-,. ' / . . ^ ^^^^>; <^^k. \0 o. A Shylock Not a J ew By Maurice Packard, M. D. PROFESSOR OF CLINICAL MEDICINE AT NEW YORK POLYCLINIC HOSPITAL MEDICAL SCHOOL Edited and Supplemented by ADELAIDE MARSHALL BOSTON The Stratford Company 1919 ^^%%'^ Copyright 1919 The STRATFORD CO., Publishers Boston, Mass. The Aljiine Press, Boston, Mass., U. S. A. MAR 21 1919 ©CI.A512722 TO MY BROTHER SAMUEL PACKARD Shylock Not a Jew Twice two thousand years ago, one of the greatest of Hebrew prophets looked forward to a day when *^the lion and the lamb shall lie down together.'^ Two hun- dred years ago a philosopher, Hebrew to the core in spite of his heterodoxy, de- clared that things which have nothing in common with each other cannot be under- stood through one another. Twenty years ago, a deep-thinking, hot-spirited but keen- ly sensitive undergraduate, proud of the Jewish blood in his veins and of the tradi- tions behind him but overflowing with bit- terness at a social atmosphere that cast these in his face, stood before his class- mates ; in scathing invective, he gave vent to his indignation against a civilization the veneer upon which was so thin that the soul of the original animal in the Jew- baiter could not but show through, nay more, even be blessed with the sanction of the college authorities. To him the lion [1] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW and the lamb might be reconciled more readily than the so-called Christian and his quarry. The voice of the prophet is heard no more in the land; nobody reads the words of the philosopher; but the cry of the younger generation of finely tem- pered, intensely suffering Jews is eter- nally audible to the sensitive ear. Could the same young zealot to whom we have referred have looked forward twenty years, might he not have seen a token here and there that the crust of pre- judice is breaking through! Or would he have read these signs with an active cyni- cism and believed that the words of the seventeenth-century philosopher applied to the Jew (the Just) and to the Gentile (the Unjust)? Let us sincerely imagine ourselves in his place and look with him into some of the causes and manifestations of the spirit of anti-Semitism and see if, like Tenny- son's Death, it may not turn into a rosy, blooming boy when once dealt a healthy blow. [2] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW A study of the history of Jewish per- secution is not calculated to stimulate com- placency in the reader. Ever since the days of the philosopher Schleiermacher, nations and individuals have considered themselves justified in considering the Jew an object of reprobation. **To per- secute and molest the Jew seemed to be the act of a good Christian. ' * ^ The char- acter, teachings and history of the Jews, even their prophets, and in fact every- thing Jewish, have been and are at present attacked. Measures and regulations against the Jews, unrivalled by the canonical decrees of Popes Innocent III and Paul IV, have been proposed by Protestant theology and German philosophy. That grand and learned world of Lessing, Abt, Kant and Herder, the great messenger and teacher of universal himianity, talked the language of the church fathers and stirred up hate and persecution against this already over- pBrsecuted race. Pius VII, the head of the Catholic [3] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW churcli, who, in consequence of the Eestora- tion, once more reigned in the papal states, re-introduced the Inquisition. This teacher of the brotherhood of man and the doc- trines of love strove to drive out their god- lessness, as he termed it, by means of the auto-da-fe, and ordained that the Jews should forfeit their only freedom, which had been enjoyed under French rule. After the Napoleonic wars, the Jews of Eome had to forsake their luxurious homes in all parts of the city and return to the squalor and unhealthfulness of the Ghetto. Journals and pamphlets raged against them, as if Christendom could be saved only by the destruction of God's chosen people. In Austria, the restrictions which were imposed upon the Jews carry us back again to the Middle Ages and the Spanish Inquisition. Those benevolent regulations of Joseph II in regard to compulsory school attendance and practical religious instruction were carried out, not to pro- mote culture but to torment and injure [4] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW those against whom they were directed.' Everywhere there were Jew-streets ( Juden- strassen) and everywhere Jewish quarters. Nor is all this persecution and oppres- sion past history. It has been re-enacted every century, every decade, every day. The pen has been as mighty as the sword ; and Germany with her Stoecker, France with her Drummond and England with Professor Goldwin Smith have not neg- lected their weapons. More lasting a form of persecution than violence has been mis- representation in literature. When an author wished to glorify Sand and his murder of Kotzebue, if he wished to praise his own religious spirit, he did not fail to add that Christian hate would call down a day of judgment upon the Jews, *Hhe accomplices of financiers who worked the ruin of the state.'' Even gentle and pious Chaucer left a record of his anti- Semitism in a vilification that might still be fruitful of results we-re it not counter- balanced by excessive catering to the su- perstitions of early Christianity. [5] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW . Assume for a moment that this prej- udice had its origin in theological differ- ences. It does not need the arguments of a Madison Peters to show that the basis of this conception is false. Nor has the Unitarian or the Theosophist paid the same penalty for his deviation from the orthodox path. Moreover, no Jew has ever suffered with more dignity and heroism than Benjamin Disraeli, in spite of the breadth of his convictions. Dante pictures a race which at the re- volt of Lucifer took the part neither of God nor of their fallen leader. In punish- ment they may not even enter Hell lest they boast of their martyrdom. It would seem then that persecution, misunder- standing, oppression, any form of martyr- dom are marks of honor and can be at- tached only to those who represent a def- inite cause. So practically impossible is it to attach to the whole body of Jews at all times any one definite ground on which they have been at variance with the com- munity in which they have lived, that we [6] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW are almost led to think that they form an exc'.eption to the great principles of per- secution and we look for other reasons than the theological or the historical. We find two. The first is to be found in the words of Spinoza already quoted. The Jew and the non-Jew, in order to under- stand each other more thoroughly, must have more in common with each other ; and the fact that there are more mutual bonds of interest today than ever before is also coincident with the fact that persecution is less virulent. Under the stress of great emotions, nations even as anti-Semitic as Germany and Austria, Eoumania and Rus- sia will lay aside normal prejudices and bind themselves more closely to those whom they have formerly visited with their persecution. By this token, when this present scourge of war shall have been lifted, another is likely to return, which will affect the whole Jewish people, falling most heavily upon those in Europe and Asia, but not unf elt in our own community — a violent resuscitation of anti-Semitism. [7] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW As nations, so individuals, when on the brink of physical, moral or financial fail- ure, will call the Jewish doctor, lawyer or financier. The second reason is ethnological. It lies in the great composite Jewish tem- perament. Believing, perhaps theolog- ically, that it represents a chosen people, a peculiar race, it has grown more and more within itself, using its growing power more and more introspectively, cultivating an isolation the responsibility for which one may lay at the door of Jewish exclu- siveness and another to the Phariseeism of the Gentile. The small boy and the overgrown bully will always find their representative types. The Jew will never be a bully. He is tem- peramentally unfitted for any warfare of this nature. Functions that he has been forced to develop as means of self-defense, such as his proverbial keenness at a bar- gain, have become overdeveloped through the evolution of generations. Controver- sially he is efficient, and