yjiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitiiiiiMiiiiMWMiiiniiwfiinn S HAKSPE RE THE OF VENICE ^IWlllllllHlllllllHTI LOVETT Class _hlIl^^^S RnnV ■f\xU(i> »htU?__J3J5_ CDEUUGHT DEPOSm Zfft Hake €mli&\i Classics REVISED EDITION WITH HELPS TO STUDY SHAKSPERE'S THE MERCHANT OF VENICE EDITED BY ROBERT MORSS LOVETT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY CHICAGO NEW YORK J.-^* COPYRIGHT, 1900, 1919, BY SOOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY ROBERT O. LAW COMPANY EDITION BOOK MANUFACTURERS CHICAGO. U.S.A. m I? 1919 ICLA.512657 PREFACE. The editorial contributions to the present edition of The Merchant of Venice are of two kinds. In the Introduction the editor has tried to treat the play somewhat broadly, and to make the various sections illustrative of methods of study to be pur^ sued also in other plays. Thus the accounts of the date and sources of the play are given at a length which without this explanation might seem excess ive. In the same way certain typical peculiarities of Shakspere's verse and language have been treated in the Introduction, in the hope that the student, by seeing the illustrations grouped together and by referring to them from the text, will come torecog- nize the forms in his further reading of the author. On the contrary, in the notes and the glossary, which are to be used in direct connection with the text, the editor has striven to keep strictly within the limits of information needed for the under- standing of the words of the play, in order that the interruption of the normal process of reading may be as slight as possible. The aim has been to suggest to the student that his chief object should be to read the text understandingly, not to master A certain quantity of Elizabethan lore. In the V vi PREFACE. division of matter between notes and glossary such explanations as refer simply to the particular pas- sages under consideration have been placed in the notes, while synonyms for words of ordinary occur- rence in Shakspere are given in the glossary. By the nse of other editions, especially Dr. Furness's Variorum^ the teacher will be able to supplement the notes, but it is suggested that such comment be directed toward the explanation of constructions and uses of language common in Shakspere and his contemporaries, rather than toward the exam- ination of passages, possibly corrupt, to which the ingenuity of editors has given a factitious impor- tance. There are two methods of study to which Shaks* pere's plays are subjected. One consists in the examination and the interpretation of the text. In the other the play is considered as a master- piece of the dramatic form, and is examined by scenes to determine the place of each in the advancement of the plot, the development of character, and the enforcement of the main theme. Both theories are useful. Neither by itself is sufficient; either may be pressed too far. It should not be forgotten that Shakspere wrote his play to give pleasure, that our object in reading it IS to enjoy it, and that it is according as our study yields additional enjoyment that it is successful. It is, however, perfectly certain, inasmuch as poetry is an art which appeals to the intellect as rHEFACE wH well as to the emotions, that the play will be the more enjoyed the more ifc is understood. Thus, in handling the play in class, enough questions must be asked upon the interpretation of the text tc make sure that the student understands the word or phrase, and can refer it for comparison to a passage containing the same word or construction, if one has occurred earlier in the play. Some Buggestions toward the use of the second method have been given in the Introduction. It may be well to repeat here, however, the caution there given against trying to find in Shakspere an artist or a moral teacher who transcended even the ideals of art and morality of his time. For further study the student will find useful the editions of this play by Messrs. Clark and "Wright (Clarendon Press), and Professor Gam- mere (Longman's English Classics). The Vari- oriim, edited by Dr. Furness, contains the most valuable notes of various commentators, as well as extracts from the best criticism on the play. The general information in regard to Shakspere and his works which every one should possess can be ob- tained from Dowden's Primer of Shakspere, Additional works are Sidney Lee's Life of William Shakspere, Barrett Wendell's William Shakspere, Dowden's Shakspere: His Mind and Art, as well as the works of Mr. Fleay. For the general period see A. W. Ward's History of English Dramatic Literature, Symonds's Shakspere^s Predecessors^ viii PRE^FACE. Boas's Sliahspere and His Predecessors. For Shakspere's language and grammar, consulfc Schmidt's Shahespeare Lexicon, and E. A. A-bbott's Shakespearian Grammar, COXTENTS PAGE Preface v Intkodtjction I. Shakspere and his Plays 3 II. The Merchant of Tenice IS III. Shakspere's Style 33 Text . 43 Notes 156 Glossary . . . . . . . . 