title: The merchant of Venice ...
text: ■/, A •o- \ V ^. ° N ° o^ - 1 * V * ■fc <y + t .$. ^ V ^ o x O0' THE NUTSHEI^ LIBRARY Edited by Sherwin Cody- Assisted by Prof. Edward Dowden, LIj. D., D. O. 1i., of Dublin University, Prof. Richard Moul- ton of Chicago University, and others. Printed on high-grade book paper, -with spe- cial ink and careful press-work, from new plates. Two- color title-page, half-tone frontispiece, decorated front end- sheet. The Nutshell Library is designed to give the cream of modern literature in clearly printed lit- tle volumes that may be carried in the pocket and read in an evening. They are books that any man who cares to read will buy and place beside his standard complete editions. He will point with pride to his standard editions : he will read the Nutshell Library. Poetry is represented by favorite poems. There are comparatively few poems in any popular poet which we care to read more than once, but these few we will read again and again. Great care has been made in selecting the volumes of poems in the Nutshell Library, and the best literary judgment has been called upon, but the needs of the average reader have determined the final choice. ii THE NUTSHELL LIBRARY Essays and short stories have been treated in the same way. Novels have been presented in a unique fashion that the editor believes will become highly popu- lar. It takes twenty-five hours to read Vanity Fair, pronouncing the words at the highest rate of speed the human voice is capable of. But if the reader has only an evening to give to the book he will find in "Two Hours with Vanity Fair" just those parts he would wish to read again after he had read the entire book thoughtfully. There is enough of the plot to make everything clear and to keep up the interest, all the impor- tant characters are introduced in the author's own language, and the witty, the grand, the stirring, the amusing scenes are given nearly complete. The author of each great work is presented to the reader in a chatty biographical introduction, that gives all the essential facts of the author's life, and places him on a footing of personal ac- quaintance with the reader. These introductions double the value of the books, for to study an author is the best way to know his works. THE NUTSHELL LIBRARY m The books will be issued eight at a time. The following titles are in preparation : , Shakspere — Merchant of Venice. Longfellow — Favorite Poems and Courtship of Miles Standish. Scott — Tzvo Hours With Ivanhoe (a complete outline of the plot as setting for the great scenes and favorite chapters.) Irving — Rip Van Winkle, Legend of Sleepy Hol- low, etc. Hawthorne — Two Hours With the Scarlet Letter. Poe — Poems, The Gold-Bug, Murder in the Rue Morgue, etc. Holmes — Two Hours With the Autocrat (favorite poems and best scenes from the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.) Longfellow — Evangeline. Dickens — The Christmas Carol, and other stories. Dickens — Two Hours With Pickwick. Thackeray — Two Hours With Vanity Fair. Tennyson — Favorite poems. Franklin — His life, told from his Autobiography, and Sayings of Poor Richard. Lincoln — Life, with short outline of the Civil iv THE NUTSHELL LIBRARY War (a popular biography of America's favorite hero). Kipling — His most popular poems, and stories from Soldiers Three. Lamb — Essay on Roast Pig, and other favorite essays. SHAKSP€R€ TH€ KKRCHANT OF V6NICG JTtzszr 71953 ,a*£4 Copyright 1900, by Sherwin Cody. ji- ibiwuy of Con« NOV 7 1900 Cofjngftt entry SECtf WD COPY. OttOtH CftVBION, DEC 13 1900 Mote. The text used in this edition is based on the Globe Edition of W. G. Clark and W. Aldis Wnght, but alterations have been made where those estimable editors have seemed to adhere too closely to the probable misprints of the earlier editions. For convenience in reference, the numbering of the lines in the Globe Edition has been adopted, except in the prose pas- sages, where the numbers have been omitted. Shakspere. SHAKSPERE THE BEGINNING OF MODERN LITERATURE. Modern literature begins with Shakspere. When Homer wrote he embodied in his work the best that had been thought and felt in the world until his time. So Virgil, Dante, and Chaucer were each the sum of the best that had preceded them. This is true of Shakspere in still greater degree. Shakspere gives us the best in thought and feeling to be found anywhere in the world before his time. We might almost say that when we have read him we do not need to read Homer or Virgil or Dante, for in our reading of Shak- spere we have already become familiar with their best thoughts. From another point of view Shakspere is the beginning of modern literature. He is the oldest writer whose work we can read in the language in which it was written. The English of four hundred years ago is antiquated ; yet we can read the English of Shakspere and understand it with- out the help of a translator. The work of every writer before Shakspere is practically buried to us: we must read it through translations, or else by giving years to the study of the language in 2 SHAKSPERE which it is written. Such language and such lit- erature may appropriately enough be called dead. But Shakspere is fully alive to any one who will read