his very tendency [8] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW to get the better of his opponent in an ar- gument does not increase his popularity. His imaginativeness makes him keenly sensitive to physical pain, exaggerates a natural breadth of vision into the prophetic power of the seer, and intensifies every act of unfriendliness into an instance of colossal hostility, until it practically wills into being the actual forms of persecution which it dreads most, from the pogrom of a Russian village to ostracism from a sum- mer-resort. In our study of the growth of Jewish persecution we have noticed the effect of misrepresentation in literature, from *Hhe legend of the wandering Jew who eternally suffers for his brutality to Jesus of Naza- reth.''" To bring about a better under- standing between the Jew and those who interpret him only through the mirror of the printed page, there is fortunately com- ing about a reform in literature, partic- ularly in fiction. We are ready for the glimpses of Jewish home life that Sidney Nyburg and Abraham Cahan are giving [9] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW us. The popular conception of the Jewish type to those who have never met it has been gained from Fagin, from Daniel De- ronda and from Shylock. Fagin, with all due respect to the Hibernian Isle, might as well have been Irish. It has been told of more than one judge that, after many years on the bench, he has said to a Jew who has been brought before him for burglary, *^You are the first of your race I have ever convicted for a crime.'' Daniel Deronda was at best a hybrid snob ; and his creator, sympathetic as she was, had no adequate appreciation of the idiosyncrasies of the Jewish character. Nor had Shakespeare. Shylock, as we shall prove to you, was neither a typical Jew, a probable Jew, nor a possible Jew. In order to understand this character, let us clear our mind for a moment of precon- ceptions and read as if for the first time the story of that immortal play, *^The Mer- chant of Venice.'' Transported to beautiful Venice, we are introduced at once to one of her leading [10] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW merchants, Antonio, and to his friend, the fortune-hunting Bassanio. Antonio was a man of means but very careless with his money, in order, probably, to stand well in society. He seemed to be a very conven- ient source of supply for his spendthrift friends, among whom was Bassanio. This Bassanio had squandered his own and a goodly share of his friend's fortune, and was now, besides, heavily in debt. At the time of our introduction to him, he was again financially embarrassed. He resolved to put an end to all these pecu- niary obstacles by marrying a rich heiress. In order to win the affections of this lady, he applied to his friend Antonio for a loan of three thousand ducats wherewith to rig himself up with attractive fineries to make a pretty bait, and to enable him to make the journey. At this time, Antonio also was out of money and had no real or personal prop- erty on which he could raise the sum re- quired. But, desirous of promoting his friend's conspiracy, he bade him find some- [11] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW one willing to lend him the requisite amount with Antonio 's prospects as secur- ity. Bassanio, therefore, went to the man whom the outside world seeks when it wishes to borrow money, Shylock the Jew. As a member of the proscribed Jewish race, he necessarily enjoyed an unsavory rep- utation. He was known to be cunning and avaricious, and yet, strange as it may seem, out of many wealthy merchants, most of whom were Christians, this man, despite his evil reputation, was sought to advance the three thousand ducats to the scheming fortune-seeker. While Shylock was meditating upon the strength of the security, Antonio himself appeared. An- tonio, who had hated his race, had spit upon his beard, had called him misbeliever and cut-throat dog, had even kicked him from the threshold — insults which Shylock had endured patiently (for is not suffer- ance the badge of all his tribe?) — that same Antonio now applied to him for a loan! Little wonder that Shylock expressed sur- prise. But Antonio, nothing moved by the [12] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW recollection of his former treatment, re- plied that he was as like to call him so again, to spit upon him and spurn him as before ; that, if he advanced the loan, Shy- lock was to bear in mind that it was to his enemy and not to his friend. Shylock took up the gauntlet thrown down by Antonio. He now determined upon a strange move. His heart clamored for revenge. He would loan money to his enemy, to the man who had reviled him and his race, to the man who represented in himself all that was inimical to the Jew and all that had embittered Jewish life. No interest would he take if the money were returned in time. But if the money were not returned in time, then he should have the right to cut a pound of flesh from off the body of his debtor. Antonio, positive that he should be able to meet his debt and undoubtedly believ- ing that among all his wealthy Christian friends he would be delivered from the clutches of the Jew, should he, perchance, not be able to meet his obligation, signed the bond. ^3] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW But in the meantime, while Bassanio was preparing for the capture of the fair Por- tia, Shylock was robbed — robbed of his daughter, of Jessica, the only tie left, the only link that bound him to his beloved wife, Leah, now in the grave. He was de- serted by his daughter and robbed of his money. To heap insult on insult, Jessica renounced her faith; she voluntarily left her home to become the wife of a Christian, Lorenzo, whom, for the purpose of dra- matic economy, Shakespeare has made an- other of Antonio 's friends. Her unnatural conduct, her deception of her father and her unfilial expressions become her merits and the hope of her salvation. Fate favored Shylock 's thirst for re- venge. For now at the very acme of des- pair he learned that his enemy, Antonio, could not repay his debt and his life was at the Jew's mercy. Among all his Chris- tian friends, apparently not one was wil- ling to stake the three thousand ducats to save Antonio's life. Truly this is the teaching of love. [14] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW Standing at bay, stung by the reproaches of all around him, rejected by his own flesh, Shylock made a desperate resolve to have at least revenge. How eloquent is his rehearsal of the wrongs to himself and to his tribe ! ' ' He hath disgraced me and hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies, and what's his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew ,eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt by the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is ? If you prick lis, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute; and it shall go hard, but I will better the instruction." * [15] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW But to the very last, Antonio accused him of every evil, denied him every virtue, and boasted that he would die rather than be humble or even respectful to a Jew. Shylock insisted upon the pound of flesh. The Duke of Venice was undecided. He required legal aid. A judge in disguise, the heiress Portia, now Bassanio's wife, appeared. The case was heard, and the judge maintained that the bond was valid. Shylock might have the pound of flesh, but he was cautioned not to shed a single drop of blood nor to cut a trifle more or less, for, if he did, death should be his penalty and his goods should be confis- cated. Shylock, baffled, demanded his bare principal. It was refused, and the court pronounced judgment. First, half of his fortune was to be given to the faithless daughter, who had renounced him, and the other half to the state. Second came his greatest punishment. He must forego his religion and become a Christian. Finding no means of escape, [16] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW Shylock groaned forth a piteous consent and staggered heart-broken from the court. The play apparently ends with the trial scene, but on raising the curtain of imag- ination we again see Shylock, saddened by his misfortunes and sitting alone in his deserted home. Heartbroken and with bent head, he totters on the Rialto, where the same Antonio again spits upon his gaberdine with added malice; the crowd, as before, showing no respect for his gray hairs, still