16S Appendix Helps to Study 173 Chronological Table ........ 179 INTEODUCTIOK I. SHAKSPERE AKD HI3 PLAYS. I. LIFE. William Shakspere was born of peasant stock. His father, John Shakspere, was connected with a family of small land-holders in Warwickshire, which has been traced back to the fourteenth cen- tury. This John Shakspere was a successful trader in Stratford-on-Avon, where he dealt in various kinds of produce, among them meat, a fact which has given rise to the legendary connection of the poet Shakspere with the butcher's trade. John Shakspere was for many years a man of substance, and enjoyed the respect of his neighbors; he served as burgess of the town, as constable, as chamberlain of the borough, and finally as high bailiff or mayor. In 1557 he married Mary Arden, the daughter of a rich farmer of Wilmcote. Of this marriage v^ere born two girls, who died in, infancy; then, in April, 1564, a son, William, and following him several more children. Meanwhile John Shakspere had fallen into financial difficult ties. By 1578 he had been forced to mortgage most of his own and his wife's property, and 4 INTRODUCTION. in 1586 it was reported that lie had no available goods on which his various creditors might levy. The early experiences of William Shakspere's life may, then, be said to connect themselves with the gradual falling away of his family from a place of ease and honor in the community to one of difficulty. Shakspere received his elementary education, including a fair amount of Latin, at the StratforJ Grammar School. About the age of thirteeu, however, he was withdrawn from school to assist his father in his declining business. Five years later he added to the complications of his life by marrying Anne Hathaway, probably the daughter of a farmer of Shottery who had recently died. There is reason for suspecting that this marriage was forcbd on Shakspere by the bride's family as a measure of reparation. Anne was eight years older than her husband. She bore him three children, Susanna, Hamnet, and Judith, the last being twins born in 1585. After this Shakspere had no more children, and it is conjectured that he left Stratford in the same year, possibly in consequence of difficulties with a gentleman of the neighbor- hood, Sir Thomas Lucy, on whose estate he is tra- ditionally said to have poached. At all events, within the next few years Shakspere abandoned Stratford for London. Here Shakspere found his first employment, so far as we know, in the company of actors patron- ized by the Earl of Leicester, and after his death SHAKSPERE AND HIS PLAYS. 5 successively by Lord Strange, and Lord Hnnsdon, who afterwards became the Lord Chamberlain. Shakspere was at first, perhaps, a servant, then an actor, then an adapter of the plays of others, and finally a dramatist and poet on his ov\^n acconnt. That he early attracted notice in his profession of player and dramatic adapter is proved by an angry reference to him in a pamphlet by Eobert Greene, called a Groatsworth of Wit Bought ivith a Million of Rej^entance. "There is," wrote Greene, ''an upstart Crow beautified with our feathers, that with his tygers heart wrapt in a ijlayers hide, sap- poses he is as well able to bum bast out a blanke verse as the best of you; and being an absolL^o Johannes factotum^ is in his owne conceit the only Shake-scene in a country." This was published in 1592, several years after Shakspere's arrival in London. The "tygers heart wrapt in a players hide" is a parody of a line in the the third part of Henry VI^ which is one of the plays which Shaks- pere may have rewritten. But although Shakspere was in some sort a dramatist by 1592, he continued to act for years after. He is set down in 1598 as one of the company which played Ben Jonson's Every Man in His Humour, and as late as 1603 he is mentioned with Eichard Burbage as a member of the company which enjoyed the special favor of James I. ^ "Oh, tiger's heart wrapt in a woman's hide." L, iy..l37. 6 iNTKODUCTiOi-T. As actor and playwright Shakspere secured the means of rehabilitating his family. According to Mr. Sidney Lee ^ his salary was probably not far from £100 'per annum^ and in addition, his plays, of which he produced, on an average, two a year, brought him in perhaps £10 apiece before 1599, and more later. In 1599 he became a share- holder in a new theater, the Globe, which proved extremely profitable. With these resources Shak- spere began to build up a landed estate for him- self in his native town. In 1597 he bought New Place, a large house in Stratford; and in 1602 he added to this a hundred acres of land near the town. Other investments show him to have been a man of increasing substance and consequence in the county. Moreover, if his plays brought him little money, they gave him repu- tation and consideration in London, both with the literary men of his day and with those of higher rank. In 1593 he dedicated his first pub- lished work, the poem Venus and Adonis, to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, and a year later The Rape of Lucrece to the same noble- man, in terms which leave no doubt as to the cor- diality which existed between them. If, as many suppose, the sonnets are to be regarded as dedicated to William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, we have another evidence of Shakspere's intimacy with the great. In any case, it is easy to suppose that the ^ A Life of WllliaDi Shakespeare. SHAKSPERE AND HIS PLAYS. 