Important Quotations Explained
1. 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 with
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 us 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.
(III.i.
49–
61)
2. What
if my house be troubled with a rat,
And I
be pleased to give ten thousand ducats
To
have it baned? What, are you answered yet?
Some
men there are love not a gaping pig,
Some
that are mad if they behold a cat,
And others
when the bagpipe sings i’th’ nose
Cannot contain
their urine; for affection,
Mistress of passion,
sways it to the mood
Of what it likes or loathes.
. . .
. . .
So can I
give no reason, nor I will not,
More than
a lodged hate and a certain loathing
I bear
Antonio, that I follow thus
A losing suit
against him. Are you answered?
(IV.i.
43–
61)
3. You
have among you many a purchased slave
Which,
like your asses and your dogs and mules,
You
use in abject and in slavish parts
Because
you bought them. Shall I say to you
’Let them
be free, marry them to your heirs.
Why sweat
they under burdens?. . .
. . .
You
will answer
’The slaves are ours.’ So do I
answer you.
The pound of flesh which I demand
of him
Is dearly bought. ‘Tis mine, and I
will have it.
(IV.i.
89–
99)
4. The
quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth
as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place
beneath. . . .
. . .
It
is enthronèd in the hearts of kings;
It is
an attribute to God himself,
And earthly power
doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons
justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be
thy plea, consider this:
That in the course
of justice none of us
Should see salvation.
We do pray for mercy,
And that same prayer
doth teach us all to render
The deeds of
mercy.
(IV.i.
179–
197)
5. The
man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is
not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is
fit for treasons, stategems, and spoils.
The
motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And
his affections dark as Erebus.
(V.i.
82–
86)
