The Merchant of Venice: The Wisdom of Shakespeare

(1995-2005)

Author’s Preface

The purpose of this book is to provide an insight into the extraordinary wisdom and philosophy which underlies The Merchant of Venice, which help to give the play, like other Shakespeare plays, the extra ‘specialness’ that sets it apart from most other dramatic productions.

The play, as most people already know or readily accept, has strong political overtones. It brings up painful subjects, such as racialism, discrimination, apartheid, intolerance, greed, and racial and religious exclusivity and self-righteousness. It forces us to look at these things, which are still relevant now as in Shakespeare’s time. Moreover, the play uses powerful contrasts to illustrate its themes, such as love and hate, mercy and justice, generosity and greed, good and evil, and focuses these matters in two antagonists who are representatives, supposedly, of two great religions, Christianity and Judaism. It is powerful material, dramatised with the superb artistry of one of the greatest playwrights who has ever lived, and there is hardly a person who is not stirred in one way or another by the experience of a well produced stage performance of the play.

Underneath the politics and story-line, however, lie even deeper matters that pertain to the human soul. The psychology of the play is profound, holding up a mirror to our own complex natures; and, behind this psychology, are the laws of life which inform, guide and govern our destinies. It is these levels, beneath the history and politics, that this book attempts to study. Symbolism is the language that transports us there, and so it is from the symbolic, not personal or historic, point of view that this book is written.

All mention of ‘God’ or discussion of religious dogma was banned in the theatre in the reformative religious atmosphere of Elizabethan times. This did not stop the playwrights, however; and, instead of mentioning ‘God’, all the classical gods and goddesses were brought into play as substitutes. It was the age of the Renaissance, and the majority of people were conversant with at least some of the classical myths. Images used everywhere in architecture, sculpture and paintings, and in books, were of the Greek and Roman gods, goddesses, heroes and heroines. It was a language of art equal to that of the medieval Church—and, most importantly, it was for the general public. Shakespeare was a master of this art and of the philosophy which lies behind it. This philosophy is identical with that universal truth on which all the great religions are based. Through this play and other plays, Shakespeare gives us wisdom which even the religions find difficult to teach or explain.

For the plan of the book, I begin with a sketch of the play’s background history, to set the scene in terms of the writing of the play. This is followed by a chapter summarising the story of the play, scene by scene. This is for the benefit of those who do not know the play or do not know it very well, but it could be helpful also to a reader who is conversant with the play, as it deliberately picks out the key points which will be discussed in the book.

After laying out the background and story in the first two chapters, the rest of the book plunges into the deeper matter of the play, step by step. First there is a chapter identifying the major plots and themes. This is then followed by a chapter on the more specialised initiatory themes hidden in the structure of the story, which actually form a hidden structure within the outer form of the play, together with an explanation of what initiation means. The next two chapters provide a detailed description of each stage of the cycle of initiation as portrayed in the play, and an in-depth discussion of the key philosophical points.

Finally, to conclude the book are three chapters indicating the special significance of Shakespeare’s choice and use of location, the importance and meaning of the names of the characters, and how the Hebraic and Christian Cabala underlies the play. The final chapter on the Cabala focuses on what is called the ‘Tree of Life’, with an explanation of what it means and how it can be used to understand the play, to understand religious teachings and to understand ourselves.

I have used the Arden edition of The Merchant of Venice when quoting from the play, which I highly recommend both for its text and its notes. I have also used the Companion Bible for biblical references, which are many, since the play is almost a text-book on the Bible. I recommend that the earnest reader has a copy of these two source books (or their equivalents) at hand when they read this book, in order to get the most from what I have written.

I have not attempted to provide a bibliography, except for the references which annotate the book. Some people may call this remiss; but there are many excellent books available in bookshops and libraries, both modern and ancient, all of which I certainly have not read although I have read and studied extensively! My suggestion is to follow your own intuitions and inspirations in this matter, based on the knowledge you already have. The matter we are dealing with is Renaissance Neoplatonism, itself derived primarily from Christian, Hebraic, Neoplatonic and Platonic, Pythagorean, Orphic, Hermetic, Ancient Egyptian, Magian and Druidic sources.

The Merchant of Venice is dangerous material and should carry an explosives warning. Because of its presentation of racialism, and of narrow, hypocritical national and religious values, particularly between Christians and Jews, it is hard to act on stage and even harder to write about, without stirring deep passions, further misunderstandings and hidden guilt. The presentation of these matters is Shakespeare’s own: he did it for his own reasons, which are almost certainly to make his audiences sit up and think, and be passionate about the matters shown, so as to right the wrongs and remedy our shortcomings.

Shakespeare wrote several centuries before the great Holocaust of the Jews during the Second World War, which it is unlikely that he would have foreseen, but which has definitely compounded the guilt born by the Christian communities and helped to make the play even more difficult to present publicly and without distortion. Society has almost always tended to be selfish and self-protective, and offensively discourteous to ‘aliens’, as outsiders or non-conformists used to be called. The Jews are not alone in being persecuted and wronged by any means, nor are they only victims, but they have a special place because of the relationship of Christianity to Judaism, and of both to their Source. It is this relationship which Shakespeare deals with in his play, both from the point of view of the sectarianism and discrimination practised by both religious communities, but which had been specially weighted against the Jew for many centuries, and also from the point of view of the original inner mysteries to which both Judaism and Christianity belong as brethren, brother and sister to each other, or mother and child.

