J.L.CARDOZO
THE CONTEMPORARY JEW IN THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA.


SI






THE CONTEMPORARY JEW IN THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA




THE CONTEMPORARY JEW
IN THE EL1ZABETHAN DRAMA
PROEFSCHRIFT TER VERKRIJGING VAN DEN GRAAD VAN DOCTOR IN DE LETTEREN EN WIJSBEGEERTE AAN DE UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM, OP GEZAG VAN DEN RECTOR MAGNIFICUS, Dr O. LANZ, HOOGLEERAAR IN DE FACULTEIT DER GENEESKUNDE, IN HET OPENBAAR TE VERDEDIGEN, IN DE AULA DER UNIVERSITEIT, OP WOENSDAG 8 JULI 1925 DES NAMIDDAGS TEN 2 URE
door
JAGOB LOPES GARDOZO
geboren te amsterdam
H. J. PARIS
amsterdam—mcmxxv




AAN MIJNE VROUW




Uit Nederlandsch Oost-Indië teruggekeerd met den wensch tot voortgezette studie, schonk mij het Academisch Statuut een welkome gelegenheid. De aanmoediging tot het ondernemen van een stuk litterair-historischen arbeid, gewerd mij, Hooggeachte Professor Swaen, van U. Ziende dat de stand van het hier behandelde onderwerp een samenvattende studie wettigde, hebt Gij mij die taak wel willen toevertrouwen.
Aan den Administrateur en de Assistenten der Provinciale Bibliotheek van Friesland, te Leeuwarden, breng ik dank voor hunne onverdroten hulpvaardigheid. Ook genoot ik de gastvrijheid van het British Museum, en van de Mocatta Library in University College, London, waar ik tot de bronnen van mijn Londensch onderwerp kon genaken.
Mogen op deze bladzijde de namen prijken van wijlen C. Grondhoud, van H. Poutsma, Dr. W. van der Gaaf en J. C. G. Grasé, aan wie ik naast Professor Swaen mijne opleiding in het Engelsen te danken heb.
Ook aan degenen, die mij met hunne deskundige voorlichting hebben bijgestaan, gevoel ik mij zeer verplicht.
Zoo is dan onder Uwe beproefde leiding, Hooggeleerde Swaen, deze arbeid ten einde gebracht.




CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTTON — ME. LUCIEN WOLF'S THEO-
RY HISTORICAL REMARKS AND CRITICISM 4
II. SIR SIDNEY LEE's THESIS CONSIDERED ON
GENERAL LINES 49
III. LEE's EVIDENCE EXAMINED — CLOTHDSRS, PAWNBROKERS AND USURERS — JEWS OR FRENCH? SEMI-JUDAEI — DISSENTERS CALLED JEWS 85
TV. THREE PLAYS CONTAINING JEWS 141
The Travaüs of the Three English Brothers Sherley
(1607) 141
A Christian turn'd Turk (1612) 156
The Custom of the Country (1620) 158
V. NAMES 179
VI. THE NAME SHYLOCKE 207
The English(?) name Bichard Shylok 214
Shyhcke to be found in the Hébrew 219
VII. THE SUBJECT MATTER OF THE MERCHANT OF
VENICE, ESPECIALLY THE BOND-STORY. . . 235
The "historicUy" of the Fïesh-Bondtheme—Oriental or Western? — The Laws of the XII Tables —
Grimm, Simrock, Benfey 235
The Flesh-Bond in the Bamberg Ballad 245
The Leti-Story 251


x
VIII. THE "sHYLOCKE" STORY IN EUROPE .... 254
Johannes de Alta Süva Dohpathos, Sive de Bege et
septem sapientibus 267
The Flesh-Bond and Bride story in the Gesta Boma-
norum 275
Cap. 168 (Folio 87 v.) De Lucii Füia et MiUte 280
The Moralisations in the Gesta Bomanorum. . . . 283
Is fheGestaa linkbetweenDolopathos and II Pecorone ? 291
LX. SER GIOVANNI ÏTORENTINO'S "PECORONE"
THE PLAY OF THE JEW 1579 THE
MERCHANT OF VENICE 296
The Bond-Story in England 304
The Flesh-Bond in The Jew and in The Merchant of
Venice 309


SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I pp. 1-48
French Jews in England from the Norman Conquest to the Expulsion in the reign of Edward III — During the Exile, 1290 — 1656, Jews present sporadically in spite of the prohibition, Joachim Gaunz c. 1580 (p. 4) — Composition of the Jewish race; unity of the race broken up (p.5-6) — Jews in Spain; Marannos (p. 7-9) — Dr. Adler's opinion and Mr. Lucien Wolf's theory (p. 10-12) — Marannos in English drama borrowed from Spanish and Italian literature (p. 13-14) — Were there any recognizable Jews ih England during the 'Middle-Age'? A. Total absence assumed by: a. Wm. Prynne, Demurrer 1656; b. D'Bloissier Tovey, Anglia Judaica 1734; c. Green 1874: d. Lecky 1875; e. Schaible 1886 (p. 16-17) Margoliouth 1845: there were always ex-Jewish converts in England (p. 17). B. The contrary view, many Jews present semi-officially, is held by: a. Lucien Wolf; b. Sidney Lee; c. Ed. Eckhardt and others — Discussion of some pieces of evidence from Wolf and Lee — Charges of ritual murder in pre-expulsion England: Norwich 1146, the first on record in Europe; Lincoln 1255; the charges cease after 1290; reminiscences in Chaucer's Prioress's Tale and Scottish ballad The Jewes Daughter (p. 22-24) — B. Disraeli's quotation from Littleton; passage in question correctly given by Henriques (p. 24-27) — Repercussion of Spanish expulsion of 1492 was very slightly feit in England: Amador de los Rios, 1875/76, to be read with caution (p. 27-30) — Marannos in Spain and Portugal between the first expulsion of 1492 and the second expulsion in 1631 (p. 30-39) — Perkin Warbeck: in Fr. Bacon's Hist. of Henry VII, 1625; in John Ford's drama 1634: Perkin Warbeck was neither of Jewish nor of English extraction; his master Edw. Brandon a Portuguese convert in England (Mr. C. Roth's article) (p. 40-45) — Palache 'the Pirate' protected by Privy Council (p. 46-48)
CHAPTER II pp. 49-84
Sir Sidney Lee's thesis: Contemporary literature proves presence of Jews in Elizabethan England (p. 49) — The principle criticized


XII
(p. 50-54) — Maccbiavelli in El. literature an example of influence without presence (p. 54-55) — Quotations from: Charles Knight; Ward; Quiller Couch; Abbot; Graetz; Creizenach; Kellner; Brandes (no Jews in El. England, p. 55-60) — Contrary quotations from: Jespersen, Eckhardt, Boas (who believe that Lee proved his point, p. 60-62) — Independent views of Schücking and Stokes (p.62-64) — Lines to be taken in criticizing the Lee-Wolf thesis (p. 64) — Quantitative matters: List of contemporary Jew-plays (p. 67); three lost Jew-plays (p. 68); Sacred plays, not to be discussed (p. 69); 'doubtful' Jew-plays (p. 70) — Qualitative appreciation of Barabas, Shylocke etc. as Jewish pictures (p. 71-82) — The Devil's Law-Case, by John Webster, 1623 (p. 79); The Percy ballad of The Wandering Jew (p. 83) — The Locality-test proposed: The scène where the play is laid decides (p. 82-84)
CHAPTER III pp. 85-140
Further Specimens of Lee-Wolf evidence examined: William Davies, Travaües 1614: Jews in all parts of Christendom, England exoepted (p. 85-87) — Coryat's MaturiUes 1625: English Jew, Amis, born in London, living at Constantinople (p. 87-89) — Argument ex silentio from Jew of Malta: Marlowe's book-lore concerning Jews superior to knowledge from experience (p. 90) — Locality-test applied to R. Wilson's Three Ladies of London, 1581: the Gerontus scène quoted (p. 92-94) — Three Lords quoted and compared with Th. Wilson's Discourse upon Usury (p. 95) — Nicholas Nicholay 1585, remarks on Levantine Jews (p. 96-98) — John Stow and the expression 'baptisatos Judaeos'; this expression traced to St. Bernard; Lee's misapprehension (p. 98-105) — The London Jewry a place of refuge: Lee ante-dates, Wolf post-dates (p. 105-107) — Early 16th century Lombards not Jews, but Flemings and Picards: the play of Sir Thomas More (p. 107-108) — Jews and French Huguenots assimilated in the popular mind up to 1753: The Complaint of the Children of Israël, by Salomon Abrabanel 1732 (p. 110-113) — Pawnbrokers and Usurers in Rowley's Search for Money, 1609, and Lupton's London and the Country Carbonadoed 1632» are "Jews", but not Jews (p. 113) — Passage from Jonson's Volpone referring to Jewish furniture dealers in Venice, showing by implication they were not so in London (p. 114) — The same author's Every Mem in his Humour, proves the Old Jewry to have been no longer so in Jonson's day (p. 115) — The locality-test applied to the works of Thomas Nabbe (p. 116) — Every Woman in her Humour & Roman, not a London comedy (p. 117-118) - In Every Man out of his Humour 'a Jew, one Yohan', is not a Jewish dogstuffer, but


XIII
a Protestant from the Low Countries (p. 119-120) — References to English Dissenters and foreign Protestants as "Jews" in Glapthorne's Hollander 1635; in Overbury's Characters 1613; in Jonson's Bartholomew Fair (p. 121) - Englishmen converted to Judaism in Holland (p. 123) - Sabatarians and Traskites persecuted as semiJudaei (p. 121-124) - In Thom. Heywood's Challenge for Beauty 1636, the expression 'your English Jews' applied as term of abuse to Chrifltian Englishmen (p. 124-128) - Lee's interpretation of passage in Webster's White Demi 1612, and of the same words in S. R.'s Choice of Change 1585, corrected (p. 130-133) — The Wandering Jew telling Portunes to Englishmen, 1640, is not a Jew; the expression 'Store of Jew» we have in England', is merelyfacetious (p. 133-139) — The 'artüicial Jew of Maltae's nose' in Rowley's Search for Money, proves stage-tradition, but not presence of Jews in England (p. 139-140) - Umirers were Jews in name, not in fact; the free use of the nick-name "Jew" points to the absence of raciai Jews from contemporary England.
CHAPTER rv pp. 141-178
Three plays containing contemporary Jews. I. Three English Brothers Sherley, 1607, by John Day, Wm. Rowley and John Wilkins. The Zariph-scene reprinted. Zariph not found in sources. Oral tradition through Wm. Kemp possible (p. 141-156) - II. A Christian turn'd Turk, 1612, by Robert Daborne; references to Ward and Danseker. Summary of plot (p. 156-168) - III. The The Custom of the Country, 1620, by John Pletcher; with a discussion of Persiles and Sigismunda, by Cervantes, 1616, and The Fop's Fortune c. 1720, by Colley Cibber. Fletcher knew less about Jews than Cer^ vantes (p. 168-178).
CHAPTER V. Names pp. 179-206
Names are character descriptions in the briefest possible compass: noms-parlants. Names are indices to the authors' animus (p. 179180) — Hebrew names no proofs of bearers' being Jews (p. 181) — Some critics inclined to see Jews on the slightest grounds, parodied in Thackeray's CocUingsby (p. 181-182) - Masse Solman, Sheriff of Southampton in 1489 not a Jew (p. 183) - Abél Drugger in the Alchymist not a Jew (p. 184) — Mamon in lacke Drum's Entertainment 1601, not a Jew; Simpson's misinterpretation of the nick-name •Jebusite' (p. 187) - The names in The Iew of Malta 1589, and the Book of Job; Temainte a misprint for Temanite (p. 188-191) — Zariph (p. 191) _ Jeronimye Destroralib a Morisco? (p. 192) —