hoots and jeers, pulls his beard and calls him Jew and cut-throat dog. The ladies, as they pass him, catch their dresses lest their perfumed clothes be con- taminated by his touch. The men with scornful looks point the finger of ridicule at his broken step, and the Venetian crowd still mock at his reverses. Shylock is far from perfect. He is hu- man, but with all his defects he stands upon a higher plane of morality than the others. *^I look on Shylock,'' says the studious actor, Irving, ^*as the type of a [17] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW persecuted race: almost the only gentle- man in the play and the most ill-used. ' * ' Whatever we think of this theory, we must admit that Shakespeare throws out strong hints that seem to justify such an opinion. The world of the sixteenth century still knew little of the Jew, nor did it try to un- derstand him. In the popular mind, the Jews were a race of parasites, the slayers of humanity's Saviour, earning their exis- tence by preying upon society. Some of the peasantry even believed that the Jew was a four-footed animal. This ignorance in England could be accounted for on the plea that the Jews had been nominally ex- pelled since 1290, three hundred years be- fore Shakespeare's time. But there is a striking superiority in the character of Shylock over Barrabas, the Jew of Malta, to whose nature no evil deed is foreign. Unless the picture of the Jew that Shylock is to represent had in some way satisfied the prejudiced expec- tations of the populace, the character [18] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW would have been hissed from the stage and Shakespeare sent to the Tower or stoned to death by the savage mob of the Eliza- bethan age. Hazlitt, whom we still read and with whom your modern critic compares unfa- vorably in our estimation, says, *^It seems that the poet, whenever he is going to make a feeling or a passion stronger in Shylock's nature than avarice, remembers just in time that he cannot afford from a dramatic point of view to disregard the popular prejudice against the Jews.'' Shylock had his weaknesses, but he is at least a man. ^*He is only a man whom nature bids to hate his enemy. It is true that this piece would have been a satire on Christianity had Shakespeare meant to portray Shy- lock's enemies as its representatives."' Shakespeare made Shylock lay bare many a defect of the Christians. When Antonio and his friends cast suspicion on Shylock 's motives, Shakespeare instantly hurls back at them this rejoinder: [19] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW '*0 Father Abram, what these Chris- tians are Whose own hard dealings teaches them suspect The thoughts of others!" ' The bankrupt Antonio is a poor-spirited creature with the heart of a worm. He never pays back the three thousand ducats to the cheated Jew." Shylock is grasping, but what a scramb- ling after money do we detect among the others, what eager hunt after heiresses, what greed after the Jew^s money, and what a shameful desertion of a friend by all the Venetian Christian merchants for the sake of three thousand ducats! Did Bassanio ever return the money which he borrowed for his fortune-seeking trip? Lorenzo is nothing more than the accom- plice in a most infamous burglary and would under the government of any civ- ilized country be condemned to not less than fifteen years in prison. Heine tells us that it is true ** Shylock loves money, but he does not hide his love [20] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW — he cries it aloud in the market-place ; but there is something that he prizes above money, satisfaction for a tortured heart, a righteous retribution for unutterable shames; and, although they offer him the borrowed sum, tenfold, he rejects it; yea, offer him the three thousand, aye, and ten times three thousand ducats, he refuses, preferring to have the pound of his enemy's flesh.'' Shylock is revengeful; he is deaf to entreaty for mercy. But what pity had Antonio and his friend shown him, when they ^ laughed at his losses, scorned his nation and cooled his friends," when they denied him the barest human rights'? What pity had he experienced at their hands from the day when he first learned by painful lessons that he was a Jew, to the day when they publicly spat upon his beard and gaberdine, kicked him from the doors and called him cut-throat dog? What mercy did they show when to his offer of friendship and to his complaint of unjust treatment they replied that he should remember that he had loaned this [21] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW money not to a friend but to an enemy! What love did they show him when the sanctity of his home was violated, when they robbed him of his only child and enticed her from the religion of her fathers ? It is not surprising that revenge should get the better of that patient sufferance which characterizes all his tribe. ^^Shylock indeed loves money, but there are things which he loves still more, among them * Jessica, my girP.'* Although he curses her in his rage and would see her dead at his feet with the jewels in her ears and the ducats in her coffin, he loves her more than ducats and jewels. Debarred from public intercourse, an outcast from society, thrust back upon a narrow domes- tic life, Shylock is left only devotion to his home, a devotion which is manifested in him with the most touching humanity. WTien in the trial scene, Bassanio and Gratiano declare their readiness to sacri- fice their wives for their friend, Shylock says to himself, not aloud but aside, [22] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW ** These be the Christian husbands. I have a daughter ; Would any of the stock of Barrabas Had been her husband rather than a Christian. ' ' Very strikingly Shakespeare contrasts their readiness to give to strangers their wedding-rings with Shylock's profound grief over the robbery of the ring his be- loved Leah had given him before their wedding. In viewing Shakespeare's Shyloek we must take into consideration the condition of the times. Although it was the age of good Queen Bess and the Augustan period of English literature, it was still the mid- dle ages when Mary Queen of Scots was sent to the Tower and heretics were burned at the stake. It was the era when it needed little provocation to draw the sword; and barbaric cruelty was revealed in punishment by the law, for mutilation was a common penalty. It was a time when the Divine Eight of Kings held sway and Catholic Spain was mistress of the world. It was but in the preceding reign that mar- [23] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW tyrs were burned at slow fires in the mar- ket place at SmitMeld, to the great delec- tation of the public. But even at this epoch when immorality and revelry were at their height, we can but admire the physical temperance and moral dignity of Shylock. How it con- trasts with the thoughtless prodigality of Bassanio, the petty taunting wit of Gra- tiano and the infamous robbery committed by Lorenzo ! According to Hazlitt, ** Shakespeare might have put into the mouth of Shylock the most high-flown sentiments of chival- rous generosity, he might have placed in him such acts of almost reckless self-sacri- fice as those attributed to Gerontus,^ but he would not have so cunningly won over the sympathies of the audience.'' Whatever we may think of this theory, we must admit that it is certainly clear, that, when the play is properly presented, Shylock invariably wins the hearers' sym- pathy. Shakespeare's Shylock is not the Shy- [24] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW lock which Landsdowne and Macklin por- trayed before the footlights. ^^He is not that decrepid old man, bent with age and ugly with mental deformity. He is not a character who grins with deadly malice and carries the venom of his heart con- gealed in the expression of his counte- nance. He is not sullen, morose, gloomy, inflexible, brooding over one idea — that of his hatred — and fixed on one unalter- able purpose — that of his revenge. No !'' * ^ Shylock, ' ' according to Irving, ^ * is distin- guished by dignity. He feels and acts as one of a noble but long oppressed nation. In point of all intelligence and culture he is far above the Christians with whom he came in contact, and the fact that as a Jew he is deemed far below them in the social scale, is gall and wormwood to his proud and sensitive spirit. ' ^ 11 That Shylock all along has been falsely impersonated is not Shakespeare's fault but that of the actors. That Irving 's in- terpretation differs from that of Macklin and Landsdowne, is not due to any change [25] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW of the text but to a more careful study of the character and to a deeper insight into Shakespeare 's intentions. Heine tells us that when he first saw this play at Drury Lane, there stood behind him in the box a pale, fair Briton who, at the end of the fourth act, fell to weeping passionately, exclaiming, *^The poor man is wronged!'