him with care. In this sense, therefore, he marks the beginning of modern literature. But even if he were not first in point of time, he would be the starting point from which we would reckon in all our study of modern litera- ture, or any literature, because he is the greatest. To the student of modern literature, therefore, Shakspere must always be, like Greenwich, the prime meridian, from which literary longitude is reckoned east and west, the world over. WHAT WE KNOW OF THE MAN. We naturally wish to know something of the man who thus stands head and shoulders above all the other men of literature in the world's his- tory. Who was he? What was he? What did he do? All we know of the life of Shakspere is what has been gathered from church records, town rec- ords, account books, and very brief references to him in the works of his contemporaries. Tradi- tion has preserved some few stories about him; but no one thought of writing his life till he had been dead many years. BIRTH OF SHAKSPERE. William Shakspere was born at Stratford, on the river Avon, in Warwickshire, England. At <v at time it was a town of 1,400 inhabitants — in HIS LIFE 3 short, a country village ; but it was located in one of the most picturesque and beautiful regions imaginable, the very heart of England. The date of his birth we do not know. The church record shows that he was christened or baptized April 26, 1564. There is a tradition that the date of his death was the date of his birth — April 23 old style, or May 3 new style. shakspere's parents. John, the father of William Shakspere, was a well-to-do burgess of Stratford. He was a farmer, and he made and sold gloves. In time he rose to fill the posts of chamberlain, alderman, and high bailiff. William's mother, Mary Arden, belonged to a family of landed gentry dating back to a time be- fore the Conquest. Her father had died, and she brought her husband considerable property. William was the oldest of the family, though two baby girls had died before his birth. There were a sister and two brothers younger than him- self. One brother was -an actor and died in 1607. The older brother and the sister outlived their famous relative. SCHOOLING. Shakspere's father could not write his own name ; but his son must have had some education. His fellow playwright, Ben Jonson, describes his learning as "small Latin and less Greek." There was a Free Grammar School at Stratford, in 4 SHAKSPERE which presumably Latin, Greek, and mathematics were taught, as well as other studies usually re- quired in preparation for the universities. To this school John Shakspere, now in the height of his prosperity, doubtless sent his eldest son until he was fifteen or sixteen. PLAYERS AT STRATFORD. It appears in the town records that during the period of Shakspere's boyhood, say from the ages of ten to fifteen, the chamberlain of Stratford paid sums of money to "the Earl of Leicester's players," "my Lord of Warwick's players," and "the Earl of Worcester's players." During this period John Shakspere had become chief alder- man, and no doubt he, like the town of Stratford which he represented, welcomed and patronized the dramatic fraternity. Moreover, in 1575 Queen Elizabeth visited Kenilworth, which was within walking distance of Stratford, and we may well believe that Shakspere, a boy of eleven, was taken to see the magnificent shows with which Leicester welcomed his royal mistress, whose husband he hoped to be. In A Midsummer Night's Dream Oberon describes some of these shows with such accuracy that we cannot help supposing that the author of the play had witnessed those wonderful exhibitions at Kenilworth, the talk of England for many a year afterward. HIS LIFE 5 THE FAMILY FORTUNES DECLINE. Until 1578 John Shakspere seems to have been a prosperous and wealthy man, but now we find him mortgaging his wife's farm; then he is not required to pay the weekly levy for the relief of the poor; his borough taxes for 1579 are entered as "unpaid and unaccounted for." Finally he sells his wife's property; but his case grows only the worse. Six years later, on a writ to seize his goods for debt, return is made that John Shak- spere has nothing in which he is "able to be dis- trained." He is also deprived of his office as alderman because he "doth not come to the hall, nor hath not done of long time." He was even arrested and had to sue out a writ of habeas cor- pus. Even so late as 1592 the commission ap- pointed to investigate the conformity of the peo- ple of Warwickshire to the established religion notes the failure of John Shakspere to appear monthly at church, and sets it down to the fear of "processe of debt." From this period his for- tunes steadily improve until his death in 1601. This change in the tide of his financial affairs we may safely attribute to the success of his son as a dramatist. We may guess from this, also, that 1592 is the date which marks the beginning of Shakspere's popularity. shakspere's youth. What the future dramatist did between the time at which he left school, presumably on account 6 SHAKSPERE of the decline of his father's fortunes, and the date of his marriage, we do not know. There is one tradition that he was apprenticed to a butcher, another that he was