Merchant of Venice Act 3, Scene 1 Modern English Translation Meaning Annotations – ICSE Class 10 & 9 English
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Original Text
Act III Scene I
Modern English Reading
Act III Scene I
SALANIO : Now, what’s the news in the Market place?
SALARINO : Why, the rumors are all saying that Antonio has a ship of rich cargo wrecked on the narrow seas; I think they call the place the Good wins, a very dangerous, flat, and fatal place, where the dead bodies of many tall ships are buried, as they say, if my gossip reporter is an honest woman of her word.
Word Meaning With Annotation
It lives there unchecked : the rumour there is not contradicted, of rich lading : loaded with a rich cargo. Good wins : this is a shallow part of the North Sea off the east coast of England, known as the Goodwin Sands, and noted as an excellent fishing ground, if my gossip report, be an honest woman of her word : “my gossip Report’’ may be read here as “Dame rumour,” rumour personified as a woman.
Original Text
Modern English Reading
SALANIO : I wish she were as lying a gossip in that as ever knapped ginger or made her neighbors believe she wept for the death of at hird husband. But it is true,—without any slips of prolixity or crossing the plain highway of talk,—that the good Antonio, the honest Antonio,—Oh, that I had a title good enough to keep his name company!
SALARINO : Come, the whole story.
SALANIO : Huh? What do you say? Why, the end is, he has lost a ship.
SALARINO : I wish it might prove the end of his losses.
Word Meaning With Annotation
Knapped ginger : “chewed ginger.” This was in use as a sweetmeat in Shakespeare’s time, slips of prolixity : lapses into tedious speeches, the full stop : finish your sentence.
Original Text
Modern English Reading
SALANIO : Let me say ‘amen’ before it’s too late, in case the devil crosses my prayer, because here he comes, in the likeness of a Jew.
How now, Shylock! What’s the news among the merchants ?
[Enter Shylock]
SHYLOCK : You knew, none so well, none so well as you, of my daughter’s flight.
SALARINO : That’s true; I, for my part, knew the tailor who made the wings she flew with.
SALANIO : And Shylock, for his own part, knew the bird was ready to fly; and then it is the nature of them all to leave the nest.
Word Meaning With Annotation
You knew, none so well, none so well as you, of my daughter’s flight : by his words, Shylock infers that they were partly responsible for helping Jessica in her flight, wings : Jessica’s disguise, her boy’s dress, and Shylock, for his own part, knew the bird was fledged; and then it is the complexion of them all to leave the dam : Salarino tells Shylock that Jessica was like a young bird, fully feathered and hence due to leave the nest where it had been hatched. The word “dam” is used here for the mother- bird; this is not its proper meaning, since it always applies to a mother animal. But Shakespeare probably uses the word in this sense in order to allow Shylock to make his play on the other meaning of “dam” in the next line, that Jessica has incurred damnation in the next life by her action, complexion : natural tendency; disposition.
Original Text
Modern English Reading
SHYLOCK : She is damned for it.
SALARINO : That’s true, if the devil may be her judge.
SHYLOCK : My own flesh and blood to rebel!
SALANIO : Damn it, old dead man! It rebels at this age?
SHYLOCK : I say my daughter is my flesh and my blood.
SALARINO : There is more difference between your flesh and hers than between coal and ivory; more between your bloods than there is between between red wine and Rhenish wine but tell us, do you hear whether Antonio have had any loss at sea or no?
SHYLOCK : There I have another bad match: a bankrupt, a prodigal,who scarcely dares to show his’face in the Market place; a beggar, that used to come on the market so smugly; let him look to his promise to pay: hewas in the habit of calling me a usurer; let him look to his promise to pay: he was in the habit of lending money for Christian courtesy; let him look to his promise to pay.
Word Meaning With Annotation
That’s certain, if the devil may be her judge : Salarino thinks differently, and says that on the devil himself would condemn Jessica for what she had done. Jet and ivory : jet is deep black, while ivory is extremely white, red wine and Rhenish : there would be great difference in appearance between the two blends of wine; for Rhenish, or wine from the Rhine valley, is white, bad match : a bad stroke of business, prodigal : a wasteful person, a beggar, that was used to come so smug upon the mart : he is now reduced to beggary, who used to come into the market place with such a smiling and self- satisfied expression, for a Christian courtesy : Shylock speaks the words in bitter scorn. He cannot conceive of a man lending money from any other motive than to extort as much interest as possible. Antonio’s generous spirit moves the Jew to fury.
Original Text
Modern English Reading
SALARINO : Why, I am sure, if he defaults, you won’t take his flesh; what’s that good for?
SHYLOCK : To bait fish with: if it feeds nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He has disgraced me and insulted me half a million times; laughed at my losses, joked about my gains, insulted my religion, crossed my deals, cooled my friends, heated my enemies. And what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Doesn’t a Jew have eyes? Doesn’t a Jew have 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 stick us, don’t we bleed? If you tickle us, don’t we laugh? If you poison us, don’t we die? And if you wrong us, shouldn’t we seek revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we’ll resemble you in that. If a Jew wrongs a Christian, what is his option? Revenge. If a Christian wrongs a Jew, what should his choice be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy’you teach me I’ll use; and it shall be hard but I’ll make the lesson better.
