All Because He Was a Jew?
I hated Shakespeare for two reasons. One is that some of his works were part of my school curriculum and some not-so-bright teachers tried to drive these into my skull. That led to my being turned by even the mere metnion of the word, "Shakepeare". Second, most of his works are pretty long, and I being an impatient and lazy man, could never gather the nerve to pick up one of this books and go through it.
Over the years, I read quite a number of esssays, some telling that it was someone else who wrote the books that Shakespeare is credited with, and some other vehemendly defending shakespeare. I read that even eminent people such as, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Freud, and others have expressed disbelief that the man known as Shakespeare actually produced the works attributed to him.
Then one Friday afternoon, I picked up the movie, "The Merchant of Venice", by chance, because it had, among others, Al Pacino as the Shylock. Yes, the evil Shylock, who would chop off a pound of felsh to compensate for his 3,000 ducats.
The movie started with a disclaimer about how in Europe in those days, the Jews had to lend money and work as userer, because they were not allowed to pursue any other profession. And what that made me think was that I was going to watch another cheesy movie.
And then, I heard Shylock saying the following lines:
"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. "
"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 villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction. "
Sounds pretty corny, right? These lines must be created by the politically correct moviemaker of the 21st century, correct? At least, I thought it so. And then, out of curiosity, I checked for the source of these dialogies in the internet.
And the result of the search surprised me. It was Shakespeare, who gave Shylock these words, as is seen in the folliowing:
"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 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 villany you
teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I
will better the instruction."
And then I realized what kind of fella Shakespeare must have been! To write this in the 16th century (or the early 17th century), one must be centuries ahead of one's time; especially in Europe, where Christianity had been busy persecuting Jews for 1600 years by then. It's interesting to note that the same Europe, which had banished Jews for centuries, and which, at a later date, would invent Ghetto, Pogrom and the "Final Solution", gave birth to someone whose views were so liberal and balanced.
That also made me realize how stupid many of the people that I met in my school days and later, who had read this book and tried to talk to me about it, were! Almost all of them either criticized "Merchant of Venice" for being anti-Semitic, or simply aceepted the 'fact' that all Jews must be greedy moneylanders; some of them refered to Shylock, whenever they had to mention someone exceedingly greedy. ; nothing could be farther from truth than this.
Coming back to the work: Shakespeare does not stop his attack on injustice at that point, in "Merchant of Venice". He next attacks the hypocrisy of the Christian noblefolk, when Shylock asks the court:
"What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong?
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 burthens? let their beds
Be made as soft as yours and let their palates
Be season'd with such viands? 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.
If you deny me, fie upon your law!
There is no force in the decrees of Venice.
I stand for judgment: answer; shall I have it?"
I now have more reasons to dislike the so-called enlightened people, and not to take anyone's assessment of a work of art at face value.
_________________________________________________________________
(Shakespeare was, however, not a superhuman. Perhaps he would have host his head, had he opted to vindicate a Jew. So, finally he had to make Shylock renounce Judaism, convert to Christianity and forgeo all his wealth and properties.)
____________________________The movie started with a disclaimer about how in Europe in those days, the Jews had to lend money and work as userer, because they were not allowed to pursue any other profession. And what that made me think was that I was going to watch another cheesy movie.
And then, I heard Shylock saying the following lines:
"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. "
"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 villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction. "
Sounds pretty corny, right? These lines must be created by the politically correct moviemaker of the 21st century, correct? At least, I thought it so. And then, out of curiosity, I checked for the source of these dialogies in the internet.
And the result of the search surprised me. It was Shakespeare, who gave Shylock these words, as is seen in the folliowing:
"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 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 villany you
teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I
will better the instruction."
And then I realized what kind of fella Shakespeare must have been! To write this in the 16th century (or the early 17th century), one must be centuries ahead of one's time; especially in Europe, where Christianity had been busy persecuting Jews for 1600 years by then. It's interesting to note that the same Europe, which had banished Jews for centuries, and which, at a later date, would invent Ghetto, Pogrom and the "Final Solution", gave birth to someone whose views were so liberal and balanced.
That also made me realize how stupid many of the people that I met in my school days and later, who had read this book and tried to talk to me about it, were! Almost all of them either criticized "Merchant of Venice" for being anti-Semitic, or simply aceepted the 'fact' that all Jews must be greedy moneylanders; some of them refered to Shylock, whenever they had to mention someone exceedingly greedy. ; nothing could be farther from truth than this.
Coming back to the work: Shakespeare does not stop his attack on injustice at that point, in "Merchant of Venice". He next attacks the hypocrisy of the Christian noblefolk, when Shylock asks the court:
"What judgment shall I dread, doing no wrong?
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 burthens? let their beds
Be made as soft as yours and let their palates
Be season'd with such viands? 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.
If you deny me, fie upon your law!
There is no force in the decrees of Venice.
I stand for judgment: answer; shall I have it?"
I now have more reasons to dislike the so-called enlightened people, and not to take anyone's assessment of a work of art at face value.
_________________________________________________________________
(Shakespeare was, however, not a superhuman. Perhaps he would have host his head, had he opted to vindicate a Jew. So, finally he had to make Shylock renounce Judaism, convert to Christianity and forgeo all his wealth and properties.)
Sources:
http://imdb.com/title/tt0379889/
http://imdb.com/title/tt0379889/quotes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare
http://eamesharlan.org/tptt/merchant31.html
http://www.william-shakespeare.info/act4-script-text-merchant-of-venice.htm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home