a country schoolmaster, and some suppose, from the accuracy of his legal allu- sions, that he spent some time in an attorney's office. MARRIAGE. All we actually know of this period is that at the age of eighteen he married Anne Hathaway, the daughter of a yeoman, at Shottery, a hamlet near Stratford. License was granted by the bishop of Worcester in November, 1582, for a marriage upon once asking of the bans ; and their first child was baptized May 26, 1583. The wife was eight years older than her husband, and the irregularities revealed by the dates suggest some- thing more than a little wildness in the young man's character. In 1585 William Shakspere be- came the father of twins, Hamnet and Judith. The son Hamnet died in 1596; the daughter is mentioned in his will. DEER- STEALING. We have no certain information ' concerning Shakspere from the year 1585, when his twin children were born, to 1592, when the dramatist Greene alludes in bitter terms to the rising play- wright, who has become his rival. Tradition has it that he was obliged to leave Stratford be- cause of a deer-stealing escapade. According to this story, the young poet made some verses on HIS LIFE 7 Sir Thomas Lucy, whose estate of Charlcote was near Stratford and who had been irritated by the robbing of his deer-close. One verse only of the poem has this tradition preserved, but its reference to "lowsie Lucy" is sufficiently insulting to account for Sir Thomas' ire. Sir Thomas Lucy was a member of Parliament, of the Puritan party, and about this time is known to have in- troduced into Parliament a bill for the preserva- tion of game. In The Merry Wives of Wind- sor Shakspere makes Justice Shallow complain that Sir John Falstaff had broken open his lodge and killed his deer; moreover, there are "luces" in the Shallow coat-of-arms. The Welsh parson misunderstands this word and says, "the dozen white louses do become an old coat well" — a bit of gentle revenge which we may imagine the suc- cessful dramatist taking in this play written especially at the request of the Queen. GOES UP TO LONDON. In 1587 the "Queen's Players" were at Strat- ford, and possibly Shakspere went back to Lon- don with the company. There is a tradition that he began life in the great city by holding horses outside the doors of the theatres. The fact is, however, that we have no knowledge at all as to how he got his start in the dramatic world. The first record we have is the allusion made by Robert Greene in his Greenes Groatsworth of Wit bought with a Million of Repentance. This was a pamphlet published immediately after Greene's 8 SHAKSPERE death by his executor, Henry Chettle. The play- wright on his deathbed warns certain of his author friends against putting their trust in players : "Yes, trust them not:" says he; "for there is an upstart Crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his tygers heart wrapt in a players hide, sup- poses he is as well able to bumbast out a blank verse as the best of you : and being an absolute Johannes factotum, is in his owne conceit the onely Shakescene in a country." The words "a tygers heart wrapt in a players hide" are a parody on a line from the Third Part of Henry VI., Oh tygers heart wrapt in a woman's hide. Shakspere had recast this play from a preceding play entitled The True Tragedie of Richard, Duke of York, of which Greene may himself have been the author, and from which, at any rate, Shaks- pere has borrowed the line referred to. A few months later, in December, 1592, a pamphlet entitled Kind-Harts Dream, by Henry Chettle, appeared. It seems that Shakspere and Marlowe had taken offence at the references in Greenes Groatsworth. Replying to these Chettle says that as for one of them (Marlowe), while he reverences his learning he has nothing to answer for, and cares not ever to make his acquaintance. Then he goes on: "The other [Shakspere] whome at that time I did not so much spare as since I wish I had. ... I am as sory as if the originall fault had beene my fault, because my selfe have seene his demeanor no lesse civill, than he exelent in the qualitie he professes; be- HIS LIFE 9 sides, divers of worship have reported his up- rightnes of dealing, which argues his honesty, and his facetious grace in writing, that approoves his art." ("Qualitie" was used of the actor's profession, and this is a compliment to Shakspere as an actor. "Facetious" means felicitous, happy.) SHAKSPERE AT THE AGE OF 28. A careful study of these references to Shak- spere does not, I think, warrant us in saying more than that in perhaps five years' time Shakspere had won for himself a respectable standing as an actor, and that he had rewritten the plays of others. Greene's - ath is far more likely to arise from the fact that Shakspere had remodelled one of his plays, to his loss and discredit, than that the young dramatist was proving a successful rival with original plays. We also see that Shakspere is a "good fellow," 1 a gentleman, and an actor and author of parts. He has just come on to the broad stage of public life ; and he is bearing himself modestly and well. FIRST PUBLISHED POEMS. Precisely what success, if any in particular, brought Shakspere into notice in 1592 we cannot say. But evidently fortune's