In all his answers and retorts upon his adversaries, he
has the best not only of the argument but of the question, reasoning
on their own principles and practice. They are so far from allowing
of any measure of equal dealing, of common justice or humanity
between themselves and the Jew, that even when they come to ask a
favour of him, and Shylock reminds them that 'on such a day they
spit upon him, another spurned him, another called him dog, and for
these courtesies request hell lend them so much monies'--Anthonio,
his old enemy, instead of any acknowledgement of the shrewdness and
justice of his remonstrance, which would have been preposterous in a
respectable Catholic merchant in those times, threatens him with a
repetition of the same treatment--
I am as like to call thee so again,
To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too.
After this, the appeal to the Jew's mercy, as if there were any
common principle of right and wrong between them, is the rankest
hypocrisy, or the blindest prejudice; and the Jew's answer to one of
Anthonio's friends, who asks him what his pound of forfeit flesh is
good for, is irresistible:
To bait fish withal; if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my
revenge. He hath disgrac'd me, and hinder'd me of half a million,
laughed at my losses, mock'd at my gains, scorn'd my nation,
thwarted my bargains, cool'd my friends, heated mine enemies; and
what's his reason? I am a Jew.
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