7 drama in which Shakspere took most interest was that of the recovery, by his efforts, of the position which his family had lost in his boyhood. In this work of recovery Shakspere must have suffered a painful discouragement from the death of his son Hamnet in 1596, just when his plans for re-establishing his family at Stratford were approaching maturity. The interest of the rest of his life is in his authorship of the plays which bear his name, of which an account is given later. In 1611 the dramatist retired from active life, and except for an occasional visit to London, lived at New Place, Stratford, where, on April 23, 1616, he died. II. THE ENGLISH DRAMA. "When Shakspere came up from Stratford to London he fc and demanding expression the inter- ests, ideals, and passions which were the accom- paniment of the intellectual and moral expansion of the English Renaissance ; and he found existing a literary form beyond others suited to be the vehicle of such expression. The modern drama began its course in the obscurity of the Middle Age. Its origin was due chiefly to the desire of the church to educate the people into its myster- ies by giving to the latter concrete representation. The ceremony of the mass with its symbolism is a result of the dramatic impulse. It became the 8 INTRODUCTION. custom for the clergy to give at Christmas and Easter actual representations of the scene about the manger at Bethlehem and of the resurrection of Jesus, the tableau being accompanied by appro- priate lyrical passages in which the audience took part. Gradually these representations became more elaborate; a certain amount of stage setting was used, and the characters were provided with speeches drawn from the Gospel narrative. More- over, to the sacred representations which were founded upon the Gospels, and are known as Mys- teries, were added other plays, dealing with events in the Old Testament or in the lives of various saints. These were called Miracle Plays. A third form of drama was the Morality, in which the ethical side of Christianity was expressed, usually by allegorical representation of the life of a man struggling against temptation. At first such sacred plays were entirely in the hands of the clergy. The substitution of the ver- nacular for Latin, the transfer of the stage, as it became more elaborate, from the church itself to the open air, and finally the attempt to make the plays popular by developing their realistic and comic possibilities, caused the drama to fail more and more into the hands of lay actors. The guilds, or associations of mediaeval trades, each of which had its patron saint, took up the duty of presenting on public holidays the Mysteries or Miracle Plays for Avbich each was specially fitted. SHAKSPERE AND HIS PLAYS. 9 For example, the shipwrights chose the story of Noah, in which the building of the ark gave them an opportunity to show their skill. In the larger towns the plays were repeated several times at different points, and for convenience the stage was set on wheels and drawn through the streets. In this way the several guilds followed one another, presenting in successive plays the chief events of Bible history in chronological order to many groups of spectators. Among the collections of such plays which remain may be mentioned the York, Coventry, and Chester Plays, named from the cities where they were acted. These plays are in many cases more than mere adaptations of the Biblical narrative. In some instances they contain lyrical passages of genuine poetry. There is in many an appeal to the homely interests of the audience through the picturing of the realism of a life which all knew. Finally, the comic parts, such as that of Herod, or of the Devil, were elaborated. Naturally, such develop- ments made it necessary that the conduct of the play, should be given to men who possessed in voice, appearance, and skill in acting, some aptitude for stage work. Thus there grew up, perhaps at first under the patronage of the guilds, a class of pro- fessional actors. These, again, began to travel about the country in companies, giving plays on their : account in the courtyards of castles or inns. For their use the long Moralities, such as 10 INTRODUCTION. Mveryman^ and The Castle of Perseverance, were replaced by short pieces called Interludes, consist- ing of a few episodes or dialogue passages with a anoral lesson attached. These Interludes became s, favorite amusement of the court of Henry VII,, and Henry VIII., where they were presented some- times by professional actors, sometimes by gentle- men of the court. In