No one character in the play is wholly perfect or wholly bad: each is a mixture of virtues and vices, strengths and failings. But Shakespeare is a master in encouraging his audience to sympathise with a villain, because of wrongs which that villain is enduring from the righteous. He shows the good, or potential good, in the bad, and the bad in the good. He has created a Shylock who is an immensely powerful character, with whom we tend to sympathise because of the predicament of the Jews in 16th-century Venice and their subsequent history. Yet Shylock is not a good man, judged by purely human standards. By contrast, the merchant Antonio is, humanely speaking, a relatively good man who helps others out of love, but because of his distasteful behaviour towards Shylock we tend to despise Antonio. Meanwhile the other characters, Jews, Christians and Moors, tend to be overlooked from this point of view. Shakespeare indeed challenges our own powers of discrimination and bias.

I have tried in this book to present the inner mysteries point of view, which requires going beneath all questions of racialism or religious bias. It is not easy to do, as a writer does not know who his reader might be, or what biases or misunderstandings might occur. I can only emphasise that this book is not a study on racialism or religious bias, nor is meant to include any. It is instead a discussion of the wisdom teachings infusing the play, as presented and utilised by Shakespeare, and which unite all as one. Love is the key, as always—love which is merciful and binds all things together, and which is the source, goal and primary purpose of all.

With all this in mind, I wish you joy in your reading and hope that you will find this book useful.

P. D.

1. Background

Most modern commentators consider that The Merchant of Venice was written sometime between summer 1596 and summer 1598. It is assumed that the play must have been written before mid-July 1598, when it was registered, and probably no earlier than August 1596. This conclusion is based on the play’s style and because it refers to the Spanish ship, the vice-admiral St. Andrew, captured at Cadiz in 1596.¹ News of its capture reached the English Court on 30 July 1596. The play was entered on the Stationer’s Register in the name of James Roberts on 22 July 1598. Two months later it was listed as one of six comedies by Shakespeare in Francis Mere’s Palladis Tamia, published in September 1598, which shows that the play was in performance at that time. Although, obviously, the play must have been written by then, it is likely that various small alterations, additions or adaptations might have been made during the time since its first registration and its publication in quarto, as often happened.

The play was first published in quarto in 1600, seemingly from a manuscript version close to that of the author’s own manuscript. James Roberts, although he had secured the printing rights of the play, did not publish it. Instead, he transferred his rights to Thomas Heyes, for whom he printed the 1st Quarto of the play, it being re-registered under the name of Thomas Haies on 28 October 1600. The quarto was reprinted in 1619 by William Jaggard for Thomas Pavier, but with the title-page falsely proclaiming ‘Printed by J. Roberts, 1600’. The most authoritative version of the play was printed in the 1623 Shakespeare Folio (the 1st Folio), its text being based upon a corrected copy of the 1st Quarto. It was reprinted in the later Shakespeare folios of 1632, 1663 and 1685, and in a quarto dated 1637.

The play was acted ‘divers times’² by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men before the first quarto was published in 1600, and presumably many times afterwards. Its reference to the world being ‘a stage, where every man must play a part’ (i, i, 77-78), although well suited to Burbage’s Theatre, must have really seemed at home when the Theatre was re-erected south of the river in 1599 and renamed the Globe. A Court performance of the play is recorded for Shrove Tuesday, 10 February 1605, performed by the King’s Men, with a second performance on the following Tuesday requested by King James, so the play must have pleased him.

The main plot of The Merchant of Venice seems to be almost certainly based upon a tale printed in an Italian compilation of 14th-century stories by Ser Giovanni Fiorentino called Il Pecorane (‘The Simpleton’), published in 1558. This tale is the one closest to that of The Merchant of Venice and involves a rich merchant of Venice, Ansaldo, who borrows money from a Jew so that his godson, Giannetto, can go to sea and seek his fortune. Unknown to his godfather, Giannetto goes as suitor to the ‘Lady of Belmonte’ and, on his third attempt, wins her as his wife. Too late Giannetto remembers the bond that was made between the Jew and his godfather. Rushing back to Venice, he finds that the Jew is demanding his pound of flesh from Ansaldo. As in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, the lady of Belmonte arrives in Venice disguised as a lawyer and establishes that the bond does not entitle the Jew to shed one drop of blood, nor to take more or less than an exact pound of flesh. The result is that the Jew tears up the bond in anger. The young ‘lawyer’ refuses payment from Giannetto but instead asks for (and receives) a ring which Giannetto’s lady had given him. Giannetto and his godfather, the merchant of Venice, then travel together to Belmonte where there is an angry scene over the ring, Giannetto’s lady accusing him of losing it and having other mistresses. But after many protestations of innocence and love, the lady restores the ring, tells her story, and all ends happily.