tide had turned in his favor in this year, and not only is he able to help his father out of debt, but he begins to think seriously of winning literary reputation. In 1593 Venus and Adonis, "the first heire of my inven- 10 SHAKSPERE tion," as he calls it, was published with a dedi- cation to the Earl of Southampton. This young lord was nine years his junior; but evidently the two were excellent friends, though in the appeal of his dedication Shakspere is very modest. In his Lucrece, published the following year, 1594, he speaks as if he were thoroughly confident of the Earl's friendship, which was no doubt balanced on his side by the rising reputation Shakspere was winning. These two poems made a distinct literary success. In London the successful author who is also a gentleman by nature has always been given a social position next to the aristocracy. We may conclude, therefore, that Shakspere had had that ample measure of literary popularity which should make his social position secure. Southampton was a generous and high- spirited young man, perhaps the model for Shak- spere's chivalrous heroes in his earlier comedies. There is a tradition that the noble earl once gave or offered the dramatist £1,000 to carry out some purchase. This is doubtless an exaggera- tion; but we soon find our author and actor buy- ing land and applying in the name of his father for a coat-of-arms. PROSPERITY. At Christmas time, 1593, the Lord Chamber- lain's company of players performed before Queen Elizabeth, and Shakspere's name is in the list of actors. In 1596 John Shakspere applied for a grant of coat armor, and in the following year the HIS LIFE 11 grant was made by the Garter King-of-Arms. We presume from this that Shakspere had con- ceived an ambition to found a family; but he was doomed to disappointment in his respect, for his only son died in the same year his father applied for the coat-of-arms. In 1597 Shakspere bought an excellent dwelling at Stratford, known as New Place, for the sum of £6o. It is evident that he had retained his interest in his native town and was planning to return there to live at some future time. This interest in Stratford is attested by a letter dated 1598 from Master Abraham Sturley to Richard Quiney (father of Shakspere's future son-in- law). Mr. Quiney is in London soliciting certain favors for the town of Stratford, and Mr. Sturley suggests that he will succeed through Mr. Shak- spere's social influence. Later in the year we have a letter from Quiney to Shakspere (the only let- ter to the poet still in existence) begging a loan of £30. Further evidence of Shakspere's financial prosperity would hardly be required ; but we know from records that in this year he was an owner of corn and malt at Stratford, and paid taxes of £5 13s. 4& in St. Helen's parish, Bishops- gate, London. SUCCESS AS A DRAMATIST. We have no specific mention of any of Shak- spere's plays until 1597. In that year Richard II., Richard III., and Romeo and Juliet were printed. The following year Francis Meres in his Palladis 12 SHAKSPERE Tamia, Wit's Treasury, mentions twelve plays by Shakspere, and refers to his "sugred sonnets among his private friends." From this time on pirated and other editions of the plays follow in rapid succession. It is clear that the five years following 1592 had been crowded with literary work ; but in those days a play was usually the property of the com- pany which produced it, and unless it was very remarkable did not bring the author into particu- lar notice. Shakspere was an actor, and finally became a manager. When his ability as a writer of plays was discovered, it is not unnatural that it was frequently called into requisition by the managers of the company to which he belonged. Apparently, however, his plays did not attract particular attention outside the green-room circle until the production of Romeo and Juliet in the autumn of 1596. Early in the next year this play was published in quarto "as it hath been often, with great applause plaid publiquely by the right Honourable the L of Hunsdon his servants." Now Henry Lord Hunsdon who was Lord Chamberlain until his death, died July 22, 1596, and his son George Lord Hunsdon was appointed Chamberlain in April, 1597. At any other time than between these two dates the players would have been spoken of as "the Lord Chamberlain's servants." The natural conclusion to be drawn, therefore, is that Romeo and Juliet was produced in the autumn of 1596, and had such a run that some pub- HIS LIFE 13 lisher was tempted to print it. Moreover, it was doubtless this burst of popularity which called forth the reference by Meres already spoken of. In 1598 he wrote: "As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for Comedy and Tragedy among the Latines, so Shakespeare among the English is most excellent in both kinds for the stage: for Comedy, witness his Gentlemen of Verona, his Love labours lost, his Love labours wonne, his Midsummers night dreame, and his Merchant of Venice; for Tragedy, his Richard the 2, Richard the 3, Henry the 4, King John, Titus Andronicus, and his Romeo and Juliet." We can only conjecture what "Love labours wonne" refers to. Perhaps it was All's Well that Ends Well. PERIOD OF HIS