospital in London. This brought him into contact with the court of Queen Elizabeth, and he treated many of her circle before being appointed, about 1586, physician to the sovereign herself. He prospered and, inevitably as a well-connected man of Iberian origin at a time of war with Spain (culminating in the Armada of 1588), became entangled in espionage. He was probably on the right side, and was run as an agent against the Spanish court by the spymaster Francis Walsingham. But latterly, Lopez made an enemy of the Queen’s favourite, the Earl of Essex, who had him arrested on a charge of conspiring to poison the sovereign in 1594. Elizabeth was sceptical, but a confession was wrung from the doctor on threat of torture, and he was convicted on the flimsiest evidence of treason. The Queen declined for three months to sign his death warrant but finally relented, possibly under pressure from Essex, and Lopez was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn.

Anti-Semitic sentiment was much stirred up by the doctor’s alleged crime, and his fate inspired a rash of gross caricatures on the London stage. But as a model for Shylock, a role Shakespeare might well have been considering at the very time of Lopez’s sensational arrest and execution, there was room for equivocation. The Queen herself remained in doubt of the judgment, and demonstrated her misgivings by refusing to allow the court, as would be usual in a treason case, to dispossess Lopez’s widow.

Shakespeare reflects this in the mercy shown to Shylock in his own trial. Although he has had murder in mind – intending to commit it with surgical deliberateness – he is spared execution, as the Duke of Venice pronounces:

I pardon thee thy life before thou ask it

Neither is Shylock entirely dispossessed. Antonio asks that half of Shylock’s wealth be forfeit, and that only on his death should the remainder be handed over to his disowned daughter Jessica by way of the Christian man she ran away to marry, Lorenzo. But there is more redemption than the mercy shown to the Jew in the court. Shylock has in Act III Scene 1, before his trial, made a memorable and moving plea for his race:

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? 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.

This remarkable oration is one of the great hymns to tolerance in all of literature. In its author’s time, it must have caused a sensation, as after centuries of proscription, Jews – long blamed for all manner of evils, including bubonic plague – were beyond the pale. Shakespeare here demonstrates an enlightenment likely to cause unease, even outrage, among London audiences.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons he chose Venice for the setting. By 1600 the city state had been

Reviews for The Merchant of Venice

[thedivineoomba · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is not my favorite Shakespeare play - at times, its great, but generally, not I found a bit weird, even when accounting for when the play was written in the late 1500's.I think my biggest issue is how Shylock is treated - Shakepeare gives him this great monologue about how he is human and worth respect, but than at the end, Shylock is forced to convert to Christianity. So, why give Shylock this great speech. As for the rest of the story, its a fairly standard Shakespeare - Cross Dressing, Money problems, innocent maids needing to be saved, etc etc.

[bookomaniac-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

1596-7, zeer populair en controversieel; zeer nauwe structuur, Shylock is eerste rijpe figuurVeel proza, moeilijk leesbaar, vrij saai tot de figuur van Shylock ten tonele verschijnt (problematiek van het joodzijn, en van de woeker).Bekend: III,1 (p215): “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? 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?”Toch dubbelzinnig: zit vooral in met zijn verloren geld en juwelen, boven zijn dochter Jessica.Finale vanaf IV, thema van recht en rechtvaardigheid.

[alishabailey · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

[The Merchant of Venice] is a story of love, honor, pride, and loyalty all wrapped up in one. You will experience everthing from a Jew's daughter betraying him by marrying a Christian, Bassanio putting a pound of his friend's flesh on the line to go court a woman, Bassanio finding and marrying the love of his life, Shylock almost getting a pound of flesh from Antonio, Portia and Nerrisa portraying men to save Antonio, and trick their men into giving up their rings. There is action in every page each and every character will grab your attention and hold it. I would recommend this book to anyone who can understand Shakespearean language, or who is willing to try. As for myself, I have a hard time figuring out what is going on. Honestly, I didn't understand this story until I watched the movie, and that film pulled everything together for me. I don't think this is one of Shakespeare's best plays therefore I give it 2 stars.

