The Shakespeare Book

131

Lady-in-

waiting

and

confidante

Love each other

Friends

something which, to term in gross, /
Is an unlessoned girl, unschooled,
unpractiséd, / Happy in this, she is
not yet so old” (3.2.157–160).
For Shylock, this would make
her utterly worthless. For him,
without money, there is no life.
“Nay, take my life and all,” he
wails when the Duke threatens to
take all his wealth in punishment
for his crime, “you take my life /
When you do take the means
whereby I live” (4.1.373–374).
But the Christians in Venice
are perhaps only slightly less
obsessed with the making and
spending of money. To achieve
a happy ending, all the couples
must leave the commercial world
of Venice behind entirely and
escape to the paradise of Portia’s
home in Belmont. Only there can
Lorenzo and Jessica see that the
real riches are in the beauties of
the night and music: “the floor
of heaven / Is thick inlaid with
patens of bright gold” (5.1.58–59).
It is also in Belmont that Antonio
receives the happy news that his
ships are safe, after Portia assures
him with a letter that she has
mysteriously acquired. But this
happiness has come at a cost.

Back in Venice, Shylock is a lonely

and broken man, humiliated and

vilified, with most of his money

gone, his renegade daughter absent

and waiting upon his death, when

she will inherit what wealth of his

THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN’S MAN

remains. Elizabethan audiences

may have seen this outcome

as just deserts for the Jew.

But Shakespeare manages to

portray Shylock’s fall as an all

too human event. ■

Demonized Jewry Jews had been banished from

England since 1290, and they

remained banished until

1655, when the Jewish scholar

Manasseh ben Israel gained

Oliver Cromwell’s assent for Jews

to return. There were a handful

of Jews in London in Elizabethan

times, but none would have been

able to profess their religion

openly, on pain of death. London

Jews in the 1590s were mostly

Marranos—descendants of forced

Jewish converts from Portugal

and Spain—including the queen’s

doctor Rodrigo Lopez, who was

hung, drawn, and quartered in

1594, accused of conspiring

to poison the Queen. Some

scholars believe Lopez was the

inspiration for Shylock, but there

was no shortage of negative role

models for Shakespeare to draw

on, not least Marlowe’s Barabas.

With the Christian ban on usury,

Jews had long been forced

into the role of moneylenders.

Prejudice was rife, partly

because Jews were blamed

by Christians for the betrayal

of Christ. Jews were demonized

in many ways—blamed for

spreading the plague and

associated with witches.

Jewish

The friends in Venice

Antonio

Friends

Lorenzo

Love each other

Graziano

Nerissa Jessica

Bassanio Shylock

Guarantees

Bassanio’s

debt

Friends

Daughter to

Owes money to

Portia

Defeats in court

Christian