^ Is there any wonder 1 What sympathetic nature could resist a passionate outburst at such sacrilegious conduct as the court scene? Who could refrain from weeping at such base denial of justice, at such fla- grant and violent interpretation of the tenets of the law, and at such fiendish pen- alty for being deprived of one's rights? How would this same fair, sensitive spectator of Heine 's react to ^ ' The Jew of Malta''? A little study of Marlowe's play bears some relation to our present study irrespective of its influence on Shake- speare. Intensely popular for its variety and rapidity of action and its anti-Castilian atmosphere, it was not dependent for its [26] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW long run on the character of Barrabas, first because the Jewish problem during that time was too exoteric for universal interest, and secondly because the pop- ularity of Dr. Lopez made any satire on his race a dangerous experiment. This con- clusion is quite legitimate in view of the fact that after the decline of the prosperity of the Spanish physician the play was re- vived with temporary enthusiasm. Had Heine's fair theatre-goer seen **The Jew of Malta '^ her sensibilities would have been sadly lacerated, but she would have looked in vain for a character whom she might clothe with the mantle of her sympathy. She would grieve at the desperation of the Jews of Malta, forced to renounce their faith or suffer confisca- tion and torture, were she not so blindly orthodox as to consider even such a nom- inal adoption of Christianity a blessing at any price and were the types of Judaism she met not too revolting to be human. Had she lived a little later or a little earlier, she would have shuddered at the [27] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW sacrilege of Abigail in the nunnery to which her father's house had been con- verted. But she could sooner sympathize with Titus Andronicus when he serves the sons of Tamora in a pie than with Barra- bas when his revenge against the Chris- tians encompasses the death of his daugh- ter ; and she would have swooned, no doubt, at the final gloating of his enemies over his sufferings in the scalding cauldron. If Shakespeare were influenced by any consideration of comparative ethics in tak- ing up a similar theme while the memory of ^^The Jew of Malta'' was still fresh in the minds of the theatre-going public, it would hardly be worth while for him to apotheosize anti-Semitism. The Jewish element, as far as he was concerned, was occasional, if not actually unintentional, in an effort to portray a sounder justification of Christianity than that of the revengeful, intriguing, betraying creatures of Mar- lowe. The generalizations of Portia in her plea for mercy were probably more sincere and serious in his mind than Shylock's [28] ! SHYLOCK NOT A JEW individual rantings for revenge. At this point also lie adds one more defect in the verisimilitude of Shylock's racial integ- rity. Shylock might well have uttered the Mosaic justification of ^* An eye for an eye ; a tooth for tooth ^^ but the most intensive search through the Pentateuch would re- veal no interpretation of this law which would demand or permit, ^^A life for a pal- try debt; death for the debtor.'' The very fact that Shylock is supposed to stand for the letter of the law would hinder so disproportionate a penalty. *^An eye for an eye ; no more. A tooth for a tooth ; no more. The debt which thou owest me and the interest thereof, it shall suffice.'* With an eye more for justice than for dramatic effect, let us review the decision which closes the play. The relationship between creditor and debtor has not as yet been established. The worthy Bassanio craves a loan of three thousand ducats from the wealthy money lender. The latter, nourishing the stings of years past, is unwilling to take the word [29] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW of one who has so ably pictured himself unworthy of the confidence of the trusting public. He demands security for so large a loan. Shylock, Antonio and Bassanio then enter into an agreement which takes form in the execution and delivery of a bond with its penal clause containing a condition for the payment of three thousand ducats. It might be remarked here that the penal clause in the said bond was of an unusual and almost barbarous nature, inasmuch as it provided that in case of default the said Shylock was to have one pound of flesh taken from An- tonio's body. Hunter, in his Shakespear- ean studies, has given carefully selected models of the forms of bonds legal and popular at that time and as divergent from that between Shylock and Antonio as those of today would be. Other records show that similar bonds were actually made but never forfeited. But no amount of pre- cedent, even if it could be discovered, could justify so heinous an offence against jurisprudence. [30] I SHYLOCK NOT A JEW When the three thousand ducats in ques- tion becomes due, default is made in its pay- ment and Shylock demands the penalty of his bond. With natural reluctance, the bounden parties refuse to make good the terms of the bond. Shylock hastens to court and presents his case before the reigning Duke of Venice, who, unwilling to pass judgment on so delicate a question, seeks legal aid in the person of the dis- guised Portia, ^he case comes on for trial and the fair Portia holds : First: That the bond is valid and that Shylock is entitled to the penalty it exacts. Second : That in executing the terms of the agreement he is not to take more or less than his pound of flesh nor is he to spill one single drop of blood in taking possession of his property. Third: That Shylock is guilty of a crime subject to capital punishment in practising against the life of a Christian. Fourth : That in pronouncing judgment on the said Shylock for his crime the sen- tence of the court be that he shall give one [31] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW half of his possessions to Antonio and that the other half shall go to the state, and that his life shall be at the mercy of the Duke. This famous decision, half civil decree and half criminal sentence, bears not the slightest semblance to any principle of law or equity ever recognized in any civ- ilized country. The inconsistency of the whole verdict is so apparent that it would be showing it too much respect to charac- terize it as transparent farce. To say that the bond is valid, legal and capable of en- forcement in a court of justice and in the same breath convict one of a crime in accepting so valid an instrument is too ludicrous for extended comment. It seems strange that the presiding jus- tice should have overlooked the well es- tablished legal maxim that an instrument containing terms and conditions which con- travene the public policy of the state is null and void. The stipulations in this agreement not only shock the moral sense of the commun- [32] 1 « SHYLOCK NOT A JEW ity but according to the court itself pro- vide for the commission of a capital crime. Under no circumstances could it be con- sidered capable of enforcement. Admitting, for the purpose of argument, that the bond was valid and that the obli- gee was entitled to his pound of flesh, we find the court again erred in restricting Shylock to strict compliance and to the nat- ural interpretation of the agreement. If it is a familiar rule of construction that the right to do a certain act confers the right to the necessary incidents of that act, omne majorum in se omne minorum con- tinet, that is, the grater includes the less, the conceded right to cut a pound of flesh rightfully includes the blood necessarily flowing in consequence.