You may as well do any thing most hard,

As seek to soften that (than which what's harder?)
His Jewish heart :-Therefore, I do beseech you,
Make no more offers, use no further means,
But, with all brief and plain conveniency,
Let me have judgment, and the Jew his will.

BASS. For thy three thousand ducats here is six.
SHY. If every ducat in six thousand ducats
Were in six parts, and every part a ducat,
I would not draw them, I would have my bond.
DUKE. How shalt thou hope for mercy, rend'ring

none?

SHY. What judgment shall I dread, doing no

wrong!

You have among you many a purchas'd slave,2
Which, like your asses, and your dogs, and mules,
You use in abject and in slavish parts,

Because you bought them :-Shall I say to you,
Let them be free, marry them to your heirs?
Why sweat they under burdens? let their beds
Be made as soft as yours, and let their palates
Be season'd with such viands? You will answer,
The slaves are ours :-So do I answer you :
The pound of flesh, which I demand of him,
Is dearly bought, is mine,3 and I will have it:

"Such noise as pine-trees make, what time the headdy easterne wind

"Doth whizz amongst them-." STEEVENS.

many a purchas'd slave,] This argument, considered as used to the particular persons, seems conclusive. I see not how Venetians or Englishmen, while they practise the purchase and sale of slaves, can much enforce or demand the law of doing to others as we would that they should do to us. JOHNSON.

is mine,] The first quarto reads-as mine, evidently a misprint for is. The other quarto and the folio-'tis mine.

MALONE.

If you deny me, fye upon your law!

There is no force in the decrees of Venice:
I stand for judgment: answer; shall I have it?
DUKE. Upon my power, I may dismiss this court,
Unless Bellario, a learned doctor,

4

Whom I have sent for to determine this,
Come here to-day.

SALAR.

My lord, here stays without A messenger with letters from the doctor, New come from Padua.

DUKE. Bring us the letters; Call the messenger.

BASS. Good cheer, Antonio! What, man? cou

rage yet!

The Jew shall have my flesh, blood, bones, and all, Ere thou shalt lose for me one drop of blood.

ANT. I am a tainted wether of the flock, Meetest for death; the weakest kind of fruit Drops earliest to the ground, and so let me: You cannot better be employ'd, Bassanio, Than to live still, and write mine epitaph.

Bellario, a learned doctor,

Whom I have sent for -] The doctor and the court are here somewhat unskilfully brought together. That the duke would, on such an occasion, consult a doctor of great reputation, is not unlikely; but how should this be foreknown by Portia?

JOHNSON.

I do not see any necessity for supposing that this was foreknown by Portia. She consults Bellario as an eminent lawyer, and her relation. If the Duke had not consulted him, the only difference would have been, that she would have come into court, as an advocate perhaps, instead of a judge. TYRWHITT.

Enter NERISSA, dressed like a lawyer's clerk.

DUKE. Came you from Padua, from Bellario? NER. From both, my lord: Bellario greets your grace. [Presents a letter. BASS. Why dost thou whet thy knife so earnestly? SHY. To cut the forfeiture" from that bankrupt there.

GRA. Not on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew,6

Thou mak'st thy knife keen: but no metal can, No, not the hangman's ax, bear half the keenness Of thy sharp envy. Can no prayers pierce thee? SHY. No, none that thou hast wit enough to

make.

GRA. O, be thou damn'd, inexorable dog!

— the forfeiture-] Read-forfeit. It occurs repeatedly in the present scene for forfeiture. RITSON.

Not on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew,] This lost jingle Mr. Theobald found again; but knew not what to make of it when he had it, as appears by his paraphrase: Though thou thinkest that thou art whetting thy knife on the sole of thy shoe, yet it

upon thy soul, thy immortal part. Absurd, the conceit is, that his soul was so hard that it had given an edge to his knife. WARBURTON.

So, in King Henry IV. P. II:

"Thou hid'st a thousand daggers in thy thoughts;
"Which thou hast whetted on thy stony heart,

"To stab at half an hour of my life." STEEVENS.

Of thy sharp envy.] Envy again, in this place, signifies hatred or malice. STEEVENS.

inexorable dog!] All the old copies read-inexecrable. -It was corrected in the old folio. STEEVENS.

Perhaps, however, unnecessarily. In was sometimes used in our author's time, in composition, as an augmentative or intensive particle. MALONE.

And for thy life let justice be accus'd.
Thou almost mak'st me waver in my faith,
To hold opinion with Pythagoras,

That souls of animals infuse themselves
Into the trunks of men: thy currish spirit,
Govern'd a wolf, who, hang'd for human slaughter,"
Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,
And, whilst thou lay'st in thy unhallow'd dam,
Infus'd itself in thee; for thy desires

Are wolfish, bloody, starv'd, and ravenous.

SHY. Till thou can'st rail the seal from off my bond,

Thou but offend'st thy lungs to speak so loud:
Repair thy wit, good youth, or it will fall
To cureless ruin.-I stand here for law.

DUKE. This letter from Bellario doth commend A young and learned doctor to our court:Where is he?

NER.

He attendeth here hard by, To know your answer, whether you'll admit him. DUKE. With all my heart :-some three or four of you,

Go give him courteous conduct to this place.Mean time, the court shall hear Bellario's letter.

[Clerk reads.] Your grace shall understand, that, at the receipt of your letter, I am very sick: but in the instant that your messenger came, in loving vi

thy currish spirit

Govern'd a wolf, who, hang'd for human slaughter,] This allusion might have been caught from some old translation of Pliny, who mentions a Parrhasian turned into a wolf, because he had eaten part of a child that had been consecrated to Lycæan Jupiter. See Goulart's Admirable Histories, 4to. 1607, pp. 390, 391. STEEVENS.

VOL. VII.

A A

sitation was with me a young doctor of Rome, his name is Balthasar: I acquainted him with the cause in controversy between the Jew and Antonio the merchant: we turned o'er many books together: he is furnish'd with my opinion; which, better'd with his own learning, (the greatness whereof I cannot enough commend,) comes with him, at my importunity, to fill up your grace's request in my stead. I beseech you, let his lack of years be no impediment to let him lack a reverend estimation; for I never knew so young a body with so old a head. I leave him to your gracious acceptance, whose trial shall better publish his commendation.

DUKE. You hear the learn'd Bellario, what he writes:

And here, I take it, is the doctor come.

Enter PORTIA, dressed like a doctor of laws.

Give me your hand: Came you from old Bellario? POR. I did, my lord.

DUKE. You are welcome: take your place. Are you acquainted with the difference That holds this present question in the court?

POR. I am informed throughly of the cause. Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew? DUKE. Antonio and old Shylock, both stand

forth.

POR. Is your name Shylock?

SHY.

Shylock is my name.

POR. Of a strange nature is the suit you follow; Yet in such rule, that the Venetian law