GREATEST PLAYS. Romeo and Juliet and The Merchant of Venice were probably produced in the same year, and mark the transition from the first period of his production to the second. Such plays as Two Gentlemen of Verona, A Comedy of Errors, and A Midsummer Night's Dream are light and graceful, but present no great or striking char- acters. They are full of rhymes, puns, and plays upon words. These formed the fashionable wit of the period. To us it is somewhat tame, and we see that fashions lose their flavor. In so far as Shakspere catered to the times, his plays are things of the past. But like every successful 14 SHAKSPERE workman, he began by doing better than others what others about him were doing. in the two plays mentioned above as marking his transition to something better, we find the same puns and rhymes, and Romeo and Juliet has traces of bombast; but we find also for the first time strong characters. Shakspere was be- ginning to feel his powers, no doubt uncon- sciously; and the popular success was probably as great a surprise to himself as to any one else. But he at once rose to the opportunity which his unexpected success had presented and, throwing off much of the cheap wit and the cheap methods of the stage of that day, he poured himself out in a series of great and striking characters. SECRET OF SHAKSPERE'S GREATNESS. Shakspere's peculiar greatness is only partially due to an inspired gift of language; for though he is a master of language in his broad grasp and power of expression, he often indulges in bombast and a cheap twittering in which we must confess there is no poetry whatever, even if it did come from the pen of the greatest of poets. Nor is his especial greatness to be found in his literary skill and felicity in plot construction. Shakspere is so great because he has created so many great men and women. Hamlet is a great man; Portia is a great woman; Macbeth, Iago, Lear, Brutus and Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, all impress us with their power. It is easy to create ordinary men and women; only a truly great man can create HIS LIFE 15 a great man or woman. In all literature we have no greater characters than those Shakspere has given us, and that is why we call him the greatest of writers. SHAKSPERE AS AN ACTOR. Shakspere, poet and dramatist though he was, clung to his profession through nearly the entire period of his greatest success as an author, and continued to act not only in his own plays, but in those of others. In 1598 we know that he acted in Ben Jonson's first comedy, Every Man in his Humour. Again in 1603 we find him in the list of actors in Jonson's Sejanus. Hamlet, Julius Caesar, and other great and successful plays had already appeared; yet at the zenith of his repu- tation we see that he is still attending to his regular business. In 1602 he purchased for £320 one hundred and seven acres in the parish of Old Stratford, and later in the year a smaller property. In 1605 he bought for £440 the unexpired lease of the tithes of Stratford, Old Stratford, Bishopton, and Wel- combe. And there is evidence that during this entire time he was engaged in a malt business. LATER YEARS. It is probable that Shakspere had some interest in the Globe theatre, and perhaps acted as man- ager, and subsequently derived an income from it. We presume that about 1612 he left London and went to live at Stratford. In 1613 he bought a 16 SHAKSPERE house near Blackfriars Theatre and leased it to a tenant for ten years. In 1614 we find him pro- testing against the enclosure of common lands near Stratford, declaring that "he was not able to bear the enclosure of Welcombe." March 25, 1616, he executed his will, and in less than a month he had died. The Vicar of Stratford noted fifty years later that "Shakspere, Drayton, and Ben Jonson had a merry meeting, and it seems drank too hard, for Shakspere died of a fever there contracted." Whether this is myth or history it would be hard to say ; but scandalous gossip, we may be certain, never grows less in fifty years. In his will the greater part of his property was left to his eldest daughter, Susanna Hall, and her husband. To his wife he left only his "second- best bed;" a bequest by no means insulting, for she had a widow's dower rights, which must have amply provided for her without any specific be- quest in the will. His daughter Susanna had a daughter Elizabeth, who married a Mr. Nash and was Shakspere's last living descendant. LIKENESSES OF THE POET. Shakspere was buried in the parish church at Stratford, and a few years later a bust was erected, supposed to have been modelled from a death-mask. It was colored originally — the eyes hazel, the hair and beard auburn. On the flat HIS LIFE 17 stone above his grave may be read the following inscription, said to have been written by Shak- spere himself: "Good frend, jtor Jesus sake forbeare To digg the dust enclosed heare, Blest be the man that spares thes stones, And curst be he that moves my bones." The first collected edition of Shakspere's works, published seven years after his death, has a por- trait engraved by Droeshout. This engraving and the bust are the only two likenesses of which we can be certain; but there is a painting in the Na- tional