XIV
The names Oerontus and Gernutus entirely unrelated (p. 193-194) — The names Ben-Wash and Rdbshake (p. 194-195) — Abraham in Greene's Sélimus 1594 and Hamon in Th. Goffe's Hoging Turk 1627, are the same historical character, the real name being Hamon. Paulus Iovius and other sources indicated (p. 195-200) — Why did Marlowe choose the extraordinary name Barabas; Marlow and 'Religion' (p. 201-206).
CHAPTER VI pp. 207-234
The name Shylocke. The pamphlet Newes from Rome with the name Caleb Shillocke posterior to the Merchant of Venice. Connection of pamphlet with legends derived from pseudo-Callisthenes (p. 207-214) — The English name Shylok 1435 unrelated with Shylocke; Teutonic etymologies of Shylocke absurd (p. 214-219) — Shylocke, Iessica, Tuball, Ghus derived by Hebraist from Hebrew text of Genesis X and XI (p. 219-220) — Transliteration of Shylocke and Iessica compared with Hebrew (p. 222-225) — Subtleties in choice of the names Shylocke and Iessica (p. 225-228) — Scialocca, Scialac, Schiloch, Shiloh (p. 228-232) — Chus originally a speaking character (p. 233).
CHAPTER VII pp. 235-253
The Bond Story. Historicity of the theme; compared with Shelley's The Cenei (p. 237-239) — Roman Laws of the XII Tables permit flesh-cutting for debt; like wisemediaeval Scandinavian laws; oriental laws permitting flesh-cutting for debt not adduced; Grimm, Aulus GeVHus, Kohier; the peculiarity of the clause plus minusve: a tag added when law threatened to be invalidated by the demand for exact partition in an actual case? (p. 239-243) - Flesh-Bonds in late Mediaeval Europe, Huvelin-Niemeyer (p. 243-245) - The Flesh-Bond in German Bamberg ballad and some (earlier?) oriental congeners (Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Russian, Tibetan) (p. 247249; see also note on p. 241, Vambéry-Basset). Benfey on Panfcchatantra and Flesh-Bond (p. 247-251) - The Leti story probably apocryphal (p. 251-253).
CHAPTER VIII PP- 254-295
§ 1. The Flesh-Bond story in Europe. Chronological survey of preShakespearean versions. L Dolopathos, Latin prose, c. 1200; Li Romans de Dolopathos, French poem c. 1210 (p. 254-255) — II Cursor Mundi, c. 1290 (p. 256) - III. Wright's Latin Story, c.


XV
1320 (p. 257) — IV. Gesta Romanorum: a. Continental Latin 1342; b. Anglo-Latin c. 1400; c. English c. 1450 (p. 257-259) — V. II Pecorone 1378 < > 1400 (p. 259-260) - VI. Bamberg Ballad of Kuiser Karls Recht 1493 (p. 260) — VII. Ballad of Gernutus (ante 1579?) (p. 261-262) - VIII. The Iewe showne at the Buil inn» 1579 (p. 262) - IX. Tyron's Recueil etc. 1590 (p. 262) - X. Sylvain's Orator 1596 ( p. 262) — XI. Some oriental Flesh-Bonds of uncertain date (p. 263) — XII. Gaelic tale of uncertain date (p. 263) — The question whether the Flesh-Bond as a theme is of Oriental or Western origin is not settled.
§ 2. Genealogy of the Merchant of Venice, Are Dolopathos, Gesta, H Pecorone, The Jewe 1579, successive ancestors of The Merchant of Venice? — Dolopathos and the Seven Sages cycle. The Bondstory does not belong to the Seven Sages and is therefore "original". The story Creditor reprinted in extenso (p. 267-275) — The FleshBond in the Gesta Romanorum. Printed Gesta editions do not contain the Flesh-Bond, and are too late to be sources of D Pecorone (p. 276) — Table of Gesta MSS. containing Flesh-Bond (p. 277)
— The Flesh-Bond as found in the oldest Gesta MS. Innsbruck 1342 (p. 280-283) — The Moralisations are integral parts of the Gesta stories; creditor is Dyabolus and cannot be humanized (p. 283-290) — Difficulty in considering the Gesta-tale an ancestor of the Pecorone-novella, because the "neither-more-nor-less" exception is not in the Gesta (p. 290-295).
CHAPTER IX pp. 296-330
The frame-story of the Pecorone (p. 296-297) - The Belmonte tale; the introduction of the godfather Ansaldo depreciates the character of Bassanio; the Italian custom quite as gross as in Dolopathos and Gesta; the substitution of Jew for slave or devil hardly an improvement (p. 301-303) - The Bond-Story in England: the 1558 printed edition of the Pecorone in Italian (Milan) or the 1560 ed. (Venice) found its way to England: Wm. Painter translated from it, though not the Belmont-novella (p. 305; seealsonote 4 on p. 221) - The 1579 play of The Jew, praised by Gosson in the Sehole of Abuse is the Proto-Merchant (p. 305-308) — Casket story in The Jew borrowed from Robinson's reprint of English Gesta (p. 209) — Another new feature, not found in Pecorone, is the discussion on Usury; not on Biblical lines, but on the principles of Canon Law. The question of Usury a burning one since Calvin (p. 310-314)
— Clue to Act I, sc. III of Merchant of Venice to be found in Aristotle's Politeia Bk. I, 10,4; and 11,1 (p. 315-321) - The sudden agreement, and conclusion of the Bond not accounted for in Sha-


XVI
kespeare's scène; 'a merry sport' inadequate and unsuitable to the sequel of the play (p. 321-324) - Distinction between interest and forfeit; between contract and condition (p. 325-327). General concluBion: the Merchant of Venice a romantic medley containing legendary clements not reducible to real life in any definite civilization (p. 328) — Summary (p. 328-330).


CHAPTER I
introduction; mr. lucien wolf's theory; historica]
remarks and criticism
A study of the Jewish stage-figures that mingle with the astounding pageant known as the Elizabetha* drama, faces the adventurer in setting forth with a pecuhar difficulty. For there is an historical problem of so direct a hearing on the conditions under which the Jewish dramatis personae were conceived and put forth by the playwrights to their popular audiences, that it has to be solved before we^can proceed. In its simplest form the problem is this:
Were there as a matter of fact-any recognizable Jews commonly known to be living in London between the accession of Queen Elizabeth and the closure of the theaires by the Puritans in 1640?
This seems a clear-cut question, to be answered from the Standard histories with an unhesitating: No there were not. Yet opinions to the effect that there were many such Jews settled in Tudor England, have been expressed with confidence by competent scholars and on the strength of documentary evidence Their theory has been assented to and built on by others,
1


2
so that at the present day our problem is a moot question demanding further research. It will be found that the topic is one of literary importance and not without a fascinating quality of its own. As we enter into the matter the problem will develop itself.
Immediately after the Norman Conquest Duke William brought Jews over from Rouen to England. Judas le Franceys \ Vives from Paris, Hagin the son of Dieulecresse, Elias le Eveske, Leo the Goldsmith and Menahem the Scribe were evidently French Jews. Of their women-folk too report occasionally speaks: Godenota wife of Furmentin, Müla the widow of Saulot Muton, Miriam or Margaret daughter of Jurnet, Chera of Winton, Belle-Assez the fated daughter of Benedict. They represent the western group of the tribe that picked their way through the Rhöne valley from the south upwards, the other wing branching off to the Rhine. Both the men and sometimes the women, were usually engaged in business as licensed money-lenders and financial agents under the auspices, or rather in the merciless grip of the Crown. Their history must not be rehearsed here. After two centuries of such vicissitudes as fall to the lot of Juda they were all expelled the country by Edward the First.in 1290. The expulsion is said, on historical authority, to have been among the most rigourous and sweeping in the dispersion of Israël. The exiles are heard of no more; they mostly miscarried, a few wandered south or east, to Flanders and France;
1 Stokes (1921) p. 23—25; Hyamson p. 113; Joseph Jacobs, The Jews of Angevin England.


3
Bonami, Jovin and Mosse Lenglois are met with in a tallage-roll of the Paris Jewry for 1294 h
We next hear of Jews in England, in a somewhat curious manner, when the middle ages are long past, after an interval of three centuries and a half. The seventeenth century Jews then discovered in London bear Spanish-Portuguese names, as Carvajal, Lopez Aillon, Henriques, Coronel-Chacon, de Caceres, Mendez, Sasportas, Abrabanel, Dormido2. There is as we see not only a long break between these two periods of Anglo-Jewry, but also some difference in the provenance of the settlers. Now the branch of Jews to which the alien community in England at any given time belongs, is not from the literary point of view without significance, apart from the more evident political importance. We are thus led on to inquire into the nature of this change: whether the first epoch was definitely closed in 1290, succeeded by a blank of several centuries, to be followed again by an entirely new wave of Jewish immigration, — or else whether bebind the veil of official banishment there was some sort of continuity with gradual transitions. In a sense we must choose between the cataclysmal and the evolutionary theories; and here sub limine let us be on our guard against false analogies: one may be an evolutionist in biology, without applying the same concepts to social history.
What types of Jews then may possibly have been
1 Joseph Jacobs, The London Jewry. (Papers Ang. Jew. Exhib.); Moise Schwab, Revue des Etudes Juives II, 269.
1 The Humble Petition of The Hebrews at present Residing in this citty (to CromwelL March 24th. 1656); Lucien Wolf, Crypto-Jews in the Canaries, in Proceedings of the Jewish Hist. Society, 1910.