[silverwing2332 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a classic, and a great piece. I often think about the book, its very memorable and quotable. Even if you hate Shakespeare, at least you'll be able to recognize any allusions to it in other books. The plot is really good, and the characters are amazingly well made. The writing is impeccable and it is surprisingly easy to understand (for Shakespeare that is).

[amerynth · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Had a tough time rating Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice." I actually found it to be one of Shakespeare's stronger stories and his frequently used disguise device works well and cleverly here. Portia is a pretty strong and clever female character, which I enjoyed all the more for its rarity amongst Shakespeare's works.The play was difficult to read, however, because of the anti-Semitic aspects that really permeate the text.

[seabear_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Those hypocritical bastards! Once a comedy, now a tragedy for those of us who aren't anti-Semitic. Although given the global financial crisis, perhaps a comedy once more if you replace "the Jew" with "the banker".

[kenzielynn75 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The Merchant of Venice is a short story with a very basic plot, and one of little interest to me. Bassanio comes up with some crazy plan to pay Antonio back the money that he owes. However his plan backfires and Antonio is left to pay for Bassanio's mistakes. I found the story predictable and hard to get into. It isn't hard to follow, but you'll miss what little humor it has if you aren't well read in Shakespearean liturature. I definately would not include this with any of Shakespeare's more renowned plays.

[milti_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

It has been read and over-read for school till it has lost all its dramatic value for me. But the true fact of the matter is that Shylock is an everlasting character who will never erase himself from common memory.

[rahkan-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I think Shylock is one of Shakespeare's most powerful characters, even though the plot of this play is unusually cracked-out, even for the Bard.

[borrows0n0wants · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this a few years ago for an Intro to Shakespeare class. It was my favorite play we covered with the exception of The Tempest. My memory is a little fuzzy, but I do recall enjoying it and laughing out loud at several parts. Shakespeare's word play is wonderful. I also feel that whether you try to read this from an anti-Semitist point of view or choose to view Shylock as a sympathetic character, you will still find a lot of enjoyment in this. It is also interesting to think about law interpretation and the loop holes in the law and how they still exist today.Side note: I watched the 2004 version of this with Al Pacino and felt that it stayed very true to the heart of the play. 

[katieloucks · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

It was ok.

[anagarika · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This play was hilarious. I enjoyed it.

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Holds up quite well upon re-reading. Although I'm now too old to play Portia, I still love her. Shylock gets a bad rap, but that's zeitgeist for you. At least Shakespeare tries to give background for him and he's not just pure evil (for no reason).

[duck2ducks · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wonderful; one of Shakespeare's best. Shylock and the Merchant are fascinatingly complex characters - they each have motives and reasons that makes it hard to dismiss either one as simply a villain. Light, dark, comic, tragic, wonder, ribaldry - this one has it all.

[crowyhead · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fascinating in terms of its portrayal of Shylock and what we can glean from it about attitudes at the time. I also love Portia, one of Shakespeare's more witty and intelligent heroines.

[liveshipvivacia · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

If I could have given it less than one star, I would have. Perhaps I'm naive and perhaps I missed the point, but the blatant antisemitism in this piece made me want to fling the book bodily across the room. I understand that the characters within the play may typify certain elements, but as a whole, this was the most antisemitic, racist play I have ever read. Is there redeeming quality in looking at it through the lenses of what Shakespeare intended versus how his audience perceived it? I don't know, but the excerpts of Mein Kampf I read were less enraging than this.

[hahnasay · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Its Shakespeare! What more do you want me to say. He's wonderful!