Portrait Gallery in London which is gener- ally regarded as an authentic likeness. It is the so-called Chandos portrait, and represents the poet with a full, pointed beard. It represents a more delicate and sensitive face than either the bust or the engraving, and by popular choice this has been fixed upon as the true face of Shakspere. It is the one appearing in this volume. WORKS. The first collected edition of Shakspere's works was the "Folio of 1623," set forth by his "friends" and "fellows" John Heminge and Henry Condell. However, some of the separate plays had previously been published in quarto form, as the dates given below will indicate. The copy for many of these quartos was either stolen or ob- tained by reporters sent to the theatre to take down the speeches as they were delivered. 18 SHAKSPERE Much time and effort have been devoted by Shakspere scholars to determining the dates of his plays. Moreover, various plays have been at- tributed to Shakspere on which grave doubt has been thrown. Much of this work has doubtless been futile and the results are not to be trusted. Certain dates, however, are fixed by contemporary references, and to the ordinary mind these are quite sufficient. The first of these dates is 1592. We are safe in supposing that previous to that time Shakspere devoted his dramatic talents chiefly to remodelling old plays. Of these, internal evidence leads us to suppose that we have examples in Titus An- dronicus, and 1 Henry VI., published 1600 ; again 1611; perhaps in 1594; retouched by Shakspere before 1592. Next we have the comedies and histories men- tioned by Meres in 1598, three of which had been published in 1597. These are : FIRST PUBLISHED! Love's Labour's Lost 1598 Comedy of Errors 1623 Two Gentlemen of Verona 1623 A Midsummer Night's Dream 1600 2 & 3 Henry VI. 1623 Richard II. 1597 Richard III. 1597 King John 1623 Merchant of Venice 1600 Romeo and Juliet — 1597 (pirated) 1599 HIS LIFE 19 The last is a tragedy and marks the transition to the next period. (In the following list the dates affixed to the titles are those given by Pro- fessor Dowden for the writing of the plays) : EIRST PUBLISHED. HISTORY. I & 2 Henry IV. — 1597-8 (1st) 1598; (2nd) 1600 Henry V. — 1599 (pirated) 1600 COMEDY. Taming of the Shrew — 1597 ? 1623 Merry Wives of Windsor — 1598 ? 1602 Much Ado About Nothing — 1598 1600 As You Like It — 1599 1623 Twelfth Night — 1600- 1 1623 All's Well That Ends Well— 1601-2 ? 1623 Measure for Measure — 1603 1623 Troilus and Cressida — 1603 I ; re- vised 1607 ? 1609 TRAGEDY. Julius Csesar— 1601 1623 Hamlet — 1602; 1603 (pirated) 1604 Othello— 1604 1622 King Lear — 1605 1608 Macbeth— 1606 1623 Anthony and Cleopatra — 1607 1623 Coriolanus— 1608 1623 Timon of Athens— 1607-8 1623 20 SHAKSPERE FIRST PUBLISHED ROMANCES. Pericles — 1608 1609 Cymbeline — 1609 1623 The Tempest — 1610 1623 A Winter's Tale — 1610-11 1623 FRAGMENTS. Two Noble Kinsmen — 1612 1623 Henry VIII. — 1612-13 1623. POEMS. Venus and Adonis — 1592 ? 1593 Lucrece— 1593-4 1594 Sonnets — 1595-1605 ? 1609 A careful study of Shakspere's plays in the order indicated above will reveal the progress of his skill and the development of his nature and character. The first comedies are light and clever, and in. form and manner not much out of the range of other comedies of the period. The histories show substantial workmanship, but with the exception of Richard III. no very remarkable characters. In Romeo and Juliet we have the introduc- tion of tragedy, and with it Shakspere's greatest characters. His later comedies also show the breadth and range of his thought and feeling and his grasp of every phase of life. This was his period of thought, of passionate feeling, of greatest mental energy. HIS LIFE 21 The romances are his later work. The strug- gles and sufferings of life passed, and success won, he seems to rise lightly and confidently above all that would drag us down. We have the view of life of a man who looks on it from the height of success. These are by no means Shakspere's greatest plays. They have not the strength, the energy, and depth of the tragedies and comedies of the middle period. They are, however, from the artistic point of view, more nearly perfect; and they breathe the confident spirit of the man who has succeeded and has the right to speak from the point of view of success. ORIGINALITY. Though we may boldly say that Shakspere is the one great original English writer, yet he bor- rowed his plots, and even many of his phrases, from other writers. He freely used the worthless plays of those who had gone before him, and there is scarcely a plot that was not derived from some romance or history accessible to him in English. Yet in none of these do we find the character of Hamlet or Portia or Iago or Lear. In giving us these he gave us what no one else could give. S her win Cody. friends to Antonio and Bassanio. DRAMATIS PERSON^. The Duke of Venice. The Prince of Morocco, ) The Prince of Arragon, f sultors to Portia ' Antonio, a merchant of Venice. Bassanio, his friend, suitor likewise to Portia. Salanio, Salarino, Gratiano , Salerio, Lorenzo, in love with Jessica. Shylock, a rich Jew. Tubal, a Jew, his friend. Launcelot Gobbo, the clown, servant to Shylock. Old Gobbo, father to Launcelot. Leonardo, servant to Bassanio. Balthasar, ) y servants to Portia. Stephano, ) Portia, a rich heiress. Nerissa, her waiting-maid. Jessica, daughter to Shylock. 