all this time the English drama was being fitted to become an instrument of national expres- sion. The need of such an instrument came with the Renaissance. The discoveries made in Italy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries of the works of ancient authors, and the revived interest in the culture of Greece and Rome, were trans- mitted to England in the early sixteenth century. This intellectual revival was followed by the spir- itual and moral awakening of the Reformation. The discovery of new lands beyond the Atlantic, and the stirring of the spirit of exploration and adventure, enlarged the possibilities of life and of imagination. All these forces tended intellectually toward emancipating and developing the individ- ual, and practically toward giving the individual an opportunity to realize and express himself in action. Thus the Renaissance in England was distinguished by the appearance of a group of bril- liant characters. And closely following the Re- naissance came the struggle with Spai-_, ,,hich united many of these men in action, and connected SHAKSPERE AND HIS PLAYS. 11 all to a greater or less degree with the national consciousness of England. This growing consciousness, the interest in human nature and in character, the curiosity in regard to new countries and foreign countries and literatures, — all these in which the conscious part of the nation shared made the drama the natural form of literary expression for England in the sixteenth century. The drama unfolds charac- ter in action and movement, and for the moment action and movement were the chief characteristics of English life. The drama gives concrete repre- sentations of scenes and manners; and through such concrete representations the people of that day had learned to gain the information which we seek in novels and newspapers. Finally, the drama appeals to many men simultaneously, to an audience as to one. The quickened intellectual life of the day, while it had led a few into personal greatness, had not so differentiated the mass of men that they could not think and see alike. They were, moreover, accustomed to move in masses, to rely on each other for direction. Thus it seems that the two requisites of dramatic success — great subjects and a fit audience — existed in the England into which Shakspere was born. Shakspere's vocation for the drama was doubt- less determined by the demands of the time. By the middle of the sixteenth century the Miracle Play and the Morality had given place to the drama 22 INTRODUCTION. proper". The study of tlie Latin comedies of Plau- tiis had taught Englishmen the technical require- ments of a play. Ralph Roister Doister, written before 1552, by Nicholas Udall, headmaster of Eton, for performance by the boys of that school, is a Latin comedy in English ; and Gammer Gurtoii's Needle^ printed 1575, though more orig- inal, shows the influence of the classical model. About the same time appeared Gorloduc^ by Norton and Sackville, an attempt to transfer the principles and technique of Koman tragedy to Eng- land. These plays and others like them were acted at schools and at the universities, but they never became popular. The same may be said of the allegorical plays of John Lyly [The Woman in the Moon^ Endimio7i^ Campaspe^ etc.), which were written between 1579 and 1590, to be acted before the Queen by the choristers of St. Paul's and the Chapel Eoyal. Meanwhile, the popular drama was working itself out on bolder lines. The plays intended for the court, like those of Lyly, were largely classical stories thrown into dramatic* form, with swift, pleas- ant dialogue, beneath which lurked satiric or alle- gorical reference to events of the time. The popular taste demanded stronger meat — stories of tragical import presented, as in Kyd's Spanish Tragedy (1587), with a passion and violence which set classical decorum at defiance, or comedies of rude, healthful realism. SHAKSPERE AND HIS PLAYS. 13 Moreover, the popular drama was providing itself with a recognized home, and becoming an institu- tion. After the middle of the century the strolling bands of actors united into larger companies, each taking the name of some noble or official of state by whom it was licensed. Thus we hear of Lord Strange's men, the company which Shakspere first joined, the Admiral's men, the Earl of Pem- broke's, the Queen's, etc. In 1576 the first play- house in London, the Theatre, was built by James Burbage; the Curtain was erected the same year; and others, the Eose, the Swan, and Blackfriars followed before the end of the century. In 1599 the Theatre was torn down and the Globe, in which Shakspere had an interest, was built in its place. On the boards of these theatres were at least two actors of first-rate ability, — Edward Alleyn, of the Admiral's Men, and Eichard Bur- bage, to whose company Shakespere long belonged, and for whom he wrote his best parts. A London theatre in the sixteenth century took its form apparently from the inn courtyard where the