Isaac Asimov - Asimov’s Guide To Shakespear. Volume 1

Shylock nevertheless refuses. He insists on the letter of the law and nothing else, crying:

—Act IV, scene i, line 205

Bassanio desperately offers ten times the original loan, and if that fails, he urges the young judge to

—Act IV, scene i, lines 214-15

In a sense, this reflects a great philosophic struggle between Jew and Christian (as interpreted through Christian thought) between the letter and the spirit. In the New Testament the orthodox Pharisees are pictured as insisting on the letter of the law, while the more liberal Jesus is willing to bend the letter if that means retaining the spirit.

St. Paul makes this specific by saying that God "… hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life" (2 Corinthians 3:6).

But it is not so easy to bend the law. Venice is a commercial, trading city and must deal with a wide variety of foreigners with other customs and beliefs. Venetian law, like Venetian money, must inspire confidence and it cannot unless it is equitable and just and never bent to personal advantage.

Portia points out that to palter with the law would set bad precedents, and Shylock cries out exultantly:

—Act IV, scene i, lines 222-23

Daniel, in the biblical Book of Daniel, is a wise interpreter of dreams, but the reference here is to Daniel's role in the apocryphal book of The History of Susanna.

The heroine of the book, Susanna, a chaste wife, is lusted after by two wicked elders. Her virtue was proof against their ancient charms and they conspired to accuse her of adultery to punish her. They stated they had seen her intimate with a young man and the court condemned Susanna to death.

At this point Daniel, a young man at the time, entered the story (just as "Balthasar" did). He demanded the right to cross-examine the elders separately before the council. He asked each the name of the tree under which he had seen the criminal intimacy take place. Not having concerted this part of the story, they named different trees and it was plain that they were lying. Susanna was freed and the elders executed.

Of course, since Susanna is an apocryphal book and not part of the Bible in the Jewish tradition, Shylock would not be apt to refer to it in reality.

It seems that all is lost for Antonio. Shylock even refuses to pay the expense of a surgeon to help Antonio after the operation, because that is not part of the agreement (something which loses any sympathy any Elizabethan might possibly have for him).

Antonio makes a last touching speech that so moves Bassanio that he says (and, one can only believe, sincerely) that he would gladly deliver his new wife to Shylock's ruthless clutches if only that would save Antonio (and here Shakespeare's feeling of the utter nobility of male affection and its greater strength than that between man and woman shines through). Gratiano chimes in with a similar wish, and both Portia and Nerissa, in their male disguises, cannot hide the fact that such gestures sit rather poorly with them.

As for Shylock, the strong family man, he finds these remarks revolting and says:

—Act IV, scene i, lines 294-96

There is scarcely a name that rings so unpleasantly in Christian ears as "Barabbas." In the New Testament, it is the name of a prisoner who was slated for execution when Jesus was. Because it was the time of Passover, Pontius Pilate offered to free a prisoner and put it up to the populace: "… Whom will ye that I release unto you? Barabbas, or Jesus…" (Matthew 27:17). Since the populace demanded the release of Barabbas, Jesus was led out to crucifixion.

Matthew merely describes Barabbas as "a notable prisoner" (Matthew 27:16), but Mark says that Barabbas 'lay bound with them that had made insurrection with him, who had committed murder in the insurrection" (Mark 15:7). Barabbas, in other words, had been taken after having participated in a rebellion against Rome. In the nationalistic spirit of the times one can see that to the Jewish masses Barabbas may have been a hero, but to the Christians of later times, he was a murderer whose life was unjustly traded for that of Jesus.

Marlowe in his The Jew of Malta called his Jew Barabbas, so that his villainy would be expressed in his very name. Shylock's remark can thus be interpreted as being a wish that Jessica had married even the worst kind of Jew (or, from the Christian standpoint, any Jew) rather than any Christian. (It is an odd point in favor of Shylock, and one rarely remarked upon, that despite what his daughter has done to him, he regrets her marriage because of his belief that a Christian would make an unkind husband. It would seem he still loves his daughter.)

Again, since Barabbas is a name that does not occur in the Old Testament, Shylock, in reality, would not have made the reference.

Shylock is ready to take his pound of flesh when suddenly Portia stops him. She turns his insistence of the letter of the law against him. There is no mention of blood in the bond and therefore Shylock must take his pound of flesh without spilling one drop of Christian blood. What's more, he must take exactly a pound, neither the tiniest fraction more or less.

It is a legal quibble, but under the circumstances, it has its logic.

Shylock finds himself caught and offers to take the three-times payment Bassanio has offered. Bassanio is willing, but Portia grimly insists on the letter of the law. Shylock asks for his bare principal, but Portia insists on the letter. Shylock offers to abandon the money altogether and even that cannot be done, for in planning to take the pound of flesh he was a foreigner seeking the life of a Venetian, and as such, half of all his goods is forfeit to Antonio and half to the state.

(Actually, if we were arguing law, then, in the existence of a statute against a foreigner seeking the life of a Venetian, the agreement to accept a pound of flesh as forfeit for non-payment of a loan to a foreigner was illegal to begin with.)

Antonio now displays his magnanimity most impressively. That half of Shylock's fortune that is to go to the state he urges be returned to Shylock on the payment of a mere fine (a suggestion first made by the Duke). That half that is to go to Antonio himself, he would turn over to Shylock's daughter, Jessica, and her Christian husband, on Shylock's death.

But then one thing more is added, which sits less well with a modern audience than with an Elizabethan one. In return for all this, Antonio sets a condition:

—Act IV, scene i, lines 385-86

The notion of forced conversion to Christianity was often justified by a verse in Luke. In a parable told in that Gospel, a man giving a feast found that his guests refused his invitation. He therefore sent his servants out to find strangers to attend the feast, and, if necessary, to make them attend by force. "And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled" (Luke 14:23).

And indeed, Christians have converted Jews and pagans at the point of a sword. (So have Moslems and, to be truthful, on at least one occasion, Jews. In the second century b.c. the Maccabean King of Judea, John Hyrcanus I, conquered the Idumeans, a non-Jewish people who lived to the south of Judea, and forced them to accept Judaism.)