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. The Merchant of Venice.* ACT I. Enter Antonio,t Salarino, and Salanio. Ant. In sooth, I know not why I am so sad : It wearies me ; you say it wearies you ; But how I caught it, found it, or came by it, What stuff 'tis made of, whereof it is born, I am to learn; And such a want-wit sadness makes of me, That I have much ado to know myself. Salar. Your mind is tossing on the ocean ; There, where your argosies$ with portly sail, Like signiors and rich burghers of the flood, 10 Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea, * The incidents of the caskets and the pound of flesh are found in medieval Italian, Persian and Egyptian romances, and had doubt- less been used in English ballads and dramas before Shakspere's time. In a pamphlet published in 1579 Stephen Gosson mentions a certain play as " The Jew, shown at the Bull, representing the greed of worldly choosers, and the bloody minds of usurers." It is not un- likely that this was the basis of Shakspere's play. t Antonio, the merchant, after whom the play is named, does not have a leading role in it; but though he himself does nothing, he is the centre about which the events of the play move, the object of the love or hatred or anxiety and ingenuity of the other actors. There- fore the play is properly named for him rather than for Shylock, the strongest character. X Large ships. 23 24 THE MERCHANT lAct I Do overpeer the petty traffickers, That curtsy to them, do them reverence, As they fly by them with their woven wings. Salan. Believe me, sir, had I such venture forth, The better part of my affections would Be with my hopes abroad. I should be still Plucking the grass to know where sits the wind, Peering in maps for ports and piers and roads*; And every object that might make me fear 20 Misfortune to my ventures, out of doubt Would make me sad. Salar. My wind cooling my broth Would blow me to an ague, when I thought What harm a wind too great at sea might do. I should not see the sandy hour-glass run, But I should think of shallows and of flats, And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand, * Vailingf her high-top lower than her ribs To kiss her burial. Should I go to church And see the holy edifice of stone, 30 And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks, Which touching but my gentle vessel's side, Would scatter all her spices on the stream, Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks, And, in a word, but even now worth this$, And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought To think on this, and shall I lack the thought That such a thing bechanced would make me sad? But tell not me ; I know, Antonio * Roadsteads. _ t Letting fall. The ship tipped on its side in the sand has its high-top lower than its ribs. X Understand a gesture here, indicating something large. Scene I] OF VENICE 25 Is sad to think upon his merchandise. 4° Ant. Believe me, no ; I thank my fortune for it, 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. Salar. Why, then you are in love. Ant. Fie, fie ! Salar. Not in love neither*? Then let us say you are sad, Because you are not merry ; and 'twere as easy For you to laugh and leap and say you are merry, Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janusf, 50 Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time : Some that will evermore peep through their eyes And laugh like parrots at a bag-piper, And other of such vinegar aspect That they'll not show their teeth in way of smile, Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable. Enter Bassanio, Lorenzo, and Gratiano. Salan. Here comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman, Gratiano and Lorenzo. Fare ye well : We leave you now with better company. Salar. I would have stay'd till I had made you merry. If worthier friends had not prevented! me. 61 Ant. Your worth is very dear in my regard. I take it, your own business calls on you And you embrace the occasion to depart. * Double negatives were grammatical in Shakspere's time, t Janus had a face in front and one behind. (January was named for him.) t Anticipated. 26 THE MERCHANT {Act I Salar. Good morrow, my good lords. Bass. Good signiors both, when shall we laugh? say, when? You grow exceeding strange : must it be so ? Salar. We'll make our leisures to attend on yours. [Exeunt Salarino and Salanio. Lor. My Lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio, We two will leave you : but at dinner-time, 70 I pray you, have in mind where we must meet. Bass. I will not fail you. Gra. You look not well, Signior Antonio; You have too much respect* upon the world : 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 onef. Gra. Let me play the fool : With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come, 80 And let my liver rather heat with wine Than my heart cool with mortifying groans. Why should a man whose blood is warm within Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster? Sleep when he wakes and creep into the jaundice By being peevish ? I tell thee what, Antonio — I love thee, and it is my love that speaks — There are a sort of men whose visages Do cream and mantle like a standing pond, And do a wilful stillness entertain, 90 With purpose to be dress' d in an opinion * Concern. t Antonio's sadness seems to presage his disaster in forfeiting the pound of flesh. Scene I] OF VENICE 27 Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit, As who should say 'I am Sir Oracle, And when I ope my lips let no dog bark !' 