4
present in early Tudor England in spite of the Expulsion ? Could they have been of the same Franco-German branch as bef ore; or should they be thought of as new arrivals from the Western Mediterranean groups: Spanish, Portuguese, from the Barbary coast or Italy ? Or even pure Levantines? Or refugees from nearer by, the Rhine, central Europe and the teeming Polish conglomerate? It seems obvious to leave the Levantines and the Poles out of the picture, and to suggest chiefly the Mediterraneans of the Western peninsulas. Yet the other lines should not be barred altogether. About 1580 we have for instance an authentic case of one Joachim Gaunz1, a Jew from Prague who üved and worked in England for a few years in the somewhat unexpected but quite appropriate capacity of a mining expert. For from the Conquest to the Expulsion the Jews farmed the English mines; to them are attributed the smeltinghouses in Dartmoor still called Jews' houses, which some antiquarians have described as Phoenician; ancient blocks of tin found there are still traditionally called Jew's tin or Jews' pieces 2. Gaunz then, worked as a metallurgist first atKeswick andafterwards at Bristol. No one recognised him as a Jew, until one day conversation turning upon religious topics, a minister there, the Rev. Richard Curteys, addressed him in Hebrew, and found that Gaunz was an unconverted Jew. Thereupon he was taken bef ore the local magistrates, and sent in custody to the Lords of the Privy Council in London. The accidental discovery of his religious opinions led at once to his arrest and removal.
1 J. Abrahams, Transactions Jewish Hist. Soo. IV; Sfcokes, Ch. II. * Page, Ezplor. of Dartm. 1899; in N. E. D.


5
In pre-Expulsion times we also find recorded the name of an Ysaac de Russie; again as late as 1590 there was at least one other Polish Jew in England, Philip Ferdinandus!. Though sufficiently Jewish to publish a (Latin) version of the 613 precepts of the Mosaic Law according to Maimonides, he was twice a convert, and safe from such treatment as was meted out to Gaunz. These are isolated instances.
The scattered tribes, in spite of communication by travellers and correspondence, had been separated from each other since pre-Chrïstian times. In their blood they already bore the germs of widely different heredities. The Jews are sprung from an original Semitic stock, -the Habiru a. They freely mixed with the Amorites, probably also of Semitic race. Also with the Hittites, and with the Philistines. The latter two are definitely non-Semitic. The slim-waisted warlike Philistine is supposed to have been a Cretan Greek; the hook-nosed, short-legged Hittites were the Armenians. The Hittite possessed characters which dominated the others in the process of cross-fertilisation, and as a result the majority of Jews to-day present more or less the Armenoid type, modified by selection whether conscious or environmental. Even after the dispersal they did not close their ranks; in the earliest ages after their swarming out into the West they intermarried and amalgamated with the European populations. The emperor Constantius had to forbid mixed marriages on pain of death (c. 350 A. D.). In 589 the
1 M. Adler, The Domus Conversorum, Transactions Jew. Hist. Soc. IV.
2 Dr. R. N. Salaman, Raeial Origins of Jewish Types, Trans. Jew. Hist. Soc. IX.


6
Council of Toledo again found it necessary to forbid the Jews to have Christian wives or concubines. In the 7th century the Turanian tribe of the Chozars in Russia under their King Bulan embraced the Mosaic faith \ and these are partly responsible for the ethnology of the Polish stock, which is the largest compact mass of Jews, more than ever to the fore nowadays, when they have just colonized Palestine, London and NewEngland, especially New-York. Other groups also received additions to their blood. Thus the Jews of the Rhine provinces and Holland have developed a certain proportion of fair-haired and blue-eyed families, and those of the Rjerian peninsula and Southern France have become rather similar in physique to the native population at least of the towns. The different tribes had to adapt themselves to divers climates, entering into contact with different hosts, at whose hands they received every variety of treatment. Thus they came to differ among themselves as much as separate nations; the unity of the race was broken up. The strict segregation and consequent inbreeding of the Midle-Ages, f ixed and sometimes debased those types, ever more accentuating the acquired peculiarities of physique, character, bent of mind and habits.
If then it be held that Jews did actually serve as tangible models to Elizabethan dramatists — as many nowadays contend — it behoves the student to know which classes or types of Jews. The subsequent history in 17th century England naturally directs a share of our attention to the Spanish Jews, who emerge so romantically in Cromwell's day. The Jews in the Hesper-
1 See Jewish Encyclopaedia sub Choxars.


7
ian peninsula, by age-long sojourn and work in the country since Roman times, before the Christianization of Spain, possessed autochthonous rights in Andalusia and Lusitania. The earüest Visigoths were Arians, and allowed the Jews religious liberty. But already Recared before 600 abjured Arianism, became a Roman Catholic and an oppressor. In 694 the Jews were declared slaves and infamous. Another turn of the wheel soon after brought in the Arabs (711), who restored the liberty of the Jews. It was befitting from their antecedents and attainments, that upon the establishment of the Chalifate of Cordoba, the Jews should take a distinguished part in the commerce, the science and the scholarship of the time, and in the administration of the state. Still the Moors in the first flush of their conquering zeal did not spare the Jews either, and there were occasional massacres such as that in Granada where 4000 victims perished (1066). But in the course of the political consohdation of Catholicism in Aragon and Castile, and the military ascendance of the Cross over the Crescent, the Jews shared the decay of the Saracen power in the West; and though from their qualities they could not be despised, yet as a minority refusing to accede to the dominant faith, they were oppressed. Henceforward there were three mutually hostüe groups of population, Christians, Moors and Jews. In the end those who were steadfast in the Jewish faith were banished from the soil in which they had been rooted even before their Gothic oppressors were driven into the Peninsula by the furthest eddies of the Wanderings of Nations. Others, perhaps the majority, compromised between religion and love of country


8
by outward conformity, which enabled them for a few centuries to flourish again, though precariously, and at the cost of character. Bitter as their fate eventually was, their traditions therefore contained records of long-maintained though past prosperity, honour and happiness; often of wealth, dear-bought court-favour and high connexions. Now, though regrets for departed glory are not wholesome food for the mind and character, yet the stamp thus acquired by the Spanish Jews, for good and for evil, is unmistakable. They show a different demeanour from other Israelites. We must refer to them more at large further down.
Among a school of Anglo-Jewish historians there is nowadays a marked tendency to deny any absolute break between the carefully studied period of Jewish life in England before the expulsion, and the gradual Resettlement that began under Cromwell and Charles II about the middle of the seventeenth century. The grounds of their persuasion are partly a priori, partly historical and partly literary. These scholars have taken pains to f ill in the blank of three and half centuries by inserting the missing chapter: the 'Middle-age of AngloJewry'. To some it is an axiom that even apart from such Anglo-Norman Jews as preferred conversion to exile from England, there must have persisted, however precariously, an unabsorbed remnant of Jews in the island where they had flourished and suffered, in a score of towns, from the coasts to the very heart of the country. It should have been easy to them, (thus it is said) to submerge themselves for a time until the worst of the tempest had blown over, then to raise their heads


9
cautiously and go abóut their ways; warily at first, but as time went on, with more freedom. To many this is the only plausible view. It seems partly to rest on the analogy of the events following the expulsion from Spain two hundred years later.
In Spain since the beginnings of the Dominican persecution from as early as 1391, Jews had become ostensibly converted to the Catholic church, and had been obliged to let the outward rites of Judaism fall into abeyance and decay. They were the so called Nuevos Christianos, who were generally looked upon with suspicion as pseudo-Christians or crypto-Jews, branded by the name of Marannos or 'pigs'. Large numbers of them having become past masters in the arts of simulation, had continued to live in Spain even after 1492, stealthily preserving vestiges of the Jewish tradition in their families during the following generations. In this üght we should read a passage by Dr. E. N. Adler, from which, if correct, a certain value as a parallel to what may have happened two centuries earlier in England, should not be withheld. Dr. Adler says: "It is a current fallacy that Spain was for centuries swept clear of its Jews, whereas, what with those left behind and the many thousands repatriated, there always have been large numbers of them, with synagogues, rituals, customs and literature; their existence a secret indeed, but an open secret" K The critical points are whether it is correct to say that their existence in Spain was an 'open' secret, implying for instance the connivance of the Inquisition; and the restriction must be made that when those thousands repatriated
1 Jewish Quarterly Re view XÜI.


10
to Spain they did so by consent as converts. A similar repatriation to England is not recorded, nor would it have been permitted. The English Jews had not become bound up with this country so closely as the Spanish Jews with theirs, nor had they gone through such atraininginsecretiveness as the school of Marannism.
Some writers who do not accept the whole of Dr. Adler's contention as applicable to England, hold the English expulsion to have been at first as absolute as such tribulations befalling a whole community can be; so that at least about 1350 the last remnants of Judaism had been driven from the country or died out. Nevertheless they make no doubt that a renewed flux of secret immigration must have set in soon after the middle of the 14th century, and at an increased rate after the Spanish disaster of 1492. It must have been feasible, — they argue — in those days of laxer administration to elude the watchfulness of the Wardens of the Cinque Ports and slip into England under false colours; and strong motives for desiring to do so were not wanting. True, the sufferings of Israël in Angevin England had been acute, but Israël must forget and recuperate quickly. As fire drives out fire, so terror, terror; and hellish persecution in crusading Germany and France, and by the Inquisition in Italy and Spain, would urge them to surmount or evade the barriers of the land which had been purgatory in days gone by, but now perhaps was quieter. They could smuggle themselves in as Lombards, Caursini or other Christian money changers and usurers; they would have found little difficulty in masquerading as Itaüans, as the Coinmons suspected in 1376, though their complaint


11
passed unheeded by the King | The scholars who agree with Mr. Lucien Wolf cannot imagine that in a well-known country, conunercially desirable, where Jews had lived before, they should not have lodged themselves again, if need were by stealth. In case of detection and renewed outrages they might fly again; or resign themselves to conversion, and at the price of bowing to the dominant creed secure the close of persecution, to rest from their anxieties in the shelter of the Domus Conversorum, still among themselves; leaving the task of carrying on the torch of Juda to younger pilgrims. The existence of one or two houses for converts from pre-expulsion days (1232) down to at least the 17th century is considered in itself a proof that the Jews were never entirely unknown in England. Another parallel sometimes invoked is that of Russian Jews before the Bolshevik revolution, who risked Hving outside the pale of the western provinces to which they were confined by the laws; some were tolerated in districts forbidden to them, so long as they were able to square the police, subject always to being periodically squeezed, or killed. It is, however, difficult to interpret correctly what deductions may be drawn for Tudor England, from those parallels derived from other times and countries. Misapprehensions about the Spanish inquisition may put us on the wrong track. Do we not imagine that it was directed against the faithful orthodox Jews? But it was not; it existed primarily to suppress Christian heresies. Jews being unbaptized were misbelievers but not heretics. The Holy Office burnt Jewish converts to Catholicism if
1 Rotuli Parliamentarum 1376. II. 332a.


