Shylock

“ And every child hates Shylock, though his soul Still sits at squat, and peeps not from its hole. At half mankind when generous Manly raves, All know 'tis virtue, for he thinks them knaves: When universal homage Umbra pays, All see 'tis vice, and itch of vulgar praise. When flattery glares, all hate it in a queen, While one there is who charms us with his spleen. ”

“ There was living in Venice at this time a rich money-lender, named Shylock. Antonio despised and disliked this man very much, and treated him with the greatest harshness and scorn. He would thrust him, like a cur, over his threshold, and would even spit on him. Shylock submitted to all these indignities with a patient shrug; but deep in his heart he cherished a desire for revenge on the rich, smug merchant. For Antonio both hurt his pride and injured his business. "But for him," thought Shylock, "I should be richer by half a million ducats. ”

“ My father's conception of Shylock seems to me less the right one than Kean's; but then, if my father took what I think the right view of the part, he would have to give up acting it. The real Shylock—that is, Shakespeare's—is a creature totally opposite in his whole organization, physical and mental, to my father's; and as my father cannot force his nature in any particular into uniformity with that of Shylock, he endeavors to persuade himself that the theory by which he tries to bring it into harmony with his individuality, and within the compass of his powers, is the right one ”

“ Compared with Marlowe’s Jew, Shylock is a terrible man beside a dreary monster, and, as far as logic and the lex talionis go, has the best of the argument. It is the strength of human nature itself that makes crime strong. Wickedness could have no power of itself: it lives by the perverted powers of good. And so great is Shakspere’s sympathy with Shylock even, in the hard and unjust doom that overtakes him, that he dismisses him with some of the spare sympathies of the more tender-hearted of his spectators. ”

“ Shylock.—Peace! one word: in yonder pile, for little more than half the cost, a seal-skin wrap and overcoat may grace your youthful forms.
Romeo (to Shylock in undertone) .—I pray thee, gentle signor of the Gilded Balls, say naught before this maid that will reveal the fact that half my garments now repose upon your shelves.
Helena (to Shylock) .—To-night I’ll steal into thy place of trade, and, under cover of the evening’s shades, examine well the seal-skin sack whereof you speak. Say nothing now, sir; mum’s the word! ”

“ It is astonishing to find this sadness, this courtesy, this lavish generosity and contempt of money, this love of love and friendship and affection in any man in early manhood; but these qualities were Shakespeare's from youth to old age.
I say that Antonio was most courteous to all with one notable exception, and that exception was Shylock.
It has become the custom on the English stage for the actor to try to turn Shylock into a hero; but that was assuredly not Shakespeare's intention. True, he makes Shylock appeal to the common humanity of both Jew and Christian. ”

“ Shylock (takes Mrs. Petruchio’s hand.)
You are a widow, and I without a wife,
Seek, vainly seek, for joy in life—
Will you, in short, old Shylock wed?
Mrs. Pet.—Think you, sir, my reason’s fled. (Withdrawing hand indignantly.) Marry you? Never! Sooner would I see you hanged.
Shylock.—But are you happy?
Romeo.—
Happy in this, she is not yet so old
But she may learn; and happier than this,
She is not bred so dull but she can learn;
Happiest of all is, that her gentle spirit
Would ne’er commit itself to yours.
Shylock.—Go to, and why?
Mrs. Othello.—
Oh! ”

“ I have always felt in the acting that my desire to find extenuations for Shylock's race and for himself leaves me, and my heart grows almost as stony as his own. I see his fiendish nature fully revealed. I have seen the knife sharpened to cut quickly through the flesh, the scales brought forward to weigh it; have watched the cruel, eager eyes, all strained and yearning to see the gushing blood welling from the side 'nearest the heart,' and gloating over the fancied agonies and death-pangs of his bitter foe. This man-monster, this pitiless, savage nature, is beyond the pale of humanity ”