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 Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools. I'll tell thee more of this another time : ioo But fish not, with this melancholy bait, For this fool gudgeon*, this opinion. Come, good Lorenzo. Fare ye well awhile; I'll end my exhortation after dinner. Lor. Well, we will leave you then till dinner-time : 1 must be one of these same dumb wise men, For Gratiano never lets me speak. Gra. Well, keep me company but two years moef, Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue. Ant. Farewell: I'll grow a talker for this gear.$ no Gra. Thanks, i' faith, for silence is only commendable In a neat's tongue dried and a maid not vendible. [Exeunt Gratiano and Lorenzo. Ant. Is that anything 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 same To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage, 120 * The gudgeon was a fish easily caught. t More. % Any business in hand. 28 THE MERCHANT LAct I That you to-day promised to tell me of? Bass. 'Tis not unknown to you, Antonio, How much I have disabled mine estate, By something showing a more swelling port Than my faint means would grant continuance: Nor do I now make moan to be abridged From such a noble rate ; but my chief care Is to come fairly off from the great debts Wherein my time something too prodigal 130 Hath left me gaged*. To you, Antonio, I owe the most, in money and in love, And from your love I have a warranty To unburden all my plots and purposes How to get clear of all the debts I owe. Ant. I pray you, good Bassanio, let me know it; And if it stand, as you yourself still do, Within the eye of honour, be assured, My purse, my person, my extremest means, Lie all unlock'd to your occasions. Bass. In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft, 140 I shot his fellow of the self-same flight The self-same way with more advised watch, To find the other forth, and by adventuring both I oft found both ; I urge this childhood proof, Because what follows is pure innocence. " I owe you much, and, like a wilful youth, - That which I owe is lost ; but if you please To shoot another arrow that selff way Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt, As I will watch the aim, or to find both 150 Or bring your latter hazard back again * Engaged, pledged. t Self-same, same. Scene I] OF VENICE 29 And thankfully rest debtor for the first. Ant. You know me well, and herein spend but time To wind about my love with' circumstance ; And out of doubt you do me now more wrong In making question of my uttermost Than if you had made waste of all I have ; Then do but say to me what I should do That in your knowledge may by me be done, And I am prest* unto it; therefore, speak. 160 Bass. In Belmont is a lady richly left ; And she is fair and, fairer than that word, Of wondrous virtues : sometimes from her eyes I -did receive fair speechless messages : Her name is Portia, nothing undervalued To Cato's daughter, Brutus' Portia: Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth, For the four winds blow in from every coast Renowned suitors, and her sunny locks Hang on her temples like a golden fleece; 170 Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strand, And many Jasons come in quest of her. my Antonio, had I but the means To hold a rival place with one of themf, 1 have a mind presages me such thrift, That I should questionless be fortunate! Ant. Thou know'st that all my fortunes are at sea ; Neither have I money nor commodity To raise a present sum ; therefore go forth ; Try what my credit can in Venice do : 180 That shall be rack'd, even to the uttermost, To furnish thee to Belmont, to fair Portia. * Prompt, ready. t As one of them. 30 THE MERCHANT {Act I Go, presently inquire, and so will I, Where money is, and I no question make To have it of my trust or for my sake. [Exeunt. Scene II. Belmont. A Room in Portia's House. Enter Portia and Nerissa. Por. By my troth, Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world. Ner. You would be, sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same abundance as your good fortunes are; and yet, for aught I see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with noth- ing. It is no small happiness, therefore, be seated in the mean : superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer. Por. Good sentences and well pronounced. Ner. They would be better, if well followed. Por. If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches and poor men's cot- tages princes' palaces. It is a good divine that fol- lows his own instructions : I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree : such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o'er the meshes of good counsel the cripple. 