actors were accustomed to play. A covered gallery partly enclosed a space, square or circular, open to the sky. This constituted the pit, where any one could enter and stand for a penny. The gallery was for the rich, who could afford to pay a shilling or a half crown for a chair. Across one €nd of the pit was the stage, covered, and pro- vided with a balcony for scenes in which the actors 14 INTRODUCTION. should be on different levels. The stage fur- niture was severely simple. A change of scene required little preparation except the exhibition of a placaird giving the name of the place which the imagination of the spectators must call up. This absence of s^ceaery left the stage free for broad effects of individual acting, or great ensemble scenes involving many persons, in which the Elizabethan dramatists were wont to indulge themselves. It is true, the stage was encroached upon \by the audi- ence, or a favored jDart of it, and this fact serves to emphasize the close connection between all con- cerned in the presentation of an Elizabethan drama. The playwright, as in Shakspere's case, was frequently one of the actors ; and the actors in their performance were so close to their most crit- ical hearers that they must have felt and responded to the slightest quiver of sympathy or disgust. Inasmuch as plays were commonly given in the afternoon, the audience was composed of the less serious part of the population — the gallants, the idlers, the persons of irregular occupation. Women of good character never appeared except masked. To supply the plays many playwrights were kept busy inventing, altering, adapting. In the year 1587, possibly soon after Shakspere's arrival in London, appeared Christopher Marlowe's Tarnber- laine the Greats which fixed blank verse as the regular poetic form of English tragedy. Marlowe followed this first notable play by a second part, ^HAKSPERE AND HIS PLAYS. 15 then by Dr. FausUis, The Jew of Malta, and a historical play, Edivard II. Attracted by his suc- cess, two other literary men, Robert Greene, and George Peele, who like Marlowe had been trained at the universities, turned their attention to tho drama. Peele had written probably as early as 1581 a pastoral comedy in rhyme, called The Arraignme7it of Paris, which was acted before the Queen. He added to this The^ Battle of Alcazar, David and Bethsahe, and Edward /., in blank verse. Greene imitated Marlowe in his Aljjhon- sus. King of Arragon (1589), and in his later plays, James IV., Friar Bacon and Friar Bun- gay, and Orlando Furioso, This earlier group of playwrights disappeared before Shakspere's pre- eminence as a dramatist became apparent. Greene died in 1592, Marlowe in 1593, and Peele some time before 1598. JII. SHAKSPERE AS A DRAMATIST. Shakspere served his apprenticeship as an adapter of already existing plays. Thus his early work ia distinguished by no sharp line of demarkation from that of his contemporaries ; rather, it tends to lose itself in the mass of the plays of the period. His earliest plays, Titus Androjiicus and the three parts of Henry VI., are almost certainly the result of collaboration or revision, and commen- tators are still undecided which portions should be 16 INTRODUCTION. attributed to Shakspere, and to whom to assign the non - Shaksperean parts, whether to MarloWe, Greene, Kyd, or some unknown playwright. The earliest plays which belong properly to Shakspere are the comedies Lovers Labour^ s Lost, The Com- edy of Errors, and Two Gentlemen of Verona. The latter is interesting as Shakspere's earliest experiment in romantic comedy, an attempt which he bettered in The Merchant of Venice. These plays, with A 3iiclsummer Nighfs Dream, Richard III., in which the influence if not the hand of Mar- lowe is discernible, and perhaps Romeo and Juliet, Shakspere's earliest tragedy, make up the plays of his early period, the time when he was learning his world and studying the mysteries of the dramatic form. The dates of these plays are generally uncertain, but, with some doubt as to Romeo and Juliet, they may be placed before 1595. To what is called Shakspere's early middle period belong his later attempts at handling English his- tory, Richard II., King John, Henry IV., and Henry V. In this time were written the come- dies The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado ahout Nothing, As. You, Like It, Ttvelfth Night, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and probably The Tam- ing of the Shreiv. These may all be assigned to the years just preceding the close of the century. To the later middle period belong AlVs Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, and Troilus mid Cressida, the more serious and bitter com- SHAKSPERE AND HIS PLAYS. 1? edies; as well as the great series of tragedies, Julius Cmsar^ Hamlet^ Othello , Lear^ Macbeth^ Antony and Cleoiiatra^ and Coriolanus. The later period, beginning about 1608, includes the plays, Pericles^ Cymheline^ The Tempest, and The Win- ter'' s Tale^ in which the biting cynicism aii