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The Shakespeare Story-Book
A Pound of Flesh
In the Court of Justice at Venice a great trial was to take place. Shylock the Jew claimed the forfeit of his bond. Antonio had signed the agreement that, if he failed to repay the loan of three thousand ducats by a certain date, the penalty was to be a pound of his own flesh, cut off from whatever part of his body the Jew pleased.
Antonio had failed to repay the money, and Shylock insisted on the terms of the bond being carried out to the very letter.
Terrible as this alternative was, there was no evading it. The Duke of Venice himself had to admit that, if Shylock chose to exact the penalty, there was no law of Venice that could prevent him. In this extremity the Duke sent for the learned doctor, Bellario, at Padua, to come and help them with his counsel, but when the Court opened Bellario had not yet arrived.
The Duke entered and took his seat. He looked round at the assembled people.
“What! is Antonio here?”
“Ready, so please your grace,” came back the quiet answer, and Antonio stepped forward from the place where he stood surrounded by a little band of friends. Bassanio was there, and Gratiano, and many others, who had come to show their sympathy with the merchant, though they could not help him in his dire extremity.
The Duke spoke a few words to Antonio, saying how sorry he was to find him in the power of such a terrible adversary, to which Antonio replied, with quiet dignity, that since Shylock was relentless, and that no lawful means could save him, he was prepared to suffer patiently.
Then Shylock was called into court, and the Duke began the trial by making an appeal to him for mercy. All the world, he said, thought that Shylock only intended to carry his apparent malice up to the hour of execution, and that then, at the last moment, he would show his mercy and remorse, and not only forego the forfeiture, but also forgive a portion of the loan, because of the enormous losses which had lately fallen on Antonio.
“We all expect a gentle answer, Jew,” concluded the Duke.
Grim, stony, immovable, Shylock had listened to the Duke’s appeal. The time for passionate frenzy was past; his venomed rage had settled down into a cold, calm hatred. One determination possessed him, and there was no power in the tongue of man to alter it – he would have his bond. He answered the Duke quietly, but with absolute decision. He was offered twice the amount of his loan.
“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,” was his answer to this offer.
The Duke asked him how he could hope for mercy, since he rendered none.
“What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong?” was Shylock’s retort. “The pound of flesh which I demand of the merchant is dearly bought; it’s mine, and I will have it. I stand here for justice. Answer: shall I have it?”
As far as the decrees of Venice were concerned, Shylock had the law on his side, and the Duke dared not go against them. He had power, however, to defer the trial, and he was thinking of doing this, when he was told that a messenger had arrived from Padua, with letters from Bellario. The Duke bade that the messenger should be called into court, and Nerissa entered, dressed like a lawyer’s clerk.
The letter from Bellario stated that he was too ill to come himself, but that he had sent in his place a very wise and learned young doctor, whom he had thoroughly instructed in the case, and whose wonderful skill and judgment could be thoroughly relied on. The letter ended by saying that the Duke must not mistrust the new-comer because of his lack of years, for Bellario “never knew so young a body with so old a head.”
It was well Bellario had given this warning, for surely no younger-looking Doctor of Laws had ever entered the Court of Justice. Portia’s locks of sunny gold were hidden away beneath the doctor’s cap, but nothing could conceal the youth and beauty of her face. No token of hesitation or inexperience, however, was visible in her handling of the case. She plunged at once into the heart of the matter.
Her first step was to appeal to Shylock on the score of mercy, and in words of the most moving eloquence she tried to soften the Jew’s hard heart, and to show him that higher even than the Justice which he claimed was the quality of Mercy. But Shylock stood there rigid; he might have been cut in granite for any effect that Portia’s words had on him.
“I crave the law, the penalty and forfeit of my bond,” came the usual stubborn response.
Then Portia asked if Antonio had not money to discharge the debt. Yes, replied Bassanio, it was there ready in the court – yea, twice the sum. If that would not suffice, he would bind himself to pay it ten times over. If this did not satisfy the Jew, it was quite evident that he was acting through sheer malice; and Bassanio besought the learned young doctor to wrest the law just a little on this occasion, and, in order to do a great right, do a little wrong.
“It must not be,” replied Portia. Nothing could alter an established decree, for many an error by the same example might creep into the State. The law must be kept; the bond must be fulfilled to the very letter.
“A Daniel come to judgment!” cried the triumphant Shylock. “O wise young judge, how I do honour thee!”
The friends of Antonio stood silent in dismay. Even Gratiano, who had been loud in denunciation of the Jew’s savage cruelty, had no words now.