^^ The only evidence we have that Shylock practised against the life of a Christian was the fact that he had entered into the agreement heretofore mentioned. And if such was considered a crime, we cannot fail to wonder at the ap- parent injustice of the law which convicts one of several parties to the agreement of [33] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW a crime and rewards the others for their connection in the committal of the same. If the execution of the bond was crim- inal, both Antonio and Bassanio were par- ticipes criminis. They were sane, in full possession of their faculties, and reputed shrewd and capable of making a contract. Portia again erred in overlooking the well established doctrine of jurisprudence that all who enter into an agreement against the laws of the state are guilty and principals of the crime. The same punish- ment that befell Shylock should in justice have been meted out to all the parties of the deed. Inasmuch as the court did not grant him the right to cut the pound of flesh and since he did not actually cut it, he could not be punished for an attempt on life. Dr. Ihring, an eminent jurist, in his book, ^^The Struggle for Law^^, speaks of Shylock 's wrongs as follows : ** *I crave the law. ' In these four words the poet has de- scribed the relation of the law in the sub- jective to law in the objective sense of the [34] I SHYLOCK NOT A JEW term and the meaning of the struggle for the law in a manner better than any philos- opher of the law could have done it. These four words change Shylock's claim into a question of the law of Venice. **To what mighty giant dimensions does not the weak man grow when he speaks these words! It is no longer the Jew de- manding his pound of flesh ; it is the law of Venice itself knocking at the door of jus- tice, for his rights and the law of Venice are one and the same; they both stand or fall together. And when he finally suc- cumbs under the weight of the judge's de- cision, who wipes out his rights by a shock- ing piece of pleasantry; when we see him pursued by bitter scorn, bowed, broken, tottering on his way, — ^who can help feel- ing that in him the law of Venice is humbled! That is not the Jew Shylock who moves painfully away but the typical figure of the Jew in the middle ages, that pariah of society who cried in vain for jus- tice. He is only the despised mediaeval Jew. [35] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW ^*The jurist can only say that the bond was in itself null and void, because its provisions were contrary to good morals.'' But failing to take this ground, one may admit that ^4t was wretched subterfuge, a miserable piece of pettifoggery, to deny the right to shed blood in cutting the flesh. Just as well might the judge deny to the person whose right to an easement he acknowledged, the right to leave footprints on the land, because this was not expressly stipulated for in the grant.'' This perversion of liberty and law was symbolic if not illustrative of the standing of every Jew in the courts of the whole realm of Christendom. It discloses the treatment that was meted out to the poor mediaeval Jew who knocked in vain at the door of Justice. The despised race was like an alien among the Christians; a Jewish youth, like a bastard among legiti- mate children. Could Benjamin Disraeli ever forget or forgive the cruelties he en- dured during his school days? "" [36] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW Law has been said to be the moral sense of the community as sanctioned by its concensus of forbearance as to the acts of individuals. We cannot help shuddering at the shocking status of the morality at the time of which Shakespeare writes. With the same feel- ings we abhor the very contact of the semi- barbarians living in the city. Thus it is that Shylock rises so magnificently above his environment. He was tender, kind and gentle unto those who respected his ex- istence. Loving Jessica more than his own soul, Shylock wrapped himself in thoughts of his only daughter, the picture of his lamented Leah. How pathetically and sublimely does that profound poet, Heine, betray his feelings for Shylock! *^ Wan- dering hunter after dreams that I am, I looked around everywhere on the Rialto to see if I could not find Shylock. I would have told him something that would have pleased him, namely: that his cousin, Herr von Shylock, in Paris, had been the mightiest baron in Christendom, invested [37] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW by her Catholic majesty with that order of Isabella which was founded to celebrate the expulsion of the Jews and Moors from Spain. But I found him nowhere on the Eialto and determined to seek my old ac- quaintance in the synagogue. The Jews were just then celebrating their Day of Atonement, and they stood enveloped in their white taliths with uncanny motions of the head, looking almost like an assem- blage of ghosts. There the poor Jews stood, fasting and praying from the earliest morning ; since the evening before they had taken neither food nor drink, and had pre- viously begged pardon of all their ac- quaintances for any wrongs they might have done them in the course of the year, that God might thereby also forgive them their wrongs, — a beautiful custom, which, curiously enough, is found among this people, strangers though they be to the teaching of Jesus. After I had looked all around the synagogue, I nowhere dis- covered the face of Shylock. And yet I felt he must be hidden under one of those white [38] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW talitlis, praying more fervently than his fellow believers, looking up with stormy, nay frantic, wildness to the throne of Jehovah, the hard God King. I saw him not. But towards evening when, according to the Jewish faith, the gates of heaven are shut and no prayer can then obtain admittance, I heard a voice, with a ripple of tears that were never wept by eyes. It was a sob that could come only from a breast that held in it all the martyrdom which for eighteen centuries had been borne by a whole tortured people. It was the death-rattle of a soul sinking down dead tired at heaven's gate and I seemed to know the voice, and felt I had heard it long ago when in utter despair it moaned out, then as now, ^Jessica, my girl; Jes- sica, my child. ' ' ' ^ Shakespeare, grand lover of justice, has attempted here to champion the cause of the Jew and to batter down with his mighty rams of truth the persecution of ages. Not only does he present his wrongs to the civilized world, but with charming [39] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW eloquence he gives a touch of the human to a type hitherto regarded as monstrous. But in his zeal to penetrate human nature conscientiously and to interpret its most delicately characterizing traits, he has made a most serious mistake in de- lineating Shylock as a Jewish character. This leads us back into Shakespeare's intention in writing the play. One critic finds as its fundamental theme the doctrine of the pernicious power of gold. Another sees the Damon and Pythias story. Another discovers that revenge is far superior as a paternal instinct to money-getting greed. Another, still, finds Shakespeare, the great Christian poet, teaching the superiority of Jesus' pro- fessors over the Jews. Yet another com- pletely reverses this latter theory and sees a powerful argument for religious tolerance. But as we look more deeply into the play, we find that this drama shows the chief characteristic of all works of art in hav- ing no motif. Dante never wrote with a [40] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW moral, yet we find countless morals in his Divine Comedy. We never find a so- called ^^ cause'' propagated in the works of Thackeray or Browning. They, like Shakespeare, deal with man. They look below the surface and dissect human na- ture. Shakespeare, we contend, was a psychological philosopher. He knew the virtues and the vices of which man is capable. He knew the situation in which Shylock was placed; he knew the laws of cause and effect and treated him accord- ingly. But Shakespeare failed when he applied the general law to the Jew in the belief that it affected all human nature alike. He overlooked or underestimated the differentiating force of circumstances. r" In making Shylock a Jew, Shakespeare trespassed against Jewish law and the spirit of history. He erred in making Shylock eager for his pound of flesh and at the same time a follower of the Mosaic Law. In the sixth section of the ninth chapter of Genesis we find a direct prohibi- tion against cutting flesh from human be- [411 SHYLOCK NOT A JEW ings. ^*Who sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made He man.'' This Biblical instruction has been scrupulously guarded for years, so scrupulously that to this day, in the family of the orthodox Jew, not a drop of blood is tasted nor even meat from animals