The idea of the flesh-bond is of ancient origin, found for instance in religious tales from Persia and India. In the West, it even had a legal basis at one time—a fact that must have intrigued Shakespeare, since a peculiar interest in and accurately detailed knowledge of the law pervades all the Shakespeare plays. The main plot in The Merchant of Venice revolves around legal matters that are resolved in a court case. The legal basis for the flesh-bond was the ancient Roman Laws of the Twelve Tables, according to which, under certain circumstances, creditors could divide the body of a debtor among themselves. This gave rise to various tales and ballads, of which the first known English version, which has a Jew as creditor, is to be found in the late 13th-century Cursor Mundi. Another version can be found in the 15th-century manuscript translations of the Gesta Romanorum, which contains a tale of wooing added to that of the flesh-bond.

Another source for the flesh-bond which Shakespeare almost certainly used, or at least knew of, is Alexander Silvayn’s The Orator, which is highly pertinent to the additional drama that would have been conjured up in minds of the Elizabethan audience. The 95th declamation of The Orator, translated into English in 1596, describes the intended pound of flesh as being the male privy parts, the Jew in the story declaring: ‘What a matter were it if I should cut off his [i.e. the Christian’s] privy members, supposing that the same would altogether weigh a just pound?’³ This linked with a superstitious belief, rife amongst many Christians, that the Jewish rite of circumcision somehow emasculated a man and therefore was to be feared. It is not until late on in The Merchant of Venice that Shylock announces from which part of the body he is intending to cut the pound of flesh, and so those new to the play would have been kept guessing, their suppositions fed by various sexual inferences.

The story of the choice of caskets is the major change that Shakespeare made to the Il Pecorane tale. Sources for such a story exist, the closest to that in The Merchant of Venice being from an English translation of Gesta Romanorum printed by Richard Robinson in 1577 and reprinted in 1595. This was just a year or so before Shakespeare started writing his play. Robinson’s English version does not contain the flesh-bond story, but it does contain a version of the three caskets.

There are verbal parallels in The Merchant of Venice with Marlowe’s Jew of Malta, first performed about 1589—as indeed occurred between many of the Shakespeare and Marlowe plays. Shakespeare’s Jew also appears to owe something to Marlowe’s portrait of his villainous Jew, Barabas; and, as in Shakespeare’s play, Marlowe’s Jew has a daughter who turns Christian.

Shakespeare may also have used ideas from Book III of Anthony Munday’s novel, Zelauto (‘The Fountain of Fame’), published in 1580,⁴ such as the two male friends, the double marriage, the disguise of the two newly-wedded wives as lawyers, the mercy advocated by the judge, and the usurer’s son-in-law becoming the future heir to the usurer’s fortune.

The Zelauto story concerns two friends, Strabino and Rudolfo. Strabino, a scholar sent to study in Verona by his father, is in love with his friend’s sister, Cornelia. However, Cornelia’s father, signor Ruscelli, is approached by signor Truculento, a mean and wealthy usurer, who bribes Ruscelli to allow him to marry Cornelia. Cornelia, when told of this by her father, refuses to marry Truculento since she deems her father is arranging the marriage for money and not acting out of care for her. Instead she devises a plan by which the man who loves her (Strabino), and whom she would like to marry, can appear as rich as Truculento and win her father’s agreement to their marriage. Her brother, Rudolfo, agrees to help his friend Strabino in this plan, by pledging his credit as well as Strabino’s in borrowing four thousand ducats from Truculento. The usurer insists on a bond which requires a forfeit of all the lands plus the right eyes of both Rodolfo and Strabino if the loan is not repaid within one month. The bond is agreed. Signor Ruscelli is approached by Strabino and, enticed by the wealth offered to him and having the consent of his daughter, agrees to the marriage.

Meanwhile the normally martially inclined Rodolfo discovers that he is passionately in love with Truculento’s daughter, Brisana, and she with him. Truculento agrees to their marriage, and, without further ado, both marriages are celebrated at once. However, the marriage celebrations cause the bond to be broken by two days. Truculento, who demands justice, brings Rodolfo and Strabino before a judge. Although the judge asks the usurer to be merciful, and to use love and care towards a brother Christian, Truculento craves ‘justice’. He insists on the forfeiture of the men’s eyes, but allows the pledged lands to be retained by Rodolfo and Strabino so that their wives should not be destitute. The judge points out that this shows cruelty more than Christian civility, rigor more than reason. Brisana and Cornelia, who have disguised themselves as lawyers, appear as attorneys before the judge on behalf of Rodolfo and Strabino. The legal argument that ensues culminates with Cornelia pointing out that the bond allows for the eyes to be taken, but no blood, and that if Truculento causes even one drop to be spilt he must immediately lose both his eyes. The judge agrees this condition, and Truculento surrenders his demand for the eyes but asks for his money. The judge denies him his money, deeming it should be awarded to Rodolfo and Strabino in recompense for the intended hurt to be done to them. But all ends well: Truculento accepts Rodolfo as his lawful son, and promises that Rodolfo and Brisana will inherit his estate on his death.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Flaccus’s Argonautica are both drawn upon for the story of the Dardanian wives viewing the rescue of Hesione. There is also evidence that Shakespeare was well acquainted with