12
they were suspected of having relapsed after baptism. The faithful Jews were tortured and given to the flames for causing the relapse of their converted brethren (whom they called Anusim, the unhappy ones) and sometimes on charges of ritual murder. They mounted the funeral pyres together. The defiant attitude of the constant Jews led to their expulsion and to the closer supervision of the apostates. After 1492 there could not officially be any more professing Jews in Spain; and the word Judio meant any person of Jewish or partly Jewish extraction, or anybody suspected of Judaising heresies. Consequently neither the Domus Conversorum in England nor the Autos-da-fé in Spain and Portugal prove all they are supposed to prove as to the continued existence of genuine Jews in the respective couhtries: it should be shown first that the inmates of the Convert-hospice were English Jews; as for Spain, the victims of the Inquisition, after 1492, were Marannos.
Those, however, to whom the theory of an early reimmigration commends itself and who would study the possible relations between such Jewish infiltrations and the Elizabethan drama, should try to determine whether such Jews as did re-enter were recognized as the cognates of the expelled aliens of the earlier day; if so, what reception they met with; whether the spirit of the time had altered so as to make their toleration probable though illegal; — or else, whether the intruders kept their own counsel so cleverly, that their English hosts never came to realize they were harbouring angels unawares. For in the latter alternative


13
there could be no influence at all from the presence of Jews in England on contemporary literature, especially the popular drama. If on the other hand the Jews were there, would not such theatrical materials as their lives afforded, have been turned eagerly to account, when the drama had become the mirror of the age? Yet there is in the Elizabethan drama hardly any example of Jews attempting to conceal their religion Maranno-fashion; they are not found till later in the Restoration drama (Dryden's Love Triumphant, 1698, Sancho); and in several 18th century farces and operas (Sheridan's Duenna 1775, Mendoza). But those Sanchos and Mendozas were adopted by the British authors as part and parcel of Spanish or Portuguese stories; the scène of Sancho's shame is Aragon, and Mendoza's is at Sevüle. In the 18th century there were some Jews of their type in England too, — hence they appear in that drama, but hardly in the Elizabethan. The only Maranno I have noticed there is inMarston's Insatiate Countess (1610), based upon the Countess of Célant in Painter's Palace of Pleasure, translated from Italian sources. Marston's mother, Maria Guarsi, was an Italian. In that play Claridiana the husband of Abigal, and Rogero the husband of Thais, are archfoes, though their wives are the best of friends. On their wedding day they meet just when they are leaving church:
Claridiana to Rogero: Thou sonne of a Jew
Thou Jew of the tribe of Gad. Halfe a man, half an ass, and all a Jew! Would I had had the circumcising of thee. Begot when thy father's face was toward the east, to show that thou wouldst prove a


14
caterpiüar; his Messias shall not save thee from me. Rogero: Sir, by the conscience of a Catholicke man,
and by our Mother Church, that bindes and doth
attone, I am as good a Christian as thy selfe, though
my wife have now new-christned me. Rogero does make a Maranno impression, but he is an Italian, not an English Maranno.
However, literary students of this period, following the lead of Sir Sidney Lee and Mr. Lucien Wolf, have for the last forty years increasingly advocated the view that there were always a fair sprinkling of Jews throughout the three hundred and fifty years of the exile, from Edward the Confessor down to the Commonwealth. They have become convinced, and based further labours on the conviction, that several Tudor and early Stuart dramatists, Wilson, Marlow, Nash, Shakespeare, Fletcher, Rowley, Daborne and others, modelled Jewish figures in their plays from direct observation of Jews in contemporary England; that the patent and overt Jew met the dramatist face to face in London; and that though officially non-existent, the Jew was yet sufficiently well-known in the capital for the public to recognize him on the stage. It will not be denied that here we touch a literary and social problem of some depth; and it will be our task in the following pages to come to grips with it.
Readers who come to the problem for the first time, will appreciate a survey of passages bearing on the subject and representing the views of:
a) pure historians of acknowledged standing.


15
b) specialists on (Anglo-) Jewish history.
c) writers on the literature of the period.
The views to be perused fall under two heads: 1°. Those which do recognize a blank middle-period; 2°. Those which take the banishment and exclusion to have been ineffective.
The former view is the older, in fact the traditional one; the latter arises shortly after 1880. It will therefore be possible to group the two classes apart and at the same time to observe something like a chronological order.
The array may fitly be opened by William Prynne, Keeper of the Records in the Tower of London, whose Short Demurrer to the Jews long discontinued barred Remitter into England was composed in a few days during the Whitehall Conference on the re-admission of Jews, December 1655, but contains so much bedrock research that it has continued to be quoted from tül the present day:
"The Jews were in the year 1290 all banished out of England, by Judgment and Edict of the King and Parliament, as a great grievance, never to return again." 1
Another early historian of Anglo-Jewry, Dr. D'Bloissier Tovey, wrote Anglia Judaica or History and Antiquities of the Jews in England, which appeared in 1734, and is still worth reading in spite of a tendency to forget inverted commas where the book is indebted to the original labours of Prynne. Dr. Tovey passes on one and the same page (258) from Edward I to Oliver Cromwell. He is unconscious of the possibility that there
1 The aotual Order in Council is loet.


16
might be any Jews left in the Middle-Period. There is not even a blank page left to afford scope to those who would fül the interval with some vivid glimpses or some more shadowy figures.
Wm. Edw. Hartpole Lecky, writing before there was much diversity of opinion on the subject, expresses himself thus: — "The Jews, as is well known, had been completely banished from England by a Statute of Edward I, and they did not return till the Commonwealth, and were not formally authorized to establish themselves in England till the Restoration. — It is possible that occasional physicians and merchants may have secretly come over before, but their number must have been very few; and it is more than probable that Shakespeare when he drew his immortal picture of Shylock, had never himself seen a Jew." 1
Similarly J. R. Green, describing the expulsion of 1290 says: "From the time of Edward to that of Cromwell no Jew touched English ground. Of the sixteen thousand who preferred exile to apostasy few reached the shores of France." The numbers were known with accuracy because the Jews had been registered for exchequer purposes. There would have been but few apostates, for from Henry III onward the whole of the effects of any Jewish couverts to Christianity had been seized by the King, because from the moment of conversion they ceased to be sources of special revenue to the crown; and they were expected to prove their new zeal by acting up to the injunction in Matthew XIX 21—23. Moreover the trade of the unconverted Jews, already crippled by the rivalry of the bankers of Cahors, had
1 Hist. of England in the 18th century. (1875) L 262.


17
been annihilated for good by the royal order which bade them renounce usury under pain of death1. Why should they have wished to stay ? How could they have stayed?
The well-informed little treatise of Karl Heinrich Schaible, "kein Jude aber ein Deutscher allemannischen Stammes", was ready for the press in 1886, before the Lee-Wolf thesis was published. Die Juden in England was printed in 1890 and speaks in the same tone as the leading English general historians: "Zu der ihnen festgesetzten Zeit hatten alle Juden England verlassen. — Mehr als 850 Jahre vergingen ehe die Juden Versuche machten sich wieder in England niederzulassen: die Tradition der Unterdrückung und die Gewalt der Könige über ihre Person und ihr Eigenthum schreckte sie ab."
The Rev. Moses Margoliouth (1845) advocates the accession of the Jews to the Anglican faith, which he himself embraced. On the historical question he represents a type of opinion which will not be referred to again in the sequel, since his appeal is clearly not to
historical evidence, but to exegesis. He writes: "The
Church of England was never without some converted Jews, so that Great Britain was never totally destitute of some of the scattered sheep of Israël. For the words of sacred story cannot be untrue: I will command, and I will sift the house of Israël among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve. (Amos LX. 9)." Since Bernard of Clairvaux this text has been regularly quoted in pleading for the admission of Jews to countries closed to them, and in saving them from extermination or expulsion, since the eschatological promises are depen-
1 Statute de Judaismo. 1275.
2


18
dent upon the Jews being present among all nations at the second Advent and the Resurrection. But by no stretch of exegesis can it be adduced to prove the state of things at any historical epoch. Anyhow the persons Margoliouth has in view are couverts, who no longer moved in the mart and change, but had entered the seclusion of the Church, not to be sifted out again among the corn of the house of Israël. From our literary point of view, as materials for the theatre, for Barabas, Shylocke, Zariph and Benwash these retiring people do not count. On the Elizabethan stage renegade Jews, mostly in Barbary or Turkey, turn Moslem.
Thus far we have seen that the weight of serious opinion is on the side of total expulsion and disappearance from England, with the exception of converts. But the point may be made once again that no purpose of literary criticism would be served by taking notice, even if it could be done, of Elizabethan Englishmen with perhaps a strain of Jewish blood, if the people at large were not aware of it.
Important expounders of the contrary view that Jews were recognised clothiers, usurers, lombards and physicians settled in Elizabethan England, are Sir Sidney Lee and Mr. Lucien Wolf. The former read a famous lecture at the 181st. meeting of the New Shakespeare Society, on Friday, Febr. lOth, 1888: Elizabethan England and the Jews. It was published in the Transactions, series I for the years 1887—1892 1.
Likewise in 1888 Mr. Lucien Wolf in a paper read at the Anglo-Jewish Historical Exhibition and entitled:
1 Out of print, unobtainable. The Brit. Mus. press mark is Ac. London, 9486.


19
The Middle Age of Angh-Jewish History 1290—1656, argued on the same lines as Sir Sidney to prove the presence of Jews in Elizabethan England. Though the materials for these two studies were gathered independently there are of course numerous points of contact between them. The question is viewed from süghtly different angles by the two investigators, Sir Sidney Lee's evidence and theories being fuller on the literary aspect.
Both have so thoroughly ransacked the historical records that we may-assume we are in possession of the main facts; a few things have been pointed out after them. The preservation and the editing of records in England is unique; detailed facts, authentic quotations from what used to be secrets of state are now procurable by referring to the invaluable Calendars of State Papers on the shelves in the General Reading Room of the hospitable British Museum. These Calendars are indexes to the statepapers, giving analytical abstracts of their contents, each volume being moreover furnished with its alphabetical table. These public storehouses have yielded many a treasure-trove of evidence, to which each historian has added from more recondite sources.
Both advocate the conclusion that there were Jews in all strata of Elizabethan society; that their presence was an open secret, so that the population of London was not unacquainted with the Jew in the flesh, with his physiognomy, his ways, his business-methods and his character. As the forementioned essays are difficult to procure except at the larger public libraries in England, I think it will be of service to the reader if I


20
try to state their gist. To save repetitions and backreferences, I will append my remarks by way of a running commentary.
Mr. Lucien Wolf complains that the history of what he has styled the Middle-Age of Anglo-Jewry, has been entirely neglected, owing to the "popular impression" that throughout those 367 years no Jews could enter the country. He thinks it strange that such an idea should have been allowed any weight by serious historians (Lecky, Green and others). There is a certain vehemence in his rejection of the tradition, which, nevertheless, is more than a popular impression, and can only be invalidated by precise facts. "Converted Hebrews at any rate continued to reside in the country — argues Mr. Wolf — as is proved by the Domus Conversorum."
Yet from 1345 onward, when those who entered it in 1290 in preference to banishment, had died \ the number of converts rarely rose above jive. In the century following the Spanish expulsion (1492—1581) the whole number of converts admitted to the Hospice, was two Jews and five Jewesses; all foreigners from the Peninsula 2, and not, as Mr. Wolf inaccurately says, Jews who had continued to reside in England. If in 1888 Mr. Wolf had been aware of the fact, he would have added that the house stood untenanted for at least one period of 26 years, from 1552—1578. If it is correct to regard the number of inmates in the Hospice as an index to the presence of Jews, its being vacant though not officially closed for twenty years in the reign of Elizabeth, sug-
1 Claricia of Exeter was the last to die, in 1356.
1 E. N. Adler. Auto De Fé and Jew. J. R. Rev. XD7. 1902. p. 699.