“ There is no proof there that Shylock is old, but a single line, "Bassanio and old Shylock, both stand forth,"—which does not imply that he is infirm with age—and the circumstance that he has a daughter marriageable, which does not imply that he is old at all. It would be too much to say that his body should be made crooked and deformed to answer to his mind, which is bowed down and warped with prejudices and passion. That he has but one idea, is not true ”

“ Shylock, the Jew, is one of the inimitable masterpieces of characterization which are to be found only in Shakspeare. It is easy for both poet and player to exhibit a caricature of national sentiments, modes of speaking, and gestures. Shylock, however, is everything but a common Jew: he possesses a strongly-marked and original individuality, and yet we perceive a light touch of Judaism in everything he says or does. ”

“ Shylock was going to take the money, when Portia again stopped him, saying, "Tarry, Jew; I have yet another hold upon you. By the laws of Venice, your wealth is forfeit to the state, for having conspired against the life of one of its citizens, and your life lies at the mercy of the duke; therefore down on your knees, and ask him to pardon you."
The duke then said to Shylock, "That you may see the difference of our Christian spirit, I pardon you your life before you ask it; half your wealth belongs to Antonio, the other half comes to the state." ”

“ Shylock extracts imaginary ink from his chest, and writes with one hand on the palm of the other, and cringingly produces a paper-knife—whereupon the transaction is complete, and the parties, becoming aware that a Grand Triumphal Procession is waiting to come in, and that they are likely to be in the way, tactfully suggest to one another the propriety of retiring. ”

“ Doubtless in private life Shylock was a very honest and well-behaved gentleman, not a mere mountebank as he is sometimes represented on the stage, but a vigorous and energetic man of the world, shrewd, sagacious, and long sighted in business, honored on change, respected by his friends, and a pattern of prudence and morality. ”

“ They would, perhaps, have favoured the public with a repetition of Shylock’s trial the next evening, but that, to the great consternation, and, perhaps, indignation of Beatrice, when she came down to breakfast in the morning, she found their tiring-room, the study, completely cleared of all their various goods and chattels, Portia’s wig in its box, the three caskets gone back to the dressing-room, the duke’s throne safe in its place in the hall, and even Shylock’s yellow cap picked to pieces, and rolled up in the general hoard of things which were to come of use in seven years’ time. ”

“ Shylock. Aye, good Tubal. The half my goods are now adjudged Antonio’s; the other half, upon my death, goes to the knave, Lorenzo; that same he that lately stole my ducats and my daughter.
Tubal. And merry havoc will he and thy daughter Jessica make of thy treasure, Shylock.
Shylock. But there is greater woe to come, good Tubal. To save this poor remainder of a life have I this day sworn to turn a Christian.
Tubal. Thou, turn Christian! O monstrous deed! Our synagogue will be put to everlasting shame for this. Nay, good Shylock, it must not be. It must not be. ”

“ It must have been that Irving was taken by surprise, and although his habit was always to speak from preparation, and often indeed to read what he had prepared, he proved himself, on this occasion, a master of good-humoured impromptu, twitting Lord Houghton, in a spirit of genial banter, with being a slave to the old-fashioned idea that Shylock was a comic villain, and promising on some future occasion to try and more amply satisfy his lordship’s ideal by representing Shylock as a Houndsditch Jew with three hats upon his head and a bag of lemons in his hands. ”

“ In tranquil moments, all that is foreign to the European blood and Christian sentiments is less perceptible, but in passion the national stamp comes out more strongly marked. All these inimitable niceties the finished art of a great actor can alone properly express. Shylock is a man of information, in his own way, even a thinker, only he has not discovered the region where human feelings dwell; his morality is founded on the disbelief in goodness and magnanimity. The desire to avenge the wrongs and indignities heaped upon his nation is, after avarice, his strongest spring of action. ”

“ When Shylock has been thwarted, he stands puckering his face into a thousand grimaces, like a child who has swallowed medicine. It is the emotion of children, naked sensation, not yet clothed by civilisation. Only the body speaks in it, the mind is absent; and the body abandons itself completely to the animal force of its instincts. With a great artist like Sada Yacco in the death scene of "The Geisha and the Knight," the effect is overwhelming; the whole woman dies before one's sight, life ebbs visibly out of cheeks and eyes and lips ”

