The Merchant of Venice Act 1 Scene 3

Three thousand ducats. Right.

Yes, sir. For three months.

For three months. Right.

And for which, as I told you, Antonio will stand surety.

Antonio will stand surety. Right.

Can you help me? Will you oblige me?

May I have your answer?

Three thousand ducats for three months, and Antonio standing surety.

And your answer to that?

Antonio is a good man.

Have you heard anything suggesting otherwise?

Oh, no, no, no, no. When I say he is a good man I mean you to understand that he is good for the money. But his assets are guesswork. He has one merchant ship bound for Tripoli, another for the

Indies. I gather, too, from talk at the Exchange, he has a third at Mexico, a fourth heading for England, and other ventures scattered abroad. But ships are only planks and sailors are only men. There are land rats and water rats, water thieves and land thieves — pirates, I mean — and then there's the danger of water, wind and rock. All the same, the man is good for it. Three thousand ducats.

I think I can accept his bond. (Every word of this is sound commercial analysis, and all of it turns out to be right. Shylock does in half a minute the risk assessment Antonio waved away in the first scene of the play.)

You can be assured of it.

I will be assured of it. And so that I can be assured, I'll think it over. May I speak with

Antonio?

If you'd care to have dinner with us.

Yes — to smell pork. To eat the animal your prophet of Nazareth drove the devil into. I'll buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so on. But I will not eat with you, drink with you or pray with you. — What's the news at the Exchange? — Who's this coming here? (He is describing the exact arrangement Venice offers him: trade with us, do not eat with us, do not pray with us. That is not a preference he is stating. It is the deal.)

This is Signior Antonio.

(aside) How like a cringing tax-collector he looks.

I hate him because he's a Christian —

but more because, in his stupid simplicity,

he lends money free of charge, and drives down

the going interest rate here in Venice. (Two reasons, and he ranks them. Being a Christian is the smaller one; the larger is that Antonio undercuts his trade. The audience is given his motive before it is given his grievance.)

If I can once get him at a disadvantage,

I'll fatten up the old grudge I carry against him.

He hates our sacred people, and he abuses me —

right where the merchants gather thickest —

about me, my deals and my honestly earned profit,

which he calls 'usury'. Cursed be my people

if I forgive him.

Shylock — are you listening?

I'm working out what I've got to hand,

and by my rough recollection

I can't immediately raise the full sum

of three thousand ducats. But what of it?

Tubal, a wealthy Hebrew of my people,

will supply me. But wait — how many months

did you want? (to Antonio) Good day to you, good sir.

Your worship was the very man we were speaking of.

Shylock, although I neither lend nor borrow

with interest either way,

still, to meet my friend's urgent needs,

I'll break my rule. (to Bassanio) Has he been told yet

how much you want?

Yes, yes — three thousand ducats.

And for three months.

I'd forgotten — three months. (to Bassanio)

You did tell me. —

Well then, your bond. Now let me see — but listen, though:

I thought you said you neither lend nor borrow

at interest.

I never do.

When Jacob was grazing his uncle Laban's sheep —

this Jacob was, from our holy Abraham,

and thanks to his clever mother's work on his behalf,

the third to inherit; yes, the third —

And what about him? Did he charge interest?

No — not charge interest. Not what you'd call

interest outright. But note what Jacob did.

When he and Laban had agreed

that all the newborn lambs that came out streaked and spotted

should be Jacob's wages — the ewes being in season

at the end of autumn were put to the rams,

and while the business of breeding was

going on between the woolly pair,

the crafty shepherd peeled some sticks bare,

and during the act of mating

he stuck them up in front of the ewes in heat,

who then conceived and, come lambing time,

dropped multicoloured lambs — and those were Jacob's.

That was a way to prosper, and he was blessed for it.

And profit is a blessing, so long as it isn't stolen. (Jacob agreed to be paid only in spotted lambs, then rigged the breeding so that spotted lambs were what he got. Shylock is using scripture to argue that clever profit is holy.)

That was a gamble, sir, that Jacob worked for —

something he had no power to make happen,

but which was steered and shaped by the hand of heaven.

Was that put in the Bible to justify charging interest?

Or is your gold and silver made of ewes and rams?