The bond was forfeit, Portia continued, and the Jew had the right to exact the penalty if he chose. But her winning voice still pleaded:
“Be merciful! Take thrice thy money, bid me tear the bond.”
“When it is paid according to the tenor,” was the grim reply.
Antonio saw that all hope was over; there was no use in prolonging the discussion.
“Most heartily I do beseech the court to give the judgment,” he said earnestly.
But even when acknowledging that the sentence must be carried out, Portia fought every inch of the way to secure some small concession for the unhappy merchant. Shylock had brought a knife into the court to cut the pound of flesh, and scales to weigh it, but he had provided no surgeon to dress the wound afterwards. Portia begged that he would provide one, if only out of charity. Was it so nominated in the bond? No. Therefore Shylock declined. Not the smallest point would he concede. The bond should be kept to the very letter.
Ah, if Shylock had only known what a pitfall he was digging for himself by insisting on this point!
In a clear, firm voice Portia began to pronounce sentence. A pound of the merchant’s flesh was Shylock’s; the court awarded it, and the law gave it. The flesh was to be cut off from his breast – (“nearest his heart,” as Shylock had savagely stipulated) – the law allowed it, and the court awarded it.
“Most learned judge! A sentence! Come, prepare!” cried Shylock; and, rattling his scales, he darted forward, knife in hand, upon the merchant.
But Portia’s voice rang through the court, – “Tarry a little: there is something else!”
Shylock stood still, aghast; Antonio’s friends looked up with sudden hope. It was Portia’s turn now to keep to the letter of the law. The bond gave no mention of the word “blood”; the words expressly were “a pound of flesh.” Let Shylock, then, take his bond, his pound of flesh; but if in the cutting it he shed one drop of Christian blood, his lands and goods were, by the laws of Venice, confiscate to the State of Venice.
“Is that the law?” gasped Shylock; and Portia answered that he should see the act for himself. As he had urged “justice,” let him be assured he should have justice, more than he desired.
“O learned judge!” cried Gratiano, mocking Shylock’s former words of praise. “Mark, Jew, a learned judge!”
“Pay the bond thrice and let the Christian go,” said Shylock.
“Here is the money,” said Bassanio eagerly; but Portia held up her hand.
“Soft! The Jew shall have all justice. Soft, no haste! He shall have nothing but the penalty.”
Shylock was to cut off his pound of flesh, but he was to shed no blood. Nor was he to cut more or less than just one pound. If he cut more or less than a just pound – “If the scale turns even by the weight of a hair, thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate,” pronounced Portia.
“Give me my principal, and let me go,” said Shylock.
“I have it ready for thee; here it is,” said Bassanio, again holding out the bags of gold; and again Portia stayed him.
“He has refused it in the open court; he shall have merely justice and his bond.”
“Shall I not have barely my principal?” demanded the cowed Shylock.
“Thou shalt have nothing but the forfeiture, to be so taken at thy peril, Jew.”
“Why, then, the devil give him good of it! I’ll stay no further question,” cried Shylock, turning to leave the Court in a fury of baffled rage and spite.
But he was not to get off so easily. The law had still another hold on him. He, being an alien, had offended against the laws of Venice by seeking the life of a citizen. The penalty for this was that half his goods went to the citizen, the other half to the coffers of the State, and the offender’s life lay at the mercy of the Duke.
Stunned and crushed by this sudden calamitous turn of affairs, Shylock listened. All through the trial he had claimed nothing but “justice”; he had insisted that the very letter of the law should be fulfilled. The measure he had meted out to Antonio was now to be measured out for himself. But the Duke of Venice was merciful enough to pardon Shylock’s life before he asked it. As for his wealth, half of it would go to Antonio, the other half to the State, but humbleness might remit the latter into a fine.
“Nay, take my life and all; pardon not that,” said Shylock, half dazed. “You take my house when you take the prop that sustains it; you take my life when you take the means whereby I live.”
Antonio said he would resign half the money due to him, provided Shylock would let him keep the other half in use, to render it at Shylock’s death to the husband of his daughter Jessica. Further, for this favour Shylock was to do two things: he was to give up his Jewish religion, and he was to make a will, leaving all his possessions to Lorenzo and his daughter.
“He shall do this,” said the Duke, “or else I will recant the pardon which I lately granted.”
“Art thou contented, Jew? What dost thou say?” asked Portia.
And what was left for Shylock to answer? Baffled of his revenge, stripped of his wealth, forced to disown his faith, his very life forfeited – a hated, despised, miserable old man – he stood alone amidst the hostile throng. Not one face looked at him kindly, not one voice was raised in his behalf. Twice he strove to speak, and twice he failed. Then, in a hoarse whisper through the parched lips, came the faltering words:
“I – am – content.”