“ As far as Shylock was concerned, I was well content he should be used in such a sort; but if it had been any other human creature, any other Jew even—if it had been poor Jacob, for instance, whose image crossed my recollection—I believe I should have taken part with him. Again, I was well satisfied that Antonio should have hindered Shylock of half a million, should have laughed at his losses, thwarted his bargains, cooled his friends, heated his enemies; Shylock deserved all this: but when he came to,
"What’s his reason?—I am a Jew. ”

“ A sunbeam that had lost its way on an old wall, a foolish song [Pg 408] thrown into the middle of a drama, occupied their mind as well as the blackest of catastrophes. After the horrible scene in which Shylock brandished his butcher's knife before Antonio's bare breast, they saw just as willingly the petty household wrangle, and the amusing bit of raillery which ends the piece. Like soft moving water, their soul rose and sank in an instant to the level of the poet's emotion, and their sentiments readily flowed in the bed he had prepared for them. ”

“ The legal acuteness, the passionate declamations, the sound maxims of jurisprudence, the wit and irony interspersed in it, the fluctuations of hope and fear in the different persons, and the completeness and suddenness of the catastrophe, cannot be surpassed. Shylock, who is his own counsel, defends himself well, and is triumphant on all the general topics that are urged against him, and only Tails through a legal flaw. ”

“ Not till the third scene do we see or hear of Shylock, and not until very near the end of the act is there any foreshadowing of what is to be the main crisis of the play. Not a single antecedent event has to be narrated to us; for the mere fact that Antonio has been uncivil to Shylock, and shown disapproval of his business methods, can scarcely be regarded as a preliminary outside the frame of the picture. ”

“ Naturally I took out “The Merchant of Venice” from the school library and in one day knew it by heart. I could learn good poetry by a single careful reading: bad poetry or prose was much harder.
Nothing in the play appealed to me except Shylock and the first time I heard Fawcett of the Sixth recite the part, I couldn’t help grinning: he repeated the most passionate speeches like a lesson in a singsong, monotonous voice. For days I went about spouting Shylock’s defiance and one day, as luck would have it, Stackpole heard me. ”

“ Shylock's bond was an omnipotent instrument compared with this knowledge of the finite, which remains the ignorance it always was, till the infinite by its own act has piece by piece placed itself in our hands. ”

“ Shylock's only offence is his seeking to make Antonio's life a matter of barter: what else is the accepted institution of slavery but the establishment of power over human flesh and blood and life, simply because these have been bought with money, precisely as Shylock has given good ducats for his rights over the flesh of Antonio? ”

“ The instant and immediate effect upon Shylock is positively crushing; he would rather die than submit. But the accent of despair is quickly succeeded by the words: “I am content,” although one of the conditions just introduced by Antonio is that the wretched man Shylock should{140} “presently become a Christian.” The change of mood is so amazing that we can hardly believe our senses. What can be the explanation? we ask ourselves. ”

“ The metaphor of the people, who are never mistaken, confirms, without knowing it, the inventions of the poet; and while Shakespeare makes Shylock, it creates the gripe-all. Shylock is the Jewish bargaining. He is also Judaism; that is to say, his whole nation,—the high as well as the low, faith as well as fraud; and it is because he sums up a whole race, such as oppression has made it, that Shylock is great. Jews, even those of the Middle Ages, might with reason say that not one of them is Shylock. Men of pleasure may with reason say that not one of them is Don Juan. ”

“ Shakespear's malignant has outlived Mr. Cumberland's benevolent Jew. In proportion as Shylock has ceased to be a popular bugbear, "baited with the rabble's curse," he becomes a half-favourite with the philosophical part of the audience, who are disposed to think that Jewish revenge is at least as good as Christian injuries. Shylock is a good hater; "a man no less sinned against than sinning." If he carries his revenge too far, yet he has strong grounds for "the lodged hate he bears Anthonio," which he explains with equal force of eloquence and reason. ”