The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice (1696-1598) is one of William Shakespeare's best-known plays, in which a merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan provided by a Jewish moneylender, Shylock.

Act I

• In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.
  It wearies me, you say it wearies you.
  • Antonio, scene i

• My ventures are not in one bottom trusted,
  Nor to one place.
  • Antonio, scene i

• Now, by two-headed Janus,
  Nature hath fram'd strange fellows in her time.
  • Salarino, scene i

• Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.
  • Salarino, scene i

• You have too much respect upon the world:
  They lose it that do buy it with much care.
  • Gratiano, scene i

• Antonio: I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;
  A stage, where every man must play a part,
  And mine a sad one. Gratiano Let me play the fool.
  • scene i

• Why should a man whose blood is warm within,
  Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?
  • Gratiano, scene i

• There are a sort of men, whose visages
  Do cream and mantle like a standing pond;
  And do a willful stillness entertain,
  With purpose to be dress'd in an opinion
  Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit;
  As who should say, I am Sir Oracle,
  And when I ope my lips, let no dog bark!
  • Gratiano, scene i

• I do know of these,
  That therefore only are reputed wise,
  For saying nothing.
  • Gratiano, scene i

• Fish not with this melancholy bait,
  For this fool-gudgeon, this opinion.
  • Gratiano, scene i

• Gratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere you find them; and when you have them, they are not worth the search.
  • Bassanio, scene i

• In my school-days, when I had lost one shaft,
  I shot his fellow of the self-same flight
  The self-same way, with more advised watch,
  To find the other forth; and by adventuring both,
  I oft found both.
  • Bassanio, scene i

• In Belmont is a lady richly left;
  And she is fair, and fairer than that word,
  Of wondrous virtues. Sometimes from her eyes
  I did receive fair speechless messages.
  • Bassanio, scene i

• Her sunny locks
  Hang on her temples like a golden fleece;

Which makes her seat of Belmont Colchos' strand, And many Jasons come in quest of her.

• • Bassanio, scene i

• They are as sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing. It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean; superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer.
  • Nerissa, scene ii

• If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces.
  • Portia, scene ii

• The brain may devise laws for the blood; but a hot temper leaps o’er a cold decree.
  • Portia, scene ii

• He doth nothing but talk of his horse.
  • Portia, scene ii

• God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man.
  • Portia, scene ii

• When he is best, he is a little worse than a man; and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast.
  • Portia, scene ii

• I dote on his very absence.
  • Portia, scene ii

• My meaning in saying he is a good man, is, to have you understand me that he is sufficient.
  • Shylock, scene iii

• Ships are but boards, sailors but men: there be land-rats and water-rats, water-thieves and land-thieves.
  • Shylock, scene iii

• I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following; but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you.
  • Shylock, scene iii

• If I can catch him once upon the hip,
  I will feed fat the ancient grudge I bear him.
  He hates our sacred nation; and he rails,
  Even there where merchants most do congregate,
  On me, my bargains, and my well-won thrift,
  Which he calls interest.
  • Shylock, scene iii

• The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.
  An evil soul producing holy witness,
  Is like a villain with a smiling cheek;
  A goodly apple rotten at the heart:
  O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!
  • Antonio, scene iii

• Signior Antonio, many a time and oft
  In the Rialto you have rated me
  About my moneys, and my usances:
  Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,
  For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.
  You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,
  And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,
  And all for use of that which is mine own.
  Well then, it now appears you need my help:
  Go to then: you come to me, and you say,
  Shylock, we would have monies; You say so;
  You, that did void your rheum upon my beard,
  And foot me, as you would spurn a stranger cur
  Over your threshold; monies is your suit.
  What should I say to you? Should I not say,
  Hath a dog money? is it possible
  A cur can lend three thousand ducats? or
  Shall I bend low, and in a bondman’s key,
  With bated breath and whispering humbleness,
  Say this, —
  Fair sir, you spet on me Wednesday last;
  You spurn'd me such a day; another time
  You call'd me — dog; and for these courtesies
  I'll lend you thus much monies?
  • Shylock, scene iii

• For when did friendship take
  A breed for barren metal of his friend?
  • Antonio, scene iii

• O father Abram! what these Christians are,
  Whose own hard dealings teaches them suspect
  The thoughts of others!
  • Shylock, scene iii

• I like not fair terms and a villain's mind.
  • Bassanio, scene iii

Act II

• Mislike me not for my complexion,
  The shadow’d livery of the burnish’d sun.
  • Prince of Morocco, scene i

• An honest exceeding poor man.
  • Old Gobbo, scene ii

• The young gentleman (according to Fates and Destinies and such odd sayings, the Sisters Three, and such branches of learning) is, indeed, deceased; or, as you would say in plain terms, gone to heaven.
  • Launcelot Gobbo, scene ii

• The very staff of my age, my very prop.
  • Old Gobbo, scene ii

• It is a wise father that knows his own child.
  • Launcelot Gobbo, scene ii

• Truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long; a man's son may; but, in the end, truth will out.
  • Launcelot Gobbo, scene ii