I couldn't say. I make it breed just as quickly.

But listen to me, sir —

(aside to Bassanio) Note this, Bassanio:

the devil can quote scripture when it suits him.

An evil soul producing holy evidence

is like a villain with a smile on his face —

a fine-looking apple rotten in the middle.

What a handsome outside a lie can have. (Shylock has just made an argument from scripture. Antonio does not answer the argument; he says that the man making it is a devil, which settles nothing about the argument and everything about the room.)

Three thousand ducats. A good round sum.

Three months out of twelve — now let me see, the rate —

Well, Shylock — are we to be in your debt?

Signior Antonio, many and many a time

at the Exchange you have abused me

about my money and my lending at interest.

I have always borne it with a patient shrug,

because putting up with it is the badge our whole people wear. (A badge was the mark a servant wore to show whose household he belonged to. He is saying that endurance is the uniform he has been issued.)

You call me an unbeliever, a cut-throat dog,

and you spit on my Jewish coat,

and all because I use what belongs to me.

Well — now it turns out you need my help.

So here we are. You come to me and say,

'Shylock, we should like some money.' You say that —

you, who emptied your spit onto my beard

and kicked me the way you'd kick a stray dog

off your doorstep. Money is what you're asking for.

What am I supposed to say to you? Shouldn't I say,

'Does a dog have money? Is it possible

for a mongrel to lend three thousand ducats?' Or

should I bow low and, in a slave's voice,

with held breath and whispering humility,

say this: 'Fair sir, you spat on me last Wednesday;

you kicked me on such-and-such a day; another time

you called me a dog — and in return for these kindnesses

I'll lend you this much money'?

I'm every bit as likely to call you that again,

to spit on you again, and to kick you too. (Shylock itemised the abuse — the name, the spitting, the kicking — and Antonio disputes none of it. He confirms all three and undertakes to repeat them, in the same breath as asking for the money.)

If you're going to lend this money, don't lend it

as to a friend — when did friendship ever charge

a friend interest on metal that can't breed?

Lend it to your enemy instead,

so that if he defaults you can, with a clearer conscience,

enforce the penalty.

Just look how you rage at me.

I'd like to be friends with you and have your goodwill,

to forget the humiliations you've marked me with,

meet your present needs, and take not one penny

of interest for my money — and you won't even listen.

What I'm offering is kindness.

That would be kindness.

This is the kindness I'll show you.

Come with me to a lawyer, and sign there

a plain bond. And, as a bit of fun,

if you don't repay me on such a day,

at such a place, the sum or sums

set out in the terms, then let the penalty

be specified as one exact pound

of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken

from whichever part of your body I please. (He calls it a joke, and then dictates it as a legal clause: an exact pound, cut where he chooses. Both men hear the precision and sign anyway.)

Agreed, by all means. I'll sign a bond like that,

and say there's a great deal of kindness in the Jew.

You will not sign a bond like that for my sake.

I'd sooner stay poor.

Don't worry, man — I won't default on it.

Within two months — a month before

this bond falls due — I expect returns

of nine times what the bond is worth.

Oh, father Abraham — what these Christians are like,

whose own harsh dealing teaches them to suspect

everyone else's motives. Tell me this, please:

if he missed his deadline, what would I gain

by enforcing the penalty?

A pound of human flesh, taken off a man,

isn't as valuable — or as profitable —

as mutton or beef or goat. I tell you,

I'm offering this friendship to buy his goodwill.

If he'll take it, good. If not, goodbye.

And for the affection I'm showing, please don't think badly of me.

Yes, Shylock. I'll sign this bond.

Then meet me at the lawyer's straight away.

Give him instructions for this merry bond.

I'll go and bag up the ducats immediately,

see to my house — which is left in the alarming care

of a wasteful servant — and shortly

I'll be with you.

Off you go, gentle Jew. ('Gentle' and 'Gentile' sounded nearly the same, and the pun is meant. Antonio's parting words to him are a joke about him ceasing to be a Jew, and the next line says it outright.)

The Hebrew will turn Christian — he's growing kind.

I don't like generous terms from a villainous mind.

Come on — there's nothing to worry about here.

My ships come home a month before the deadline.