Enter a man from Antonio
Word Meaning With Annotation
To bait fish : means “to feed fish.” hindered me half a million : “caused me to lose half a million ducats”, by lending money to people who might otherwise have borrowed from Shylock. 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 : Shylock is comparing the physical bodies and powers of the Jew and the Christian, and proving that they are exactly similar. Then he passes to “senses, affections,” and finds that here also there is no difference. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility : Shylock sneers at the Christian religion. The teaching of Christ is that a Christian must never take revenge, but must forgive his enemy in a spirit of proper humility. But Shylock says that this is not observed. He asks “If a Jew wrongs a Christian, does the latter show humility? No! He takes revenge.” The sense of “humility” here is “patience” or “humanity.” what should his sufferance be by Christian example : what should his attitude be if he is guided by the example which Christians set him ?
Original Text
Modern English Reading
SERVANT : Gentlemen, my master Antonio is at his house, and wants to speak with both of you.
SALARINO : We have been up and down looking for him.
Enter Tubal
SALARINO : Here comes another Jew: we cannot Match them, unless the devil himself turn Jew.
Exeunt Salanio, Salarino and Servant.
Enter Tubal.
SHYLOCK : How now, Tubal! What’s the news from Genoa? Have you found my daughter?
TUBAL : I often came to places where I heard of her, but I cannot find her.
Word Meaning With Annotation
A third cannot be matched, unless the devil himself turn Jew : Shylock and Tubal are such a pair of villains that one could not find a third like them, unless it were the devil himself, what news from Genoa : Tubal has been to Genoa to search for Jessica. According to his replies to Shylock, we must assume that Lorenzo and Jessica have been there. As Genoa is at the other side of Italy, some distance from Venice, this conversation shows us that an interval of time has now elapsed since the elopement.
Original Text
Modern English Reading
SHYLOCK : Why there, there, there, there! A diamond gone, cost me two thousand dollars in Frankfort ! The curse never fell on our nation until now; I never felt it until now. Two thousand dollars in that, and other precious, precious jewels. I wish my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear; I wish she were trained at my feet, and the ducats in her coffin! No news of them? Why, okay: and I don’t know what’s been spent in the search. Why, you— loss on loss! The thief gone with so much, aid so much to find the thief; and no satisfaction, no revenge; or only bad luck stirring and sits on my shoulders; no sighs except the ones I’m breathing; no tears except the ones I’m shedding.
Word Meaning With Annotation
The curse never fell upon our nation till now, I never felt it till now,- Two thousand ducats in that, and other precious, precious jewels : Shylock shows how very self – centred he is. He looks upon his misfortunes as a blow to the whole Jewish nation, though, if we are more charitable, it is possible to assume that he is thinking rather of her daughter Jessica’s falling away from the Jewish faith, and that this is the curse he means. I would my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her oar: would she were hears’d at my foot and the ducats in her coffin : it would be possible to feel sympathy for Shylock if he declared that he wished his daughter dead, rather than married to a Christian. But he seemingly wished her dead if it would only help him to recover his money and jewels, a particularly despicable wish, hearsed : the hearse is the black funeral carriage which carries the coffin to the grave, loss upon loss : Shylock has lost further sums of money in the search for the runaway lovers.
Original Text
Modern English Reading
TUBAL : Yes, other men have bad luck too. Antonio, as I heard in Genoa,—
SHYLOCK : what, what, what? Bad luck, bad luck?
TUBAL : has his largest ship lost, coming from Tripolis.
SHYLOCK : I thank God! I thank God! Is it true, is it true?
TUBAL : I spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wreck.
SHYLOCK : I thank you, good Tubal. Good news, good news! ha, ha! Where? in Genoa?
TUBAL : Your daughter spent, as I heard, one night, in Genoa eighty ducats!
SHYLOCK : You stick a dagger in me: I shall never see my gold again: eighty ducats all at once! Eighty ducats!
TUBAL : Many of Antonio’s creditors came with me to Venice, swearing he can only go broke.
SHYLOCK : I am very glad of it; I’ll plague him, I’ll torture him; I am glad of it.
TUBAL : One of them showed me a ring that he accepted from your daughter as payment for a monkey.
SHYLOCK : Damn her! You torture me, Tubal: It was my turquoise ring; I got from Leah, my wife, when I was still single; I wouldn’thave traded it for a wilderness of monkeys.
Word Meaning With Annotation
Fourscore ducats at a sitting : she had spent eighty ducats in a single place of entertainment, divers of Antonio’s creditors : this is an old expression, frequently found in the Bible. Simply “a certain number of’ or “serveral of.” cannot choose but break : “has no choice but to go bankrupt.” In this sense, a bankrupt is often referred to as “a broken man.” it was my turquoise: I had it of Leah : Shylock refers to the ring containing a turquoise, a pale bluestone, which he had received from Leah, his dead wife. This is a bitter thought to him, and intensifies his feelings of hatred. Every circumstance in the play now is directed towards irritating and infuriating the Jew. In this manner, his action against Antonio is not unnatural or improbable.
Original Text
Modern English Reading
TUBAL : But Antonio is certainly bankrupt.
SHYLOCK : No, that’s true; that’s very true. Go, Tubal, hire me an officer; accuse Antonio ‘ as of two weeks ago. I’ll have his heart, if he defaults; because, if he were out of business in Venice, I can make whatever deals I want to. Go, Tubal, and meet meat our synagogue; go, good Tubal; at our synagogue, Tubal.
Exeunt
Word Meaning With Annotation
Undone : rained; bankrupt, fee me an officer : engaged a law officer by paying him an advance fee. if he forfeit : if he becomes liable for the penalty of the pound of flesh, to, Tubal, and meet me atour synagogue; go, good Tubal; at our synagogue : Shylock arranges to meet Tubal at the Jewish church, his motive being, as we afterwards see, to swear an oath not to give up his scheme of revenge.
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