21
gests that Shakespeare's England harboured no Jews. Mr. Wolf is right in arguing that the Jewish historian ought to follow the career of the lost detachments, but from our special view-point, to the student of the English Jew as furnishing materials inpraesenti to English. drama, converts lose their interest, unless depicted in plays and novels as converts, which is not the case. The drama knows the Jews as fanatic Christian-haters and as pork-loathers as heroic as the brethren in II Maccabees. It knows them in the capacities of financiers, money lenders, usurers, jewellers, lombards, goldsmiths; only Barabas is more than all these, for he is a real merchant and a politicial schemer as well. The Elizabethan drama is remarkably devoid of Jewish doctors \ in spite of the highly dramatic Lopez case in 1594. Occasional Jewish physicians had visited England by royal permit, such as Dr. Elias Sabot, and Maistre Sampson de Mierbeau who was called to attend Alice, wife of Sir Richard Whittington the celebrated Lord Mayor 2. But what are a few such respectable visitors to help create a popular type? Likewise the Jewish lecturers on Hebrew at Oxford could not influence the popular notion of the common Jew, the real business Jew. These few scholars and bible-translators were moreover converts.
The records of the five reigns from Henry V to Richard III (1413—1485) are silent with regard to Jews. To Mr. Wolf there is a certain eloquence in this very si-
1 Carl Liebe. Der Arzt im El. Drama. Halle 1907.
1 Jew. Quart. Rev. XVHI, 1906; Rymer's Foedera, 1410: Safe Conduct for EJias Sabot, a Hebrew. syL 566.


22
lence. To him it suggests that "in some of the disguises which their checkered career forced upon them, they trafficked in the market places and walked the public streets." He imagines from the utter silence of the records that a subsidence of Jew-hatred had resulted from this "peaceful intercourse" in the leading cities. Perhaps the market places were peaceful, though Langtand suggests a different vision. I for one cannot help tinking that the subsidence of Jew-hatred would result more naturally from the country being void of Jews during the whole of the 15th century. The complete absence of complaints, riots and massacres militates against the notion that recognizable Jews congregated in London, Oxford, Lincoln, Norwich, York and others of their old haunts. Why was there a sudden end of blood accusations, charges of ritual murder, from the expulsion onwards? They continued increasingly on the Continent, but in England, where they first arose % there seem to have been certain indispensable persons lacking to conduct them properly, namely Jews.
History having thus nothing to report, literature steps in as if loath to let the grisly excitement die out. The Crusades had brought to Europe stories of the cruelty of the Saracens; they were child-eating ogres and used Christian blood in devilish rites. These libels were easily transferred to the Jews and could be avenged upon them. In 1146 those of Norwich were accused of having tortured a boy Wüliam in imitation of the sufferings of Christ, ending in the cruci-
1 "England I regret to say, is the source and origin of the myth concerning the practice of ritual murder by Jews" (Joseph Jacobs, Jewish Ideals p. 197).


23
fixion of the child on the eve of the Passover. This was the first blood accusation. The charge was not considered proved, though a renegade Jew Theobald of Cambridge did his worst. The populace killed many Jews and drove the rest out of the town. At intervals of twenty years there were repetitions; the last two were in London, and at Lincoln in 1255. Each of them created immense excitement, executions and massacres; the tombs of the martyrs became miracle-working shrines visited by pilgrims from every shires ende of Engeland. Chaucer himself retold the story of the last of these miseries: the envoi of the Prioresses Tale has: •
O yonge Hugh of Lincoln, slayn also With cursed Jewes, as it is notable, For it nis but a litel whyle ago;
In Chaucer's time the memory was still green, though it was a hundred and thirty years since. Yet it is noticeable that the story is not tóld of England, but of Asia :
There was in Asie in a great citee Amonges Cristen folk, a Jewerye, Sustened by a lord of that contree For foule usure and lucre of vilanye....
Does not the transference of the story to Asia suggest that in the latter half of the 14th century the Jews had already become utter strangers to England though their evil reputation was remembered and enhanced? Though Chaucer is the gentlest and broadest minded of Mediaevals it is certainly not out of deference to Jews residing in England that he laid the scène of his version in the Levant, for in that case


24
he would not have concluded with a reference toyoung English Hugh1.
A fragment of a younger Scottish ballad, called The Jewes Daughter in Percy's" Reliques, seems also based upon reminiscences of little St. Hugh of Lincoln: "My bonny Sir Hew, my pretty Sir Hew" cries Lady Helen, the boy's mother. An attempt is made to locate it in Italy, perhaps for the same reason that induced Chaucer to carry his scène to Asia:
The rain rins down through Mirry-land toune, So dois it doune the Pa;
As Bishop Percy safely conjectures, Mirryland toune is Mailand, Milan, and the Pa is the river Po. It is true that it is not the Po that runs through Milan, and that Percy's correction of the Po into the Adige does not make things clearer; but if the Bishop is capable of such a slip, it is no wonder his ballad-making countryman committed a süght inaccuracy, only unlikely in an Italian.
The peaceful vision of Mr. Wolf (who did not take note of that piece of contemporary literature) is further disturbed by his own next observation: "The vigour with which Littleton inveighed against them in the 15th century, is inexplicable, except on the hypothesis that he knew of their presence in England' — the impli cation being of course, in Littleton's own day, in the middle-age. To appreciate the value of this remark, we require the exact words and context. Now there have been two English jurists of the name of Littleton: a) Sir Thomas Littleton
1 For Hugh of Lincoln, see Joseph Jacobs, Jewish Ideals, 1896.


25
(1422—1481) who wrote on tenures, and b) Sir Edward Littleton, the statesman who lived in the reigns of James and Charles (1589—1645). In a footnote Mr. Wolf refers the reader to the elder Disraeli's Genius of Judaism (1888), and when we have secured this somewhat rare book, all we find is that Mr. Benjamin Disraeli says (p. 240): —
"My researches might show that [the Jews] were not "then (scil. in the reigns of Elizabeth, James and Charles I), "unknown in this country. Had there been no Jews in "England, would that luminary of the law Sir Edward "Coke have needed to inveigh against the Jews as "In"fidels and Turks", delivering them all aliketo the devil; "stigmatised and infamous persons, "perpetui inimici", "says Littleton, "and not admissible as witnesses". — This is all, and it is disappointing; indeed it is one of the few vague and weak passages in an otherwise charming book. Mr. Wolf seems to have overlooked that Disraeli expressly refers to the reigns of Elizabeth, James and Charles I, and that he couples his Littleton with Sir Edward Coke, Lord Chief Justice 1552— 1634. Disraeli therefore had in mind Sir Edward Littleton, the statesman who was Coke's younger contemporary. I have not attempted to find Littleton's context, because I suspected a further confusion (in Mr. Disraeli's mind) on coming across the following passage by Mr. H. S. W. Henriques, the authority on English law and the Jews x) :
"— The hostility with which the English people for"merly viewed the Jews, was satisfied only by their "total expulsion from the realm in 1290; it did not
1 Reflections; President»! address 1920. Vol. IX of Transactions.


26
"diminish during the period of their banishment. "Sir Edward Coke writes of them in his Institutes "(2 Inst. p. 507), first published in the year 1628:
"All infidels are in law perpetui inimici (for the law "presumes not that they will be converted, that being remota "potentia); for between them, as with the devil, whose sub"jects they be, and the Christian, there is perpetual hostility, "and can be no peace; for as the Apostle saith, 2 Cor. "VI : 5. Quae autem conventio Christi ad Belial, aut quae "pars fideli cum infideli; and the law saith 2: Judaeo "ChristianumnuUumserviat mancipium, nefas enim est "quem Christus redemit blasphemum Christi in servitutis "vineulis detinere. Register 282: Infidéles sunt Christi "et Christianoruminimici. And herewith agreeththebook 12 "Hen. 8, fol. 4, where it is hólden that a Pagan cannot have "or maintain any action at all.
"This amiable doctrine of the complete "rightlessness" ■"of the Jews and other non-Christians was rejected by "the Courts when it came before them for decision in •"the years 1684 and 1697, but it was accepted at the •"time when it was laid down, and was apparently in "accordance with popular sentiment."
Thus far Mr. Henriques, quoting and commenting on Coke. If Mr. Disraeli's memory did not play him a "trick, and his source is really Littleton, that passage must have been remarkably similar to the above. If on the other hand there is no 15th century Littleton who spoke to the same effect as Coke did in the 17th, Mr. Wolf's information is based upon a doublé misapprehension. The same Lord Coke also states (on the same page) "The cruel Jews to the number of 15060 .departed out of this Realm into foreign parts, and from


27
that time that Nation never returned again into this Realm." Those are the words of the Lord Chief Justice in 1628; he inveighed against the Jews violentlyenough, yet his violence must not be explained by assuming he had a knowledge of their presence in the country as ordinary citizens x.
We must now return to the sequel of Mr. Wolf's essay.
"When we arrivé at the reign of Elizabeth it is more than ever surprising that the existence of Jews in England previous to Cromwell should have been doubted. There is material for a complete chapter in the Anglo-Jewish history to be written in the future on this reign alone; a chapter which will be full of interest outside the mere retailing of trifling facts to prove the existence of Hebrews in the country". Since these words were penned in 1888 the chapter has been written by Mr. A. M. Hyamson (1908) but whatever the merits of this appreciated History of the Jews in England, no claim to original research on the period in question is made for it; so that it is still worth while sifting the evidence now available, to smoothe the path of the future historian. Let us therefore test another substantial document of Mr. Wolf's dossier.
"In 1492 occurred the terrific expulsion from Spain, and several hundred thousand Jews became distributed over various parts of Europe and the East. The exiles went wherever they had friends or business correspondents, and it is not unlikely that some of them found an
1 It is true Lord Coke presided at the Lopez trial and called Lopez a 'Jewdoctor'; compare also the case of Samuel Palache at the end of this chapter.


