Mattison Pierce

Dr. Wadia

ENGL 3150

March 3, 2017
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Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene I, Lines (35-62)

I have possess'd your grace of what I purpose; 35
And by our holy Sabbath have I sworn
To have the due and forfeit of my bond:
If you deny it, let the danger light
Upon your charter and your city's freedom.
You'll ask me, why I rather choose to have 40
A weight of carrion flesh than to receive
Three thousand ducats: I'll not answer that:
But, say, it is my humour: is it answer'd?
What if my house be troubled with a rat
And I be pleased to give ten thousand ducats 45
To have it baned? What, are you answer'd yet?
Some men there are love not a gaping pig;
Some, that are mad if they behold a cat;
And others, when the bagpipe sings i' the nose,
Cannot contain their urine: for affection, 50
Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood
Of what it likes or loathes. Now, for your answer:
As there is no firm reason to be render'd,
Why he cannot abide a gaping pig;
Why he, a harmless necessary cat; 55
Why he, a woollen bagpipe; but of force
Must yield to such inevitable shame
As to offend, himself being offended;
So can I give no reason, nor I will not,
More than a lodged hate and a certain loathing 60
I bear Antonio, that I follow thus
A losing suit against him. Are you answer'd?
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The Merchant of Venice Close Reading

Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is a classic tale of revenge and the ruin to which it

leads. In this excerpt, we have Shylock, the Jewish businessman addressing the courtroom and

the Duke who is to judge whether Antonio, a merchant who has failed to pay back a loan to

Shylock, should have a pound of flesh cut from his chest in accordance with the bond Antonio

and Shylock had struck three months before. Because of the seemingly unfair consequence of

this bond and the overall dislike for Shylock and the Jewish people, the public is outraged and

demands that Antonio be released from the debt. So, in this passage, Shylock is explaining his

reasons for not backing down from the deal and demanding the pound of flesh that he claims to

be owed.

While this play is a revenge story, the historical context that surrounds Shylock the

antagonist, gives another reason for killing Antonio than just personal revenge. Therefore, it is

important to be aware of the anti-Semitism in this play and how it reflects the way Jews were

viewed and treated in sixteenth century Europe. Jews were hated, spat upon in the street, forced

to live in poorer housing condition, and shunned for not embracing Christianity and for their

refusal to separate from their cultural heritage. Shylock is the product of years of unfair treatment

and disdain from those who5 should have been his neighbors. Through this historical context,

Shylock’s own words, and his behavior in this passage show that Antonio is the vessel for

Shylock’s revenge but not the source of it. The source of his malice is Christianity and the

oppression of the Jewish people.

As the Duke tells Shylock that the court hopes he will show mercy to Antonio, Shylock

answers that he has already “possess’d [the duke] of what [shylock] purpose[s]” (4.1.35),

meaning that he has previously informed the duke of his answer and that he intends to hold fast.
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The next four lines are spent with him reminding the court with somewhat threatening language

that his decision is justified by the laws of their own city and that if he should be denied his

“justice,” then the law itself will be false, and the duke will have broken the law by failing to

uphold it. Though this threat does not appeal to the people of the court, the Duke is reminded of

his station and his responsibility to maintain justice in the city lest people begin to take

advantage of the precedence of this situation.

Shylock makes a comment that ought to contradict what he goes on to relate throughout

the next nineteen lines, which is, “You'll ask me, why I rather choose to have/A weight of

carrion flesh than to receive/Three thousand ducats: I'll not answer that.” (40-42) Yet while he

says he will not answer, he spends the rest of the passage answering it. A. Heath states in the

Furness Variorum that the true meaning of Shylock’s statement in line forty-two is that he will

not answer this question directly, making way for him to explain his motive while dancing

around the true purpose for his revenge against Antonio.

When Shylock suggests that his reason for wanting the bond fulfilled is his “humour”

(43), he is merely remarking that it could very well be his temperament. The word in this context

means, according to the Oxford English dictionary “…any of four fluids of the body believed to

determine…the state of health and the temperament of a person.” So, by this definition, the

character seems to imply that he wants his revenge simply for the sake of wanting it. Why would

a person openly admit to being inherently cruel while standing in a court and asking for justice?

Shylock is a character that exists within a time in which Jewish people were looked upon as

naturally inferior and openly treated as such. According to James O’Rourke in his article

“Racism and Homophobia in The Merchant of Venice,” both Christian England and Italy created

and sustained an environment in which Jews were seen as little more than criminals, and
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“Jewishness quickly became a marker of [the Jews’] probable guilt” (p. 378). So, in this scene

and throughout the play, Shylock could be affecting the demeanor that everyone in the court

expects him to have, thereby appearing to embrace his so-called “nature.” He may have decided

that if that was how the world was going to view him, then he might as well take advantage of it.

In the next lines, the audience has a line of sight into Shylock’s reasoning and sees him

enter the realm of metaphor by comparing Antonio to a rat that has invaded someone’s house.

Shylock then continues the analogy by asking the people of the court if any of them would see a

problem in paying to have the rat disposed of.