The Two Rings
Shylock, crushed and beaten, had left the court, followed by the yells and hooting of the crowds collected to hear the result of the trial, and Antonio and his friends hastened to express their warmest gratitude to the young Doctor of Laws who had so skilfully conducted the case. They begged him to accept a handsome fee, but he refused to take any money payment for his services. Bassanio insisted that he must certainly accept some remembrance, not as a fee, but as a tribute of their gratitude.
Thus urged, the young doctor yielded. He looked at Antonio.
“Give me your gloves; I’ll wear them for your sake.” Then, to Bassanio: “And for your love I’ll take this ring from you.”
But Bassanio drew back. He began to make excuses; the ring was a trifle, he would not shame himself by offering it; it had been given to him by his wife, etc. The more reluctant he showed himself, the more the young doctor insisted. Finally he went off apparently in deep offence. Then Antonio urged Bassanio to give him what he asked, because of the services he had done, and Gratiano was sent after him to present the ring to him.
Lorenzo and Jessica, meanwhile, had been staying at Belmont, but they were very glad to welcome back the lady of the house. It was a lovely moonlight night when Portia and Nerissa came home. Sweet music was sounding, and all was peace and beauty. Their return was speedily followed by the arrival of Bassanio, Antonio, and Gratiano. All was rejoicing, but in the midst of the general gladness sounds of discord were heard. Gratiano and his wife were having a hot dispute.
“A quarrel already? What’s the matter?” asked Portia.
“It’s about a paltry ring that Nerissa gave me, with a motto for all the world like cutlers’ poetry upon a knife, ‘Love me and leave me not,’” said Gratiano.
“Why do you talk of the motto or the value?” cried Nerissa. “You swore to me when I gave it you that you would wear it till the hour of death, and that it should lie with you in your grave. Even if not for my sake, yet because of your oath, you ought to have held it in respect, and kept it. Gave it to a judge’s clerk! No, indeed, the clerk that had it will never wear hair on his face!”
“Yes, he will, if he lives to be a man.”
“Ay, if a woman lives to be a man!” said Nerissa scornfully.
“Now, by this hand. I gave it to a youth,” protested the exasperated Gratiano; “a kind of boy – a little scrubby boy, no higher than yourself, the judge’s clerk, a prating boy that begged it as a fee. I could not find it in my heart to deny him.”
“You were to blame, Gratiano – I must be plain with you – to part so lightly with your wife’s first gift,” said Portia gravely. “I gave my love a ring, and made him swear never to part with it,” she added, looking tenderly at Bassanio. “Here he stands. I dare be sworn he would not give it from his finger for all the wealth contained in the world. Now, in faith, Gratiano, you have given your wife unkind cause for grief. If it were me, I should be mad about it.”
How pleasant for Bassanio to hear this!
“I were best to cut my left hand off, and swear I lost the ring defending it,” he thought ruefully.
“My lord Bassanio gave his ring to the judge, who indeed well deserved it,” said Gratiano, in self-excuse. “And then the boy, his clerk, who took some pains in writing, he begged mine. And neither man nor master would take anything else but the two rings.”
“What ring did you give, my lord?” asked Portia. “Not, I hope, the one you received from me.”
“If I could add a lie to the fault, I would deny it,” said Bassanio. “But, you see, my finger has not the ring upon it; it is gone.”
Portia, on hearing this, pretended to get very angry and jealous, and no excuses that Bassanio made could appease her.
“Sweet Portia,” he said, “if you knew to whom I gave the ring, if you knew for whom I gave the ring, and would understand for what I gave the ring, and how unwillingly I left the ring, when nothing would be accepted but the ring, you would abate the strength of your displeasure.”
“If you had known the virtue of the ring,” retorted Portia, “or half her worthiness that gave the ring, or your own honour to retain the ring, you would not then have parted with the ring.”
Portia thoroughly enjoyed the fun of teasing her husband, and she and Nerissa made the poor men quite unhappy before the secret was revealed. Finally Antonio, distressed at the discord which he imagined he had brought between husband and wife, interceded for Bassanio, and Portia allowed herself to be soothed.
“Since you will be surety for him,” she said to Antonio, “give him this ring, and bid him keep it better than the other.”
“By heaven it is the same I gave the doctor!” cried Bassanio.
So all ended happily. The mystery was explained, and Bassanio and Gratiano were duly forgiven. To add to the general pleasure, news reached Portia that three of Antonio’s argosies had come safely to harbour, so, after all, he was no longer a bankrupt, but once again a rich and prosperous merchant of Venice.