28
asylum in England. Amador de los Bios states positively that England was among the first countries to receive them."
Don José Amador de los Rios is a Spanish littérateur of the second half of the nineteenth century, and in
his Historia de los Judios de Espaha y Portugal,
Madrid 1875/76, he is indeed positive enough in these eloquent words: (vol. III. p. 376—377).
"Confundidos en la general dispersion, corrieron a "impetrar salvacion entre los Moros del 'Africa, tierra "ingrata, que era otra vez desdichado teatro de gran"des infortunios y horribile sepulchro de las esperanzas
"del pueblo judio corrieron a implorar la clemencia
"de los pueblos del Norte, pidiéndoles amparo y hos-
"pedaje Igual fenómeno (anadiamos) se operaba
"en la otra parte del continente: Bayona, Burdess y "Nantes en Francia; Douvres, Londres y York en Ingla"terra ; Bruselas, Aquisgran, Leyden y Amsterdam en
"los Paises Bajos recogian con otras muchas ciu-
"dades los despojos de tan lamentable naufragio, en"riqueciendo su industria y su comercio con las especu"lacionesy la constante practica de aquellos desterrados".
The whole of this passage in Rios, from which I have selected the necessary, is given by him in quotation marks, as being borrowed from the author's own earlier volume: Estudios históricos, politicos y literarios sobre los Judios en Espana (1848; ensayo III, cap. I, p. 470). There, however, he does not quote any authority for his statement regarding England. Yet Rios must have been aware that his pronouncement with regard to England was contrary to the received opiniön of English historians, and that it was inneed of documenta-


29
tion. Mr. Wolf was therefore well inspired in toning it down. In Hyamson's history Rios is made responsible for stating that "in particular communities and synagogues were established at London, York and Dover". If this is proved true, the controversy appears in anotherlight; but apart from the fact that I cannot find the assertion in Rios, it is surely protesting too much. Hyamson feels this and proceeds to apply palliatives, as if he rather liked the positive statement, but was afraid it would reduce itself to absurdity if unqualified. "These communities and synagogues — continues Hyamson — if they existed, must have been kept very secret, for no reference to them is to be found elsewhere. It is quite probable that small communities of secret Jews did collect in various towns, and that they met on the usual occasions for divihe service, but it is most improbable that the privacy of these services was not strictly guarded, or that the services were known beyond the narrow circle of the refugees." In fine, there is no certainty, and from our special dramatic point of view, these undiscovered Jews could never have been a factor in English literature.
Mr. Wolf's faith in Rios is confirmed by a piece of evidence from State Papers In 1498 Londono and the sub-Prior of Santa Cruz were sent from Spain to England on business connected with Prince Arthur's
marriage Ferdinand and Isabella had instructed
the envoys to express their sorrow that while Spain had been purged of indifelity, Flanders and England were
1 Calendar of Letters, Despatches and State-Papers; Negotiations EnglandSpain, ed. J. A. Bergenroth and P. de Gayanjos, vol. I. 1485—1509, p. 61; p. 164; quoted by Mr. Wolf.


30
infested by that scourge; whereupon Henry "laying both hands upon his breast swore that he would persecute without mercy any cursed Jew that the King and Queen of Spain might point out in his dominions.'' There is no denying that Ferdinand and Isabella entertained the suspicion of England harbouring exiled Spanish Jews or Marannos. There is, however, no rumour or record that Henry found any 'Cursed Jews' to expel, whilst it is merely fantastic to suppose that the English King was in any sort of collusion with them. It cannot, I think, be held that Mr. Wolf's important quotation covers the whole of Rios' contention. Dr. Stokes summarily dismisses it. (p. 57).
I do not think that the immediate repercussion of the Spanish exodus need have been noticeable in Northern Europe, much less in England. There was if anything a falling off in the admissions to the Domus. England was f irmly closed against unbaptized Jews, though hospitable to converts. The enactments against heresy (De Haeretico Comburendo 1401) remained in full vigour till 1640, never more so than under Bloody Mary. Those enactments would have been applicable to Jews also for there was no definition of heresy1. They were afterwards supplemented by rules against recusants under Elizabeth and James I. It is therefore not as if the expelled Spanish Jews were free, as Mr. Wolf puts it, to go "wherever they had friends or correspondents".
The Spanish events deserve a rapid survey, which wiü lead us back to England in due time. For one thing the number of Jews who left Spain on the 9th of Ab
1 Henriques, Jews and (he English Law*',Hyamson p. 160—161 gives an extract.


81
5252A.M.,the anniversary of the destruction of both the Temples, has been estimated by contemporaries at about 50.000 families, who were prevented from carrying their children with them, so that 200.000 is probably a fair estimate x). The major part of those availed themselves of a temporary refuge in Portugal, where they were admitted on the understanding that they should leave within a year. Many tried to get away no matter whither. But just as after the English expulsion few even reached the shore of neighbouring France, so here the fugitives that despairingly embarked, were plundered and drowned, or sold into slavery among the Berbers. The remainder purchased the right of staying on provisionally in Portugal. In December 1496 Manoel, son-in-law to Ferdinand and Isabella decreed that all non-converted Jews should leave Portugal, and when thus conversion or exile from the Peninsula was the only choice left, they preferred their native Spain to Portugal, and sought re-admission upon promise of conforming to the Roman Catholic faith. Spinoza, who should be a good judge, says: "Very many of themaccepted the Catholic faith, and invirtue of thisacceptance received all the privileges of Spanish subjects, and were declared eligible for every honour: the consequence was that a process of absorption began immediately, and in a short time neither tracé nor memory of them survived." 2
As regards Portugal absorption and assimilation there was hampered by the circumstance that although converted, the ex-Jews continued to live apart from
1 Jew. Quart. Rev. 1908.
2 Baruch de Spinoza: Tract. TheoL Polit. Ch. 4 ad fin; quoted in Encycl. Brit.


32
the rest of their fellow-subjects, having been declared unfit for any dignity J). These bars must have been relaxed after Spinoza's time, or there would have been no ground for the following widespread, though not historie anecdote: When in the 18th century King Joseph of Portugal wished to mark those of Jewish descent by a hat-badge, the Marquess de Pombal brought him three hats: "One for the InquisitorGeneral, one for myself, and one for your Majesty." Limpieza was more often a boast than a fact among the later Portuguese.
From the outset there were important restrictions upon the Portuguese decree of banishment: No Jewish person under twenty years of age was allowed to emigrate. A thousand youths and maidens were impressed as colonists to the newly-discovered WestIndian islands, and brought up as Christians there; the rest of the children were removed from their parents and distributed over the country to be educated like orphans by Christian step-parents. Jewish parents could have their children restored to them if they would themselves join the Church. It touched the pride of the priesthood to see the Israelites prepare to depart unconverted. "Capital punishment was decreed for every Jew who should attempt to leave the country without the King's permission. For many years after the persecution none of them, even such as were regarded as Christians, and though they left their wives behind, were permitted to go out of the Kingdom with merchandise unless they spent large sums in bribes",
1 Spinoza. loc. cit.


33
writes one of the sufferers, Isaac ibn Faradj1, who in his old age escaped to Salonica (1505). Multitudes of adults were baptized by force, the obstinate were massacred, the steadfast committed suicidewith their families. There was only one exit from Portugal: permission to take ship from any other port than Lisbon was refused. At a vast barrack there, the Estaos, the intending emigrants were herded together, decimated by epidemics and starved into submission. Finally a modus vivendi was arranged by which the Jew-Christians were granted a respite till 1526, afterwards extended till 1584 perhaps through the intercession of David Reubini2 "an ambassador come to the Pope from the Jews in India, offering him 800.000 combatants against the Turk and asking for artillery". In the meanwhile the Jew-Christians were expected to adapt themselves gradually to the change of rites. "In Portugal the destructions [baptisms] increased daily; and many were left haüing between two opinions. And from that day and afterward there was not a man left in all the kingdoms of Sphard who was called by the name of Israël"3.
There was thus neither much chance nor an urgent necessity to escape from the beloved Iberian soil, till about 1560 autos-de-fe began in Lisbon. Meanwhile the authorized Marannism smoothed the path to the Catholic life for the new generation. Resignation paves the way; custom makes the yoke easy. To the average
1 Jew. Quart. Rev. 1908. vol. XX. p. 268; Charles Lea, Spanish Inquisition I. 183.
* Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, 1520—1526, p. 810; the reference is to the year 1524.
8 Chronicles of R. Joseph Sephardi 1653, eited by E. N. Adler, J. Q. Rev. 1903. p. 437.
3


34
person the forms of religion.are partly matters of habit and convenience. The old garb long discarded would not fit comfortably again. Hence it becomes uncertain what was the religious character of such New Christians as afterwards migrated to England. They did not always go for the express purpose of reverting to Judaism. There are religious borderlands almost everywhere; in some such limbo lived the Marannos. They were perhaps bi-religious. Most religions being blends, there is no occasion to sneer at religious half-castes. Between the Old Testament and the New there is blood relationship in the first degree. There is not a gulf fixed between Malachi and Matthew. A parting of the roads there is indeed between monotheism and the later developments of Christology; and in after ages the grounds for hatred grew more numerous. Racial antagonism, political passions, commercial rivalry, religious zeal and pride, have always fostered that hatred; and Spain had the curse in excessively prolonged and aggravated forms. It became rabid in the blood of the people under the dramatic fascination of autos-de-fe. Still, how could sane people turn aside constantly from their daily pursuits, cares and struggles, tear asunder the bonds of family, mar their joys, thwart all the engrossing interests of business, science, wars and adventures, to be forever quarrelling over second-hand metaphysics? There may have been no wider psychological chasm between Marannos and Christians than there was a racial difference between them in such a thoroughly mixed population as that of Portugal. Willing conversions to Christianity were not rare; the peace and worldly advantages gained, proved balm to no very


35
violent remorse. The world was then teeming with precedents for wholesale changes of confession, compulsory or voluntary. Cujus regio hujus religio was held a fair rule in Reformation times. The Jews could salve their pride by the reflection that conversions of Christians to Islam were also frequent. "Of Runagados says William Davies of Hereford — there are more in Turkie and Barbarie then of naturall Turkes." Nicholay, geographer ordinarie to the King of France (1585) testifies the same: "The most part of the Turkes of Alger, whether they be of the Kinges household or the Gallies, are Christians renied or Muhametised."
Unless therefore a Maranno distinctly reverted to Judaism, he was as much of a Cathoüc as other proselytes. Spain and Portugal nearly extinguished the eldest branch of the Diaspora. It revived but slowly from scattered remnants abroad: by no means in the first place in England. Those of the Jews in whom the Oriental spirit was strongest turned their faces eastward, to the Levant; others fled to Leghorn, Venice, Naples, Sicily, Tripoli and Malta. Many hid in the very wings of the eagle at Rome. Even those that faced westward were kept by a race-instinct, Spanish habits and commercial interests within the subtropical zone, seeking shelter in the Canaries and other Atlantic archipelagos, to reach at last the islands and coasts of the Spanish Main and the Brazils. Those that crossed the Pyrenees into Navarre either lived there practically as a Christian sect with but a few foreign peculiarities, not clearly recognised as Jewish, at Bayonne, Avignon and Bordeaux; or they were obliged to wander off into the German Empire. In Holland there are no signs of Portuguese