[the_awesome_opossum · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The Merchant of Venice was mis-named, because the titular merchant (Antonio) is nowhere near as interesting as Shylock, who's among the most fascinating characters Shakespeare has written. He has been mistreated for being Jewish, and the play centers on how he snaps when too many of the debts owed him cannot be repaid, so instead he demands the famous "pound of flesh" for themThe play is also kind of unique for Shakespeare because we get some wonderful female characters too. Portia is an independently rich woman who goes to court dressed as a man to fight a case; she's very compelling as well.The Merchant of Venice is a pretty short play, but it covers a lot of ground about religion, class, and gender, which would make it a good choice for, say, teaching an English class how to do literary analysis. But mostly it is just good because the characters involved are so interesting and complex, it's neat to see them interact

[joshberg · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read Merchant exactly 25 years ago and recently had the opportunity to read it again. I mostly enjoyed the play and was all set to give a solid four-star rating, when that foolish final scene left a bad taste in my mouth. After the profound pathos of Shylock's defeat, the silly-at-best conventions of Shakespearean comedy make for a particularly discordant ending.

[mrslee_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

A very interesting drama, it is well to watch many different performances to see the many nuances which can be ascribed to this play. From base racism and bigotry, to pathos and compassion. Was Shylock a caricature? Was he greedy and grasping, or was he maligned, persecuted and misunderstood? Lots of food for thought here.

[jhudsui_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I don't really get this one. If Shylock is supposed to be the sympathetic character his vindictiveness towards Antonio isn't given enough support to be understandable. If Portia is then it's racist garbage. Either way I have to say I'm not feeling it. The ring subplot is cute I guess.

[paradox98_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

One of my favorite plays. I love the Shylock "hate not a Jew eyes" speech. I feel, being Mormon, I can relate to that.

[coach_of_alva · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In which a charming and entertaining romantic comedy is intertwined with a very grim portrait of a wronged outcast who has lost the ability to forgive.

[ethanbis · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare, starts out with Antonio wondering why he is so sad. His best friend Bassanio then tells him that he is in love and needs to borrow money in order to court Portia. With all of his ships away at sea, Antonio has to borrow money from his enemy, Shylock. Shylock agrees to lend money to Antonio and they make a deal. If Antonio hasn't paid Shylock in 3 months the Shylock could cut off a pound of flesh; Antonio agrees. Bassanio eventually marries Potia, but Antonio doesn't repay Shylock within 3 months. If you want to find out what happened to Antonio, you'll have to read the book. I'm not a big Shakespeare fan, because it takes me a while to figure out what he is trying to say. The Merchant of Venice wasn't my favorite of his books, but overall it was pretty good. You never know what happens next in The Merchant of Venice. I would recommend it to any Shakespeare fan or to someone who just wants a good book to read.

[nesum_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My personal favorite of Shakespeare's plays, MERCHANT features some of the most real characters in all of literature. While the plot is extreme, the dialogue rings true, and you believe the ridiculous circumstances because of the strength of the writing. I never weary of it.

[bestinbrooklyn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Yes, it is a great play, with a truly original plot, but what about the social statement? Is the theme of the book anti-semitic? Shylock's actions and demeanors could be seen as evidence of Shakespeare's possible dislike for jews. On the other hand, is the play more a lesson on how revenge, even if prompted by justified feelings of persecution and harassment, is not morally right? Maybe it is about the latter, but the play's language depicts the jewish stereotypes that have been used by anti-semites throughout history. Perhaps it is about both, and the language reserved for Shylock, his dead wife and Rebecca are intended only as a reflection of the period's socially inevitable disposition toward jews. Once again, Shakespeare leaves us with unanswered questions.

[kaboomcju · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

My favorite Shakespearean work. He wrote it as a comedy, and it fits...but is it really entertaining? In this day and age, the subject matter may not be as "happy" as it once was thought. I particularly find it interesting to think about how Shylock might be portrayed: as a stereotypical Jew or as a prominent Venetian merchant.

[brianinbuffalo · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Probably my favorite Shakespeare play. I loved it even as an assigned reading mission in high school. I've since read it again and have it seen performed on several stages. Shylock remains one of the most memorable literary characters in the "theater" of my mind.