• In the twinkling of an eye.
  • Launcelot Gobbo, scene ii

• But hear thee, Gratiano;
  Thou art too wild, too rude and bold of voice;
  Parts that become thee happily enough,
  And in such eyes as ours appear not faults;
  But where thou art not known, why, there they show
  Something too liberal. Pray thee, take pain
  To allay with some cold drops of modesty,
  Thy skipping spirit, lest through thy wild behavior,
  I be misconstrued in the place I go to,
  And lose my hopes.
  • Bassiano, scene ii

• I know the hand: in faith, 'tis a fair hand;
  And whiter than the paper it writ on
  Is the fair hand that writ.
  • Lorenzo, scene iv

• The vile squeaking of the wry-necked fife.
  • Shylock, scene v

• There will come a Christian by,/Shall be worth a Jewess' eye.
  • Launcelot Gobbo, scene v

• Fast bind, fast find.
  A proverb never stale in thrifty mind.
  • Shylock, scene v

• All things that are,
  Are with more spirit chased than enjoy’d.
  How like a younker, or a prodigal,
  The scarfed bark puts from her native bay,
  Hugg’d and embraced by the strumpet wind!
  How like the prodigal doth she return,
  With over-weather’d ribs and ragged sails,
  Lean, rent, and beggar’d by the strumpet wind!
  • Gratiano, scene vi

• But love is blind, and lovers cannot see
  The pretty follies that themselves commit.
  • Jessica, scene vi

• Must I hold a candle to my shames?
  • Jessica, scene vi

• For she is wise, if I can judge of her,
  And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true,
  And true she is, as she hath proved herself,
  And therefore, like herself, wise, fair and true,
  Shall she be placed in my constant soul.
  • Lorenzo, scene vi

• All that glisters is not gold,
  Often have you heard that told:
  Many a man his life hath sold,
  But my outside to behold:
  Gilded tombs do worms infold.
  Had you been as wise as bold,
  Young in limbs, in judgment old,
  Your answer had not been inscroll'd.
  Fare you well, your suit is cold.
  • Prince of Morocco, reading Portia's note, scene vii; this is the source of the popular paraphrase "All that glitters is not gold."

• Salerino: I saw Bassanio and Antonio part:
  Bassanio told him he would make some speed
  Of his return: he answer'd, 'Do not so;
  Slubber not business for my sake, Bassanio
  But stay the very riping of the time;
  And for the Jew's bond which he hath of me,
  Let it not enter in your mind of love:
  Be merry, and employ your chiefest thoughts
  To courtship and such fair ostents of love
  As shall conveniently become you there:'
  And even there, his eye being big with tears,
  Turning his face, he put his hand behind him,
  And with affection wondrous sensible
  He wrung Bassanio's hand; and so they parted.
  
  Solanio: I think he only loves the world for him.
  • scene viii

• Even in the force and road of casualty.
  • Prince of Arragon, scene ix

• The fire seven times tried this;
  Seven times tried that judgment is,
  That did never choose miss.
  Some there be that shadow's kiss,
  And have but a shadow's bliss.
  There be fools alive, iwis,
  Silver'd o'er, and so was this.
  Take what wife you will to bed,
  I will ever be your head:
  So be gone; you are sped.
  • Prince of Arragon, reading Portia's note, scene ix

• Hanging and wiving goes by destiny.
  • Nerissa, scene ix

Act III

• If my gossip, Report, be an honest woman of her word.
  • Salarino, scene i

• Salarino: Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his flesh? What's that good for?
  Shylock: To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. 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 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 shall 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.
  • Shylock, scene i

• He makes a swan-like end,
  Fading in music.
  • Portia, scene ii

• Singer:

  Tell me where is fancy bred,
  Or in the heart, or in the head?
  How begot, how nourished?
  Reply, reply.

  It is engender'd in the eyes,
  With gazing fed; and fancy dies
  In the cradle where it lies.
  Let us all ring fancy's knell;
  I'll begin it, — Ding, dong, bell.
  All: Ding, dong, bell.

  • Scene ii

• In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,
  But, being season’d with a gracious voice,
  Obscures the show of evil?
  • Bassanio, scene ii

• There is no vice so simple, but assumes
  Some mark of virtue in his outward parts.
  • Bassanio, scene ii

• Thus ornament is but the guiled shore
  To a most dangerous sea; the beauteous scarf
  Veiling an Indian beauty; in a word,
  The seeming truth which cunning times put on
  To entrap the wisest.
  • Bassanio, scene ii

• An unlesson’d girl, unschool’d, unpractis'd;
  Happy in this, she is not yet so old
  But she may learn.
  • Portia, scene ii

• Here are a few of the unpleasant’st words
  That ever blotted paper!
  • Bassanio, scene ii

• The dearest friend to me, the kindest man,
  The best-condition’d and unwearied spirit
  In doing courtesies.
  • Bassanio, scene ii

• Thus when I shun Scylla, your father, I fall into Charybdis, your mother.
  • Launcelot Gobbo, scene v