36
refugees till after the defeat of the Armada. Since they could evidently not be Roman Catholics there, and were not required to become Protestants at the point of the sword, they were the more easily led to resumé their partly-shed Judaism. The first Jewish settlers known in Amsterdam were three wealthy persons, Maria Nunez and two of her relations. The lady came indeed by way of England, where she had been distinguished by Queen Elizabeth, but having decided to become a Jewess again, and declined a briüiant match, she left the country and joined her betrothed and her uncle at Amsterdam (1590). In the Provinces their stay was connived at, and they are supposed to have established a little private synagogue as early as 1598. A few more began to drop in during the armistice between the Spaniards and the Dutch which was concluded for twelve years in 1609; though some preferred to travel on to Copenhagen and Hamburg, because in the Netherlands they were under suspicion of being Spanish spies. The London Sephardim being confessedly in the main a daughter colony of Amsterdam, we should not look for them in England till well after 1600.
In the latter half of the 16th century there certainly was a sprinkling of Spanish and Portuguese Marannos in England, but they were looked upon as Roman Catholics and ex-territorials under the protection of their Embassies. A suspicion of Judaism was certain to lead them into trouble, so much so that occasionally Portugal was a safer country for those Marannos than England. Thus in 1543 we read of Portuguese "Jews", i. e. Marannos, captured at sea by the English and


37
imprisoned in London, who were released by special request of the King and Queen of Portugal. This was just before the Inquisitiön began to rage in that country. About the same time certain "Portugalles, merchawntes strawngers probably suspected to be Juis" were released on being declared Christian men by the Privy Council. If a suspect was not able to disprove a charge of being a Jew, like the "Doctour Arnande, who was esteemed to be a Jew and judged to ryde through the streetes in a carte", he was punished and expelled (1562) *; We remember that this also happened to Joachim Gaunz the mining expert from Prague (1588). Even after 1600 Marannos, however unobtrusive, were summarily evicted as soon as detected. The Venetian ambassador in London reported to the doge and senate of Venice under date August 20th, 1609: "Many Portuguese merchants in this city have been discovered to be secretly living as Jews. Some have already left, and others have had a little grace granted to allow them to wind up their business, in spite of the laws which are very severe on this subject. These men are such scoundrels that I am told, the better to hide themselves they have not orriy frequently attended mass at some one or other of the Embassies but have actually received the Eucharist"2. This treatmentis far removedfromtoleration. The civil and ecclesiastical authorities supposed the country to have been cleared of Jews. As late as 1634, when Archbishop Laud was appointed, a circular letter was sent by the ecclesiastical Commissioners to all officers of the peace in the Kingdom, of the follo-
1 Jew. Quart. Rev. 1902 p. 700.
2 Transactions J. Hist. Soc. 1907.


wing tenor: "There remain in divers parts of the Kingdom sundry sort of separatists, moralists and sectaries, as namely: — Brownists, Anabaptists, Arians, Traskites, Famiüsts and some other sorts, who.... keep private conventicles and exercises of religion by law prohibited." This circular goes on to prescribe how all these sects are to be persecuted, but makes no mention of Jews. Had Laud and his associates known that they were at this very time beginning to creep into the Kingdom, this omission would hardly have been made m
From about 1630 onward, as Mr. Lucien Wolf picturesquely describes them in one of his entirely admirable later papers, secret Marannos of a pronounced caballero type began to arrivé and settle in England, though this was not revealed till twenty-five years later. In 1656 war broke out between England under Cromwell, and Spain; whereupon half a dozen merchant strangers were denounced as Spaniards; they were, however, Marannos from the Canary-islands. AU pleaded they were Portuguese, not Spaniards, and confessed themselves Jews, except one; henceforward they gave up living as Catholics. Whether they really became Jews is another matter. They were so useful to Cromwell for purposes of secret diplomacy, and diverting Spanish trade to England, that legal proceedings against them (the Robles Case) were quietly suspended. This led to a sort of semi-official toleration of certain persons who may be looked upon as partly Jewish. The pioneers of these Canariote immigrants claimed to have
1 H. L. Q. Henriques, Jews and the English Law.
38


39
been in the country for above twenty years This date of their settlement in England shortly after 1630 tallies with some other indications. F. D. Mocatta draws attention to a law passed in Portugal in 1629 allowing Marannos to emigrate 2, which had been forbidden till then. And there is the Second Expulsion from Spain of 1681 under Philip IV, when all Judaizers were exiled from his realms. This second banishment is far less known but hardly less important to the communities of Western Europe than the first, of 1492, when the trend of emigration was more towards the Levant and Africa. The second wave brought reinforcements to the communities of Amsterdam and the Hague, among them Spinoza and Menasseh b. Israël. In 1639 the separate groups of Mediterranean Jews from Portugal, Italy and Spain concentrated themselves into the Community of Portuguese Israelites, to whom a most liberal measure of religious liberty was granted in the Republie» The same wave brought commercially important but less fervently Jewish Marannos to London, and it may have been at their request that the Amsterdam Rab, Menasseh b. Israël, undertook his mission to Cromwell which led to the Whitehall Conference, and hence to the small beginnings of semi-official Resettlement.
The inferences drawn by Mr. Wolf and Amador de los Rios from the 1492 Expulsion, I would partly transfer to the one of 1631, and contend that assertions as to the presence of Jews in England in the 15th century remain improbable.
1 Lucien Wolf, Proc. J. Hist Soc. 1920.
2 Jews of Spain and Portugal, p. 97.


40
Another sample of misinterpretation with regard to Jews in 15th century England is the reference to Perkin Warbeck. As it is generally met with, I may as well quote from Hyamson's history (p. 120) which is of twenty years' later date than Mr. Wolf's paper.
"A Jewish parentage was attributed to the Pretender Perkin Warbeck, an attribution which, whether true or false, at any rate suggests that such a parentage was not rendered impossible by the entire absence of Jews from this country."
This is a guarded and conservative statement. But it only applies if Perkin's father was an English Jew.
The remarkable youth Pierrequin Werbecque as he signed his name, became a Pretender to the English throne, proclaiming himself Richard Duke of York, son of King Edward the Fourth, and younger of the two princes murdered in the Tower by order of their uncle Richard III (1485).
The source of all the confusion about his parentage seems to be the very circumstantial account of his adventures as given by Frahcis Bacon, in the Latin and English Life of Henry VII (1625). It is astonishing with what confidence Bacon puts his own constructions in the place of facts:
— "There was a townsman of Tournay, that had borne office in that town, whose name was John Osbeck, a convert Jew, married to Catherine de Faro; whose business drew him to live for a time at London in King Edward the Fourth's days. During which time he had a son by her, and being known in court, the King either out of a religious nobleness, because he was a convert, or upon some private acquaintance, did him the


41
honour to be godfather to his child and named him Peter.... As for the name of Warbeck, it was given him when they did but guess at it, before examinations had been taken.... While he was yet a child his parents
returned with him to Tournay living much with
English company and having the English tongue perfect" H From Bacon's relation (almost every item in which is of his own invention) nothing can be predicated as to the presence of Jews in 15th century England: the father was a Fleming or a native of northern France; if a Jew, he had been a convert before Perkin's birth. Bacon determined in his own mind that Perkin was bom in England; and though he does not explicitly state so, he puts the suggestion that the child was Edward's natural son in veiled words. But nothing is more certain than that Perkin was born at Tournay in Picardy. Hall the chronicler calls him "an alien of no ability"; the Spanish ambassador writing to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1495, reports the common saying, "As for this fellow, he may go back to his father and mother who live in France and are well known there"; Henry VII whose intelligence department was efficiënt, knew long before Perkin's confession that he was a "French boy"; Bacon himself towards the end of the episode
1 Fuit oppidanus quidam in civitate Turnacensi, qui magistratu in eo oppido perfunctus erat, cui nomen fuit Joannes Osbeckus, Judaeus ad fidem conversus, qui in uxorem'ducitCatharinam de Faro; cujus negotiorum procuratio eos traxit nt ad tempus Londini habitarent, temporibus Edwardi quarti. Hoo spatio filium ex ea genuS: cttmque in aula regis notus esset, rex autpietate quadam motus quod Judaeus conversus erat, aut privata quadam notitia adductus, eo honore eum dignatus est, ut filium ejus e fonte susoiperet, eumque Petrum no-
minaret nomen Warbecki ei ex conjectura tantum impositum erat, ante-
quam examinationes de eo negotio habitae fuissent. Dum adhuc infans erat, parentes cum eo Turnacum reversi sunt.... ut plurimum Anglis versatus, quo pacto etiam linguam Anglicam ad unguem callebat.


42
expressly states that he was a foreigner (quoniam extraneus esset).
The "feigned French boy" then, had his claims recognized by the King of France, and by Margaret the Dowager of Burgundy, widow of Charles the Bold, who adopted him as her nephew. James of Scotland received him as the White Rose of England and married him to Katherine Gordon. She remained constant to her handsome young husband after James had given him up, till his capture and execution in 1499.
This romantic career, in Bacon's version, furnished matter for a drama by John Ford, written and acted about 1630, a hundred and thirty years after the events. Ford's play is based on Bacon's history, which had justappeared and possessed authority in its time. Ford's Perkin Warbeck contains the character of Lambert Simnel the other remarkable impostor of the same epoch, who likewise vaunted himself a Plantagenet, but whose unmasking only reduced him, by the King's remarkable clemency, to the post of falconer. This reformed impostor Simnel rails at Perkin:
You would be Dick the Fourth; very likely! Your pedigree is published; you are known For Osbeck's son of Tournay, a loose runagate A landloper; your father was a Jew, Turned Christian merely to repair his miseries.
This is less circumstantial than Bacon's construetions, but as far as it goes equally incorrect.
The knowledge of the truth about this affair we owe to James Gairdner's monograph, appended to his Richard III (1878). Bacon had misinterpreted the


43
account of Speed the chronicler: "This youth was born, they say, in the city of Torney; the son of a converted Jew whose godfather at baptism King Edward was." This sentence of Speed's does not make it clear whether it was the citizen of Tournay, or his reputed son that had been sponsored by King Edward IV. It was the former, as has been proved from the original authority, Bernard André of Toulouse, the court-chronicler of Henry VII:
"Petreyum autem quemdam Tornacensem ab Eduardo, quondam Judaeo, postea a rege Eduardo sacro lavato fonte, in hac regione educatum, regis Eduardi Quarti minorem filium effinxerunt...." which may perhaps be Englished thus:
"They feigned a certain Peter of Tournay, educated in that region by one Edward, formerly a Jew but afterwards by King Edward laved in the sacred font, to be the younger son of King Edward IV." In his detailed confession Perkin stated himself to have been the servant of a certain Edward, but he minutely describes the history of his own family, stating the names and residence of his parents and grandparents, who were all French-speaking Flemings. In spite of a single discrepancy (his father's name is given as Osbeck, instead of Werbeque or Werbecque) — this confession cannot be impugned, and it has been confirmed by the public records of Tournay and Coürtray (Doornik and Kortrijk). Copies have also been found there of the letter Perkin wrote to his mother, in French, shortly after his capture at Exeter. His parents were both foreigners, Flemings, and Christians. Perkin was therefore not of JeWish, much less Anglo-Jewish extraction.