that feed on blood. ^* Perhaps one of the most marked characteristics of the Jew," according to Leroy Beaulieu, *4s his horror of blood. It has been instilled into him, little by little, by his dietary laws. Not only must the orthodox Jew abstain from blood, but all animals, small or large, destined for his food, must be killed by the Shochet ap- pointed for the task." ^' What unprejudiced person would not understand Shylock in his search for re- venge ? What unbiased man would not feel at least an intellectual sympathy for the Jew of the middle ages, if he craved for revenge? Yet while cherishing so much justification for retaliating, he has been the last to demand retaliation. *^The savage [42] i SHYLOCK NOT A JEW and lustful brute that lurks at the bottom of every man's nature shows itself less frequently in the Jew: it has been cowed into submission.'' The Jew has neither the southern fire nor the passions that characterize the Slav or the Italian. He is not as a rule im- pulsive, nor subject to sudden nervous shocks. He is less obedient to instinct than to reason. Trained in the law of his fathers and schooled in patience, he knows how to bide his time and thus control himself. The picture of Shylock, sharpening his knife on his shoe, is so contrary and an- tagonistic to the character of the Jew and his surroundings that it is almost impossi- ble to think that Shakespeare 's genius was so deceived. The Jew of the middle ages, despised, outcast, his power crushed, his spirit cowed, could not even have thought of cut- ting a pound of flesh from the body of Antonio, the Italian nobleman. The very thought that the despised alien, scarcely tolerated, could boldly march up to any [43] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW court in the middle ages and ** crave the law'' is preposterous to the historian. Dare a Jew whom all revile and abuse de- mand and insist upon justice before the reigning duke and threaten the city of Venice with the loss of its charter? If the law granted him the privilege of re- senting his wrongs in that manner, the trial would not have arisen and ^^The Merchant of Venice ' \ perhaps, never have been written. Still it is claimed by Snider and other critics that Shylock in craving for the pound of flesh was following the law of the Mosaic code, inasmuch as it taught the doctrine, * * eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. ' ' We have already reviewed this law from one aspect. From another it seems at first sight terribly vin- dictive, and conducive to a fostering of the passion for revenge. But when we consider the time when this law was en- acted, we can conceive its spirit of mercy. In an age when strong passions and law- lessness prevailed, no better means could [44] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW have been found to curb the spirit of might against right and to protect the weak against the strong. Far from fostering a revengeful and unforgiving spirit, as many have declared, the law had quite the con- trary tendency. Before the giving of the law, a license equivalent to la vendetta was the ruling principle of retribution. Yet it is a matter of absolute certainty that this law was used only as a threat and never practically enforced. Even before the ad- vent of Christianity, history teaches us that it had long been set aside for money considerations. Shakespeare, when he made Shylock re- nounce his faith with so little reluctance, again erred in delineating the Jew. The persistency of Jewish character through- out history has been the subject of frequent comment. It was Mordecai who refused to bend the knee before Haman. How much more faithfully has the French dra- matist in *^ Esther'* painted the Jewish character! Moses himself calls the Jews a stiff-necked race. Their will has grown [45] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW stronger during the ages of persecution and has carved out for them the immortal motto, **In spite of everything.'^ It is not necessary to mention the Jewish martyrs who died for their religion. "We need not go back to ancient history to produce the names of the Maccabeans. Within our own times and within a period of ten years, ** twelve thousand Jews, twelve thousand in the Ehenish towns alone, were massacred for having refused baptism. '' '* It is a well recorded fact that in 1492, hundreds of thousands of Jews rather than abnegate their faith gave up their property and en- tered into exile. No matter how severe the lot of the Jew, neither his senses nor his spirit forsook him. Unable to command re- spect from the outside world, he took refuge in his Tor ah and his Talmud. During all his days of oppression never did he lose faith in the superiority of Israel. ^*He was always proud of his people, his religion and his God. In the presence of his Chris- tian or Mohammedan oppressors he seemed to himself like a prince, sold into slavery [46] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW and condemned to degrading labors by- cruel taskmasters.'*^" Ever believing them- selves the chosen people of God and the moral teachers of mankind, they have clung to their faith with marvelous tenacity. While nations and dynasties have dis- appeared, Israel, strong as ever, survives. She has emerged successfully from crises which would prove fatal to apparently- strong creeds. She has a strange vitality and has given confirmation to the legends and myths which predicted for her a life of eternity. In face of such evidence it seems strange that Shakespeare *s vast knowledge and true instinct were so hampered by the limita- tions of his age. There are those who say that Shakespeare must have had Jewish ac- quaintances of some degree of intimacy with whom he consulted, and they prove this supposition by reference to his use of proper names. This very aptness in nam- ing his characters seems to us to show that his knowledge of the Jews was at its best academic. Jessica, supposed to be a cor- [47] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW ruption of Iscah, ^^she who looks out of the window/' is almost too appropriate for one who is bidden — "Clamber not you to the casements then, Nor thrust your head into the public street To gaze on Christian fools with varnished faces. " ^ ^ In 1592 Greene wrote of ** cormorants or usurers." The most superficial access to Hebraic literature would have helped Shakespeare in his choice of the word * ^ shalak, ' ' a cormorant. No Jewish money- lender would allow himself the handicap of so sinister a name, nor could the cog- nomen be other than an artificial effort to make name and character correspond, other plausible derivations notwithstanding. Again in looking over the text one never fails to be impressed with the idea that Shylock is both a miser and a usurer. His servant complains of maltreatment and lack of food. Exactly the same device is employed by Eichard Cumberland in * * The Jew,'' of whom Mrs. Inchbald writes, **A [48] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW virtuous miser is as much a wonder in the production as a virtuous Jew, and Mr. Cumberland has in one single part rescued two unpopular characters from the stigma under which they both innocently suffered. ' ' Deeply rooted as is the popular delusion that every Jew was born a miser and usurer, it cannot when treated from the historical standpoint be allowed a higher place than that of a general prejudice. Talmudical and Biblical literature show clearly that the Jewish race were a people of farmers. *^The poetry of the Bible bor- rows its colors from the vineyard, the fields, the harvest, the plow — in brief, from the occupations of men who till the soil. The punishments threatened are always such as would affect agriculture.'