As You Like It
Oliver and Orlando
Deep in the Forest of Arden lived a merry company. The Duke of that country, banished by his usurping brother Frederick, had taken refuge among the green woods, and there, far from the pomp and envious clamour of Court, he lived happily with a few faithful followers. Custom had made this new life sweeter than the old one of showy state. Here were no fawning courtiers, no slander and intrigue; the only hardships were those of the changing seasons. Even when the keen winds of winter made the Duke shrink with cold, he would smile and say: “This is no flattery; these are counsellors that make me feel really what I am;” and the biting blast seemed to him less cruel than the falsehood and ingratitude of men.
Not far from the forest was the house that had formerly belonged to a good gentleman – Sir Rowland de Boys. Dying, Sir Rowland had left all his possessions to his eldest son, Oliver, excepting one thousand crowns, which was to go to the youngest son, Orlando. Sir Rowland, however, had charged Oliver to bring up his two brothers carefully. Oliver had sent the second son, Jaques, to school, where the boy did well; but his youngest brother, Orlando, he kept at home, leaving him utterly neglected and without any sort of training. Not only did Oliver do nothing at all for his brother, but he even tried to take away what advantages Orlando possessed by nature. He made him feed with the servants, debarred him his place as brother, and in every way possible seemed to aim at unfitting him for his position as a gentleman.
Orlando was indignant at such treatment, and at last he rebelled openly, declaring he would endure such servitude no longer. There was an angry dispute between the young men, in which Oliver, as usual, tried to bully his brother into submission. But Orlando’s spirit was up. Stung to fury by Oliver’s insults, he seized hold of him, and compelled him to listen to what he had to say. A faithful old servitor of their father’s interposed, and tried to make peace, but Orlando was determined not to yield.
“You shall hear me,” he said, as Oliver struggled to free himself. “My father charged you in his will to give me a good education. You have trained me like a peasant, hiding from me all gentleman-like qualities. The spirit of my father grows strong in me, and I will no longer endure it. Therefore allow me such exercises as becomes a gentleman, or give me the poor portion my father left me in his will, and with that I will go seek my fortune.”
“And what will you do with it? Beg, when that is spent?” sneered Oliver. “Well, sir, get you in; I will not be troubled with you much longer. You shall have part of what you wish. I pray you, leave me.” And then, turning to the old servant Adam, he added savagely, “Get you with him, you old dog!”
“Is ‘old dog’ my reward?” said Adam sadly. “Most true, I have lost my teeth in your service. God be with my old master! He would not have spoken such a word.”
But Oliver had a plan for getting rid of this younger brother, and that without expending a thousand crowns. Charles, the wrestler of the usurping Duke, was to show his skill the following day at Court, and Oliver knew it was Orlando’s intention to try a match with this famous athlete. This report had also privately reached the ears of the wrestler. Charles was a most powerful opponent, deadly in skill and strength. Being a friend of Oliver’s, and not wishing to harm the young Orlando, he came to Oliver’s house to warn him to dissuade his brother from making the attempt, or at least to let him know, in the event of any injury happening to Orlando, that it would be entirely of the boy’s own seeking, and altogether against Charles’s will.
Oliver thanked Charles for his kind thought, and said he had himself tried by every means to dissuade Orlando, but that he was resolute.
“I tell you, Charles, he is the stubbornest young fellow in France,” Oliver said maliciously, “full of ambition, envious of every man’s good parts, a secret and villainous contriver against me, his own brother. Therefore use your discretion. I had as lief you broke his neck as his finger. And you had better be on your guard, for if you do him any slight disgrace, or if he fails to win glory for himself, he will practise against you by poison, entrap you by some treacherous device, and never leave you till he has taken your life by some indirect means or other. For I assure you – and I speak it almost with tears – there is no one living at this day so young and so villainous.”
Charles was naturally shocked to hear such a bad account of Orlando.
“I am heartily glad I came to you,” he said. “If he comes to-morrow I’ll give him his payment;” and away he went, vowing to punish Orlando.
“Now I’ll stir up the youngster,” thought Oliver. “I hope I shall soon see the end of him, for, though I don’t know why, I have an absolute hatred of the boy. Yet he is gentle; never schooled, and yet learned; full of noble device; enchantingly beloved by everyone – indeed, so much in the hearts of all, especially of my own people, that I am altogether thrown in the shade. But it shall not be so long; this wrestler will put all right. Nothing remains but to make the boy more eager for the wrestling, and that I’ll go and do at once.”