The audience is given an unpleasant image by the words “Some men there are love not a

gaping pig” (47). Yet, in the Arden Shakespeare edition of this play, it said only to mean a pig

that has been prepared to be eaten. This is a possible reference to Jewish people in general and

their religious choice of not eating pork. The next two examples are “Some [men], that are mad

if they behold a cat / And others, when the bagpipe sings i' the nose / Cannot contain their urine”

(48-50), simply meaning that some people hate cats while others may dislike the sound of

bagpipes. All these examples are used to convey the simple idea that not all people like the same

things. Some things that many people find enjoyable, like the eating of pork, or necessary, like a

cat who rids homes of vermin, others may find contemptable. So, Shylock is basically saying that

not all people are the same and finishes the analogy by then relating, “Mistress of passion, sways

it to the mood / Of what it likes or loathes” (51-52). With the word, “Mistress” being presented

as “Master” in the Furness Variorum and as “Maistrice” in the Arden, they all hold the same

meaning: that likes and dislikes are whimsical and vary from person to person. Shylock delivers

these examples as though they hold little importance, and by comparing them to his reason to
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hold the bond over Antonio, he is trivializing Antonio’s life, calling it no more than the whims of

passion.

Shylock’s hatred can be measured by the amount of money he turns down. He states

several times that he could be offered exponentially more ducats, and he would still refuse to

accept it. He makes it very clear that money holds no sway over his malice. This refusal shows

that Shylock’s insistence of enacting this bond goes beyond the need for petty revenge against

Antonio. Yes, Shylock personally hates the merchant, as he clearly states in his reasoning in this

particular passage, but his revenge is not only against Antonio. Shylock stated in the first act, “I

hate [Antonio] for he is a Christian” (1.2.42). If Shylock can give this reason for his hatred

against one man, then it can be assumed that he hates all Christians. His treatment of Antonio is a

reflection of how he and his people have been treated all his life. Antonio is the embodiment of

Christianity in this case, and the bond is Shylock fighting against the system that has oppressed

the Jewish people for years. This is not to say Shylock has a vendetta against the world, wanting

to rid it of Christianity and those who practice it, but the fact that he is so obstinate in getting his

way in this courtroom suggests that the bond is his own small satisfaction against his oppressors.

The audience realizes that Shylock has been treated unfairly. There are several instances,

as in the second scene of the first act, where Shylock refers to having been spit on by Antonio,

and Shylock, upon seeing Antonio delivers an aside with the promise, “I will feed fat the ancient

grudge I bear him” (1.2.47). This quote could be taken one of two ways. The simplest meaning is

that he has had cause to hate Antonio for a long period of time. Then there is the possibility that

Shylock is referring to the grudge that his people bear against the Christians with the word

“ancient” referring to the long, drawn out oppression of their people.

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Near the end of this passage, the lines, “[One] Must yield to such inevitable shame / As to

offend, himself being offended” (4.1.57-58), Harry Berger Jr. in his article “Mercifixion in The

Merchant of Venice” brings up the “idea of self-offense.” Shylock seems to be taking

responsibility for this situation by acknowledging that he is dirtying his hands in the same way

others have done against him. He knows that what he is doing to Antonio is wrong and accepts it

readily, just as nonchalantly as he does when equating his cruel demeanor with benign likes and

dislikes. And so, with his intent firmly set in place, Shylock finally admits to there being no

reason for his suit beyond his own malice by saying, “So can I give no reason, nor I will not /

More than a lodged hate and a certain loathing / I bear Antonio, that I follow thus / A losing suit

against him” (59-62).

Shylock is by no means a revolutionary who is fighting for his people’s rights. This is

clear from his own words as well as behavior. He lost that opportunity the moment malice

entered his mind and he decided to take the course of revenge. Shylock appears to be a man who

has had enough unfair treatment and has decided to make Antonio a scapegoat for his anger. This

does not mean that he is a naturally cruel person but that he has been conditioned by his situation

in life. Shakespeare creates in Shylock a complex villain with a tragic background that the

audience can relate to while also maintaining the knowledge that he is cruel and unjustified in his

methods.
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Work Cited
“Arden Shakespeare.” DRAMA ONLINE, www.dramaonlinelibrary.com/series/arden-
shakespeare-iid-13290. Accessed 3 Mar. 2017.

Berger, Harry. “Mercifixion in The Merchant of Venice: The Riches of

Embarrassment.”Renaissance Drama, vol. 38, no. 1, 2010, pp. 3–45.,
doi:10.1353/rnd.2010.0004.

Heath, A. A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice Ed. Horace
Howard Furness, Internet Archive, J.B. Lippincott & Company, 1888, 4 Mar. 2008,
archive.org/details/anewvariorumedi20furngoog. Accessed 3 Mar. 2017.

O'rourke, James. “Racism and Homphobia in ‘The Merchant of Venice.’” Jstor.org, ELH
Vol. 70 No. 2 Pp. 375-397, 2003. Accessed 3 Mar. 2017.

“Discover the Story of EnglishMore than 600,000 Words, over a Thousand Years.” Home
: Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press, www.oed.com/. Accessed 3 Mar. 2017.