^ "" The Talmud tells us that it is the duty of every parent to teach the son a manual trade, lest he become a companion of thieves. It is not true that for twenty centuries IsraePs soul was absorbed in banking and speculation. Joseph, the father of Jesus, was a carpenter. The great teachers of [49] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW Israel made their living at the cobbler's bench, by the baker's oven and by means of their hands. Spinoza, the lens grinder of Amsterdam, was not the only Jew em- ployed in this art. Judaism most emphatically condemns the method of making money by usury. She inculcates principles diametrically opposed to this manner of money getting. David in his fifteenth psalm reviles the *^man who putteth out his money to usury. ' ' The misconception of the nature of money and capital and the misinterpretation on the part of the mediaeval church of the spiritual law led to the restriction placed on taking interest for money loaned. But commerce made it imperative to dis- regard this law. Therefore, in order to save the Christian conscience, the Jew, who was shut out from every honorable walk of life, from professions and from public career, but who was not under the common law, was forced to become the money lender. The law at that time not only restricted him from honorable and cultured [60] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW society, but confined him to money lending in order to recompense his oppressors. The distinction between interest and usury is only modern. Interest until a few years ago was usury. What is usury in one state is not usury in another, as rates of interest advance or lower, as capital increases or decreases. But the Jews were not the only people engaged in money lend- ing or charged with usury. There were many Christians who laughed at the ordi- nances of the church and engaged in this business. But when Jessica accuses her father of ungentle feeling and has so little affection for him, it may be easily seen that there is a side of Jewish life that Shakespeare never knew, — the domestic. The command- ment that tells us to honor our father and mother is considered by every Jew as al- most superfluous. They cannot imagine any people who do not honor, love, revere and obey both father and mother. Not only was this motto of domestic happiness faithfully followed in the days of persecu- [51] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW tion, but it was, as we observe, an inspira- tion to unbosom the pent up feeling of long endured misery. Barred from the confi- dence of his superiors, suspicious of all those who approached him, hunted and chased by his enemies, he became a man of inward life. Feelings of joy, of sorrow, of happiness and misery were secretly guarded in the dungeons of his breast. But misery loves company, and to his own family, chased and hunted like himself, he unbarred the door which locked his secret emotions. With them he was gentle, kind, loving, even as a ferocious lion is to his young. To his wife and children he re- vealed all that was noble and affectionate in his nature. Jewish home life presents a beautiful picture. Seated about the fire at eventide, the father and husband opens unto his own the burdensome history of the day. The Torah, from which he draws his consola- tion, is ever at his side. His children are taught to respect its teachings and inspired with the ambition to become learned in the [52] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW Law. He is always ready to discuss the merits of his religion with his children and to answer all questions in reference to the subject. Temperate, patient, gentle, regu- lar in habits, how could the home life of the Jew be otherwise than pleasant 1 Pos- sessing all the attributes that make up an affectionate nature, how could he but love his family? No drunken brawls, no violent outbursts of temper, no coarse speech or brutal manners ever disturb the felicity of his home. Of but few vices and many do- mestic virtues, all the inmates of his abode are bound together by ties of natural affection. Is Shylock^s home then a Jemsh home! Is Jessica a Jewish girl? * * The Hebrew will turn Christian, ' ' says Antonio ; * ^ he grows kind. ' ^ The great doc- trine of human brotherhood, — the doctrine in which it is claimed that all religion and all morality are summed up — was long taught in Judaism and given to the world before the origin of Christianity. ^ ^ Why, ' ' asks the Talmud, **was there but one [53] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW Adam in the beginning T^ Eabbis an- swered, *'It is to show that all men have the same father and that one people or creed should not be able to say to another, ^our ancestors were richer or greater than thine/ '' When a Gentile came to Hillel and asked to be instructed in the tenets of Judaism during the short time he could stand on one foot, he was given this prin- ciple as the essence of Judaism: ** What- ever is displeasing unto thee, do not unto others : this is the foundation of Judaism — the rest is commentary. Go and learn/' Thus the picture of Shylock is so antag- onistic to the Jewish character that it need not even be defended. If it is, so to speak, idiopathic and not intended as representa- tive of the race, all the more pity that it has for so many centuries and to so many readers served as an epitome of all that is Jewish. Shakespeare, with all his ingenuity, was yet subject to the law of environment. Even that myriad-minded one was ham- pered by his surrounding conditions. Liv- [54] r I SHYLOCK NOT A JEW ing in a period when his knowledge of the Jew must have been deficient, he could not rise above the prejudices of his age. Three hundred years before his time, in 1290, Jews had been banished from England, and were not readmitted till after his day. He must, therefore, have derived his knowl- edge indirectly, perhaps from what he read or heard or saw depicted on the stage. He had probably heard of the in- famous charge that the Jews used Chris- tian blood for certain ritual practices, but did not know that the same charges had been made against the Christians in the early centuries. He knew that there were usurers amongst the Jews, but he probably had never heard of the Lombard rascals, and of how the Roman law protected their claims however unjust. That he was prejudiced against the Jews there can be no doubt — though less than most English writers, since we can find such passages in his writings as, *^A Jew would have wept to see such parting,*' ^^ or when in the witch scene of ^* Macbeth, '* he requires the [55] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW ^^iver of blaspheming Jew/' for the devilish practices. On the other hand, many critics claim that one Dr. Roderigo Lopez, a reputed Jew, and a court physician to Elizabeth, furnished Shakespeare with his model for Shylock. This famous physician was un- justly accused by one Don Antonio of an attempt upon the life of the queen. De- spite his innocence he was convicted and mercilessly executed. Shakespeare might not have known this man's innocence; he might not have known that this Dr. Lopez, although a descendant of Spanish Jews, was in fact a Christian. Then again it is maintained by other critics that Shake- speare might have visited the continent where he might have come in contact with the Jews of Venice. This theory need not necessarily be true, inasmuch as all the information about Italian customs and topography in his plays could be gleaned from at least two books popular during his time: *^The History of Italic,'' by William Thomas, and ^^The Garden of [56] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW Pleasure," by James Sanford, either of which would have been as valuable an interpreter as the works of Herodotus. Even assuming that Shakespeare actually visited Italy (in 1593 when the theatres were closed on account of the plague), one must admit that he has grossly misrepre- sented the existing relations between the Jews and the Christians of that charming city. ^^ Judaism in Shakespeare's days was like a rich kernel covered and concealed by crusts deposited one upon another, and by extraneous matter, so that only very few could recognize its true character. The Sinaitic and prophetic kernel of thought had long been covered over with a three- fold layer of Sopheric, Mishnaitic and Talmudic explanations and restrictions. People no longer asked what was taught in the fundamental Sinaitic law, or what was considered important by the prophets : they scarcely regarded what the Talmud decided to be essential or non-essential: the Rabbis, being the highest authorities, [57] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW decided what was Judaism. ''"" Among such Rabbinical authorities at Venice were men of the stamp of Luzzatto and Modena. The latter, possessed of various and varied faculties, won a place in the most exclusive Christian society. In his bril- liancy and magnanimity he outshone all his contemporaries. Learned in theology and philosophy, he taught both Jews and Christians. Amongst those who sat at his feet were the French bishop, Jacob Planta- vicius, and the Christian Kabalist, Jacob Gaffarelli. He was even permitted to in- scribe his works with flattering dedications to the most powerful nobles. His close contact with the Christians ably refutes the apparent