• Let it serve for table-talk.
  • Lorenzo, scene v

Act IV

• A harmless necessary cat.
  • Shylock, scene i

• What, wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice?
  • Shylock, scene i

• If you deny me, fie upon your law!
  There is no power in the decrees of Venice.
  I stand for judgement: answer — shall I have it?
  • Shylock, scene i

• I am a tainted wether of the flock,
  Meetest for death; the weakest kind of fruit
  Drops earliest to the ground.
  • Antonio, scene i

• I never knew so young a body with so old a head.
  • Clerk, scene i

• The quality of mercy is not strain'd,
  It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
  Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless’d;
  It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
  ’Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
  The throned monarch better than his crown;
  His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
  The attribute to awe and majesty,
  Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
  But mercy is above this sceptred sway,
  It is enthroned 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.
  • Portia, scene i

• A Daniel come to judgment! yea, a Daniel!
  — O wise young judge, how I do honor thee! I pray you, let me look upon the bond.
  • Shylock, scene i

• Shylock: Is it so nominated in the bond?
  Portia: It is not so express'd, but what of that? 'Twere good you do so much for charity.
  Shylock: I cannot find it: 'tis not in the bond.
  • Scene i

• Commend me to your honorable wife.
  Tell her the process of Antonio's end;
  Say how I loved you, speak me fair in death.
  And when the tale is told, bid her be judge
  Whether Bassanio had not once a love.
  • Antonio, scene i

• This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood;
  The words expressly are, a pound of flesh.
  Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh;
  But, in the cutting it, if thou dost shed
  One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods
  Are by the laws of Venice confiscate
  Unto the state of Venice.
  • Portia, scene i

• An upright judge, a learned judge!
  • Gratiano, scene i

• A second Daniel, a Daniel, Jew!
  Now, infidel, I have you on the hip.
  • Gratiano, scene i

• A Daniel, still say I; a second Daniel! —
  I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word.
  • Gratiano, scene i

• Nay, take my life and all; pardon not that;
  You take my house, when you do take the prop
  That doth sustain my house; you take my life,
  When you do take the means whereby I live.
  • Shylock, scene i

• He is well paid that is well satisfied.
  • Portia, scene i

Act V

• How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
  Here we will sit, and let the sounds of music
  Creep in our ears: soft stillness, and the night,
  Become the touches of sweet harmony.
  Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
  Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold.
  There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold’st
  But in his motion like an angel sings,
  Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins.
  Such harmony is in immortal souls;
  But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay
  Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
  • Lorenzo, scene i

• I am never merry when I hear sweet music.
  • Jessica, scene i

• The man that hath no music in himself,
  Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,
  Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
  The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
  And his affections dark as Erebus:
  Let no such man be trusted.
  • Lorenzo, scene i

• How far that little candle throws his beams!
  So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
  • Portia, scene i

• How many things by season season’d are
  To their right praise, and true perfection! —
  Peace, ho! the moon sleeps with Endymion,
  And would not be awak'd!
  • Portia, scene i

• This night, methinks, is but the daylight sick.
  • Portia, scene i

• These blessed candles of the night.
  • Bassanio, scene i

• Fair ladies, you drop manna in the way
  Of starved people.
  • Lorenzo, scene i

• We will answer all things faithfully.
  • Portia, scene i

Quotes about The Merchant of Venice

• I reviewed the other moments scholars cite to prove Shylock's "humanity." There were two lines of Shylock treasuring his dead wife's ring, unlike the play's Christian men who give their wives' rings away. But unlike the other men, Shylock never gets his ring back--because his daughter steals it, and becomes a Christian, and inherits what remains of his estate at the play's triumphant end. Then there was the trial scene, where modern actors often make Shylock seem tragic rather than horrific. But that was performance, not text. Finally, scholars point to the many times Shylock explains why he is so revolting: Christians treat him poorly, so he returns the favor. But for this to satisfy, one must accept that Jews are revolting to begin with, and that their repulsiveness simply needs to be explained. None of it worked. And then I saw just how deep the gaslighting went: I felt obligated to make it work, to contort this revolting material into something that excused it. I have a doctorate in literature. I am aware that Shakespeare's plays contain many layers and mean many things. But the degrading hideousness of this character is obvious even to a ten-year-old, and no matter how many more layers the play contains, that is unambiguously one of them.
  • Dara Horn "Commuting with Shylock" in People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present (2021)

• This inhumanity of mercenary commerce is the more notable because it is a fulfilment of the law that the corruption of the best is the worst. … And this is the ultimate lesson which the leader of English intellect meant for us … in the tale of the "Merchant of Venice"; in which the true and incorrupt merchant,—kind and free, beyond every other Shakespearian conception of men,—is opposed to the corrupted merchant, or usurer; the lesson being deepened by the expression of the strange hatred which the corrupted merchant bears to the pure one, mixed with intense scorn.
  • John Ruskin, Unto This Last (1860), 3

External links

• The Merchant of Venice Quotes analyzed; study guide with themes, character analyses, multimedia, teaching guide
• Full Text of The Play easy to understand; all scenes.