hatred displayed by the citi- zens of Venice towards the Jews. Living about Shakespeare's time (1571-1649), he best illustrates the author's limited know- ledge of Jewish life at Venice. In the city of Venice, the largest Italian community next to that of Rome, consisting of six thousand souls, there were cultured Jews enjoying social intercourse with [58] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW Christian society. They not only were interested in Italian and general European culture, but vied with their Gentile brethren in literary achievements. There were no walls of the Ghetto to separate the Jewish from the Christian population. The Christian inhabitants of Venice, the sailors, porters and workmen, were far more friendly toward the Jews than in other Christian cities. There were no cries of *'Hep! Hep! Hep!" nor was the serenity of the place broken by internal hostilities. It is said that the Jewish man- ufacturers employed over four thousand Christian workmen, whose very existence depended upon their Jewish employers alone. When the lagoon city was al- most devastated by a pestilence and the inhabitants were starving, Jews came for- ward and formed societies for the main- tenance of the poor. When in this well- policed city, the reins of the government became looser and looser and threatened to fall from the hands of those in power, Jewish capitalists voluntarily offered their [59] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW money to the state to prevent embarrass- ment/" Not only did the Jewish men rival the cultivated classes among the Christians in the elegant use of the Italian language, but the Jewish women more than outclassed their Christian sisters as versifiers of no mean ability. Amongst the Jewish poetesses of this period the most prominent are Deborah Ascarelli and Sarah Copia Sullam. The first, the wife of Joseph Ascarelli, was renowned for translating Hebrew hymns into sublime Italian strophes. An Italian poet addressed her in verses thus: "Others may sing of great trophies; Thou glorifiest thy people." The spiritual poetess, Sarah Copia, excited a great amount of attention in her time. The only child of a loving father, she was educated liberally and devoted herself to literature and science. To this inclination she remained faithful even after her mar- riage with Sullam. Her exceptional ability [60] I SHYLOCK NOT A JEW as a poetess brought her great renown. She not only was a favorite among her own people, but was sought after by the best Christian families. Shakespeare could not have known the Jews of Venice. He might not have known that the story of the pound of flesh which was moulded into ^^The Merchant of Venice/' was an old one, almost as old as myth and legend, and in one form or an- other quite common among ancient oriental and occidental people. "" He might not have known that originally Shylock was a Christian. The story appears first in the romance of Dolopathos, which was written by the French troubadour, Herbers. He might not have even known that it passed from Dolopathos into the Gesta Eomano- rum, which was published in 1473. But whatever its original source, the villain is never a Jew, but a Gentile. Giovanni Fiorentino, in his II Pecorone, a collection made during the times of the bitterest Jewish persecutions, is the first to change the non- Jew into a Jew. Shake- [61] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW speare might not have heard the story told by Gregory Leti in his life of Pope Six- tus V. He might not have heard of that his- torically recorded wager that the news of the capture and sack of St. Domingo by Drake was false, a wager in which Secchi, the Christian, and Sampson Ceneda, the Jew, were the principals. The stake, if Ceneda loses, is a pound of flesh, but if Sec- chi the Christian loses, it is one thousand scudi. The Jews loses, and the Christian swears he will have his forfeit. The Jew finally appeals to the Pope, who, finding the wager contrary to good morals, im- poses a heavy fine on each of the parti- cipes. So it is lucidly clear that after all the original Shylock is Secchi the Chris- tian, and the historical Antonio, Ceneda the Jew. A study of German criticism of Shake- speare for the last quarter of a century shows such marked inconsistencies in the conception of Shylock as to surprise us that they treated with so little seriousness the only solution to the so called Shylock [62] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW Problem. He is a Levantine Jew, say the critics; he is the representative of the Jewish race in its highest form; he is the remnant of the lowest outcasts of the race ; *nhe last dying spark of a fire that can still scorch, wither and destroy, but can- not warm. ^ ' Shylock cannot at one and the same time be the highest and the lowest of his race, and those doctors who disagree thereon know nothing of their patient. Von Honigman, quoting an English critic, says it would be impossible to imagine Shylock of any other nation- ality without losing the meaning of the play. As well might one say that Hamlet could have been none other than a Dane or that the point of Othello would have been lost had he not been a Moor. Shylock is the direct descendant of the money-lender of Latin comedy, who was as likely to be a Greek. **Into this happy throng,^' says the West- minster Eeview of **The Merchant of Venice, ' * * * the dramatist thrusts the morose and malicious usurer, who is intended to [63] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW be laughed at and defeated not because he is a Jew, but because he is a curmudgeon. ' ' For no other reason is the Japanese equiv- alent for **The Merchant of Venice", **The Judgment Over the Pawning of Hu- man Flesh'', popular in Japan, where it would gain nothing by its anti-Semitism and where Shylock appears as an old fisher- man without losing any of his dramatic value. Although * * The Merchant of Venice ' ' has been charged with many instances of his- torical and literary inaccuracy, we are bound to give Shakespeare credit for an intention to vindicate rather than to vilify the Jew. Although the master of dra- matists makes Shylock fulfill the demands of public opinion, still he protests against the cruel treatment and unuttera- ble persecution of a class of human beings too little understood. At least, then, let us give thanks to a writer who has given the world so faithful an advocate of the Jew. Those instances of inaccuracy in literature which tend to [64] SHYLOCK NOT A JEW give a false interpretation of the com- posite Jewish character are becoming more generally emphasized and recognized. But if the world is tardy in acknowledging these mistakes, we shall again re-echo the words of Shylock: ''For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe." [65] APPENDIX Index to Notes Page 3. ^Leroy Beaulieu, On Israel and Other Nations. 5. ^Graetz, History of the Jews, Vol. V, pages 400-500. 3. ^Harris, Lectures ofi Popular Jewish Ques- tions. 15. *Act III, scene I. 18. ^Reminiscences of Am)erica. 19. * Heine, Mddchen und Frauen. 20. 'Act I, scene 3. 20. ^Heine, Mddchen und Frauen. 24. ^Gerontns, one of the dramatis personae of The Three Ladies of London, produced in 1584. He is represented as having every vir- tue and is introduced in a trial scene in which his generous forbearance is brought strongly into contrast with the meanness and turpitude of his Christian debtor. 25. '■''Theatre, December, 1879. [67] \A.5I APPENDIX Page 33. ^^Haynes, Outlines of Equity, page 19. 36. ^^ These cruelties were vividly pictured by Disraeli in his two works. Contarini Flem- ing and Vivian Grey. 42. ^^Page 215, On Israel and Other Nations. 46. ^* Chief Rabbi Lehman in UUniverse Israelite, November, 1891. 47. ^^Leroy Beaulieu. 48. ""Act II, scene 5. 49. ''Dr. E. G. Hirsch, Reform Advocate, Feb- ruary 6, 1892. 55. ^^Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act II, scene 3. 58. '^Graetz, History of the Jews, page 51. 60. ^"Graetz, History of the Jews, page 61. 61. ^'Krauskopf, Shylock, Unhistorie Jew. [68] oqM -.^^^' ^/H^^ .s^^' \ \% ^'^ ^y^^'^ .^ ,\^'' ^^^■^),^^ ^,^' :>^ '*_%;"■' ,-0^ ^ " ' v> -^^ c^- '-■<^" :Mi .^■\ ^"^^^^.* ^x> .^" '^^. .^. \^' '^"^AimJ:''. ' '^ s o ^ ,^^ rO' OO' ^ 'V Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. r $ ^ Neutralizing agent: iVIagnesium Oxide »/ "^ Treatment Date: Feb. 2009 o N . ^ ^^ PreservationTechnologies < ' A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111 " ° ^J^" ^.. "*> %^-'., . W^^^S.:' .^ /,%?'< .^Z f .^'.:^":'^-^ ,0 0^ ' N^-^ V » ^■^^ >