44
Mr. Cecil Roth 1 takes up the story of the baptized English Jew whose servant Perkin had been (in England?), or by whom he had been educated, and received a business training. Who was this renegade Jew, sufficiently familiar with the intimacies of the Royal court of England to impart to hisFlemishapprentice some of the inside knowledge that suggested to him his astounding imposture? Mr. Roth, by a brilliant piece of research substantiated the conjecture that Perkin Warbeck's Jewish master was Edward Brandon "alias Edward Brampton, Knight, alias of Portingale, alias of London, merchant, alias gentilman, alias godson to the most ülustrious King Edward IV;" a quondam inmaté of the Domus Conversorum, who had enjoyed the King's bounty there from 1468—1472. It was customary for the convert-refugees to have the reigning monarch for their sponsor, and such a statebaptism was sometimes the beginning of a career of marked favour, especially if the refugee-convert was a Portuguese or Spaniard capable of rendering the Enghsh King secret political services by his connexions with the Peninsula. Edward Brandon's career was nothing short of amazing: he twice married a wealthy Christian wife; became Governor of the Channel Islands, battled by land and sea, intrigued for twenty years, and managed in spite of some reverses to profit by the favour of Edward IV, Richard III and Henry VII successively. As a Christian English Knight he revisited his native country of Portugal; Perkin Warbeck accompanied his master thither, probably in attendance upon Sir Edward's wife. The Brandons
1 Transactions J. H. S. Vol. IX. 1920.


45
may have remained there a long time, and it seems possible to me that Perkin with his gift for impersonation passed himself off for the Knight's son. This conjecture would give some ground for King Ferdinand's message to Henry VII: "If it will be of any use to the King, we could manage to send him his (Perkin's) father and mother, who, they teil us, are in Portugal and are our subjects." But Henry knew better. The Bramptons were probably not in England when their former servant so ineffectively attempted the English throne, or they would have been implicated in the affair. Yet it appears that their son, also an Edward Brandon, was educated in England, and became a knight of St. John.
English dramatic literature may have lost a chance by not staging the metamorphosed Jew, a remarkable forerunner of that other Portuguese Jewish renegade and royal favourite a century later, the Ul-fated Dr. Rodrigo Lopez. But indeed the Elizabethan drama never touched Jewish converts, probably because their conversiori protected them from being berattled on the common stages, whilst the courtly dramatists feit no inclination to celebrate them. It is with regret that after studying with delight Mr. Cecil Roth's article, I must dissent entirely from his conclusion: "When a baptized Jew could attain such éminence in the country, public opinion could no longer be scandalized at the idea of a few unbaptized Jews living there quietly and without disturbance." On the contary, complete renunciation of their faith was the conditio sine qua non of their being tolerated.


46
The difficult question of the legal status of Jews in England before the period of the Commonwealth may be ülustrated from another item of news that attracted Mr. Wolf's attention:
"Here is a Jew Pirat arrested that brought three "prises of Spaniards into Plimmouth; he was set outby "the King of Maroco, and useth Hollanders ships and "for the most part theyre marmers; but yt is like he shall "passé yt over well inough, for the pretendeth to have "leave and licence under the k's hand for his egresse "and regresse, which was not beleved upon the first sight, "till he made proofe of yt." (November 1614) K
Thus far a busy letter-writer of that day, Mr. John Chamberlain, to the British Ambassador at Venice. The "pirat" was Samuel Palache, a new member of the Jewish community of Amsterdam, and Envoy of the Sultan of Morocco to the States-General. He did a roaring trade capturing Spanish silver-fleets, like Piet Hein of Dutch ballad fame; he was duly authorized by letters of marqué from his government. King James after the peace with Spain in 1604 was loth to stop so profitableapursuitasprivateering,yet could nothonestly grant commissions to his own subjects; but he did wink at the Dutch taking a few Spanish prizes into his ports. The spirited manner in which the Privy Council and the Judges defended "Palachie the Jew" against the demands of the Spanish ambassador, suggests that they were obeying the King's express though secret orders. Mr. Lionel Abrahams quotes from the MS. vols. of Acts of the Privy Council, 20 March 1615:
— Upon complaint heretofore made unto this Board
1 See Lionel Abrahams, in Jew. Quart. Rev. 1902. p. 364.
i


47
by the Spanish Ambassador now resident here, that one Samuel Palache a Jew being apprehended and brought unto the City of London, had lately committed piracy spoil and outrage at sea upon the subjects of the [Spanish] King his Master, wherein he desired justice and satisfaction; their Lordships were pleased to refer the consideration and hearing thereof unto Sir Edward Cooke Knight, Lord Chief Justice of England, Sir Julius Caesar, Knight, Master of the Rolls, and Sir Daniël Dunn, Knight, Judge of the Admiralty, who have made report unto their Lordships that, forasmuch as it hath appeared unto them that Samuel Palache is born the subject of the King of Morruccos (between whom and the King of Spain, as is conceived, there is actual war) and hath from him an especial commission to take the subjects of the said King of Spain, they are of opinion that by the laws of the kingdom he is not subject unto any criminal demand or action for the said spoil or outrage. Palache forthwith to be released from his restraint and also his servants that be imprisoned upon this occasion." Further remonstrances by the "Lo. Embassador of Spaigne" were brushed aside. It must have cost Sir Edward Cooke, Lord Chief Justice of England, him of the Institutes (1628) quoted above, a pang, to give this judgment protective of a Jew while he had perhaps already penned that passage in which "it is holden that a Pagan cannot have or maintain any action at all." It is also in glaring contrast with the expulsion of the Portuguese merchants in 1609 when the severity of the law was exerted against them. It shows what the Royal will and considerations of commerce could do, and becomes


48
intelligible if we understand that Palache never meant to settle in England, but only to put into port for the purpose of selling his captured prizes. Here again the Jacobean Drama may be said to have missed a chance, for the adventures of the Jewish privateer might have furnished scènes in the drama of Ward and Dansker, (A Christian turrfd Turk, 1612).
Thus far historical evidence, whether from Mr. Wolf's pioneer collection or from other sources opened up afterwards, does not bear out his theory as to the presence of Jews, undisguised and unmolested in England before the Commonwealth.
Let us now turn to Sir Sidney Lee's thesis and deal with the more directly literary aspects.


CHAPTER II
SIR SIDNEY LEE'S THESIS CONSIDERED ON GENERAL LINES
In his 1888 lecture to the New Shakspere Society, Sir Sidney (then Mr.) Lee, argued the presence of Jews in Elizabethan England on a variety of grounds, but primarily from aesthetic intuitions and from principles of dramatic theory.
"How are we to account for the detailed Jewish characteristics which are visible in the Jews of the dramatists, from the rudimentary sketch of Gerontus to the finished portrait of Shylock? Shylock's character is alone elaborately drawn, but is it so finished a portrait as to extort the comment that it can only have been
drawn from the life The Jew could not have
absorbed so much of the attention of Elizabethan playwrights and playgoers, had he not occupied a correspondingly important position in contemporary
society The Jewish features of the Elizabethan
drama defy explanation, unless we can prove that Jews resided in Elizabethan England and met the dramatist face to face,"
and the striking lecture concludes thus:
"I have thus shown that the Jew figured in the Elizabethan playhouses at all stages of the development of the'Elizabethan drama, and that it is only possible to account for his presence there, by the assumption that
4


50
he figured to a proportionate extent in Elizabethan society."
To this position I will refer in the sequel as the LeeWolf thesis.
Lee finds support for his persuasion in Shakespeare's
canon: "the purpose of playing.... is to hold,
as 't were the mirror up to nature; to show.... the very age and body of the time his form and pressure."
These words spoken by Hamlet — argues Sir Sidney — define the object Shakespeare set before himself, and make it reasonable to regard Elizabethan dramatic literature as an accurate reflexion of contemporary society. As a basis this may be granted, provided it is interpreted broadly; in any narrow sense it is not applicable to the play of Hamlet itself.
As to the "intimate perfection" that so impresses him, Jews are aware that the portraits are not representative of their ancestors. Some are only saved from being mortifying, by their being ludicrous; ethers are painful, not as acute observations of realblemishes, butasexaggerations of prejudice. Yet Lee's view is nowadays widely shared, also by Jews. Of course we are not reasoning critics in matters that touch racial and social sensibilities. Instincts will come into play inducing Jews to find a basis in Elizabethan realities for Shylocke and the others; feelings will overcome the vexation that should be feit on looking in such mirrors. The least distinctive of these sentiments is the merely human one of selfimportance, as if any sort of notoriety were better than obscurity: "They had to put us into the picture (though the portraits are libels)." More specifically Jewish seems


51
a spice of malice at having rather sportingly run the bloekade while the banishment was in force: "No one could keep us out when we wanted to come". But the most substantial incentive is a political instinct, to strengthen their claim in the greatest of empires, by proving their residence in the country to have been of long standing. They wish to establish that they were here early, in the formative period preceding the expansion of England, and that they had a share in building up the Empire as pioneers in colonization, world-trade and finance. With a race no longer in possession of a home, attachment to the new fatherland becomes a natural feeling, not more selfish than love of country always must be. Jews are only international perforce; they grow to the soil like any other people. Palestine alive with venerable associations is now a treasured National Monument, the object of renewed devotion and of many anxious cares; but as the world has moved Mr. Hilaire Belloc need not fear it as the political centre of Jewry 1). English people do not share Mr. Belloc's nervousness: if there is any oil there it will be a British concern. Palestine is the spiritual fatherland of both Jew and Christian. If the Crusades pressed a onesided claim, the British mandate happily expresses the common interest of the whole world in this classic ground. Jewish loyalty is not complicated by foreign allegiance, and the claim to be "Britons of the Jewish persuasion" is as normal as to be Britons of any other persuasion, or extraction. Yet whatever the loyal wish may prodUce for the future, it cannot change the past. Once a reader's attention has been fixed on the
1 The Jews. (Constable 1922) under motto oi'str on the title-page.


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vilipending references that abound in the Tudor-Stuart drama, the idea that Jews must have been on the spot and in resented evidence sticks in the mind. The perusal of all the evidence to that effect marshalled by the Editor of the Dictionary of National Biography, and by the President of the Jewish Historical Society, puts us on the road to conviction. Whence all those sneering flouts, apparently stock jokes, occurring both in famous books, and in minor pamphlets that we hardly know the names of? If our subconscious self refuses to yield, then for justice' sake we reason with ourselves:
We can actively like or dislike those people only, with whom we cannot avoid having dealings. Where there is no contact, no conflict of antipathies is possible. The Samoyede or Patagonian may be objectionable or lovable persons for anything we know, but who cares? We do not even talk about them. Contrarily there has been a great deal of disparaging talk about Jews: the contempt bred of famüiarity? Persistent mention of Jews, the fact that they have been objects of hatred and ridicule, points to their actual, habitual and widely known presence in England during Elizabethan times.
But in thus assenting to Lee's premiss we have been reasoning grossly. The contact and the conflict may have been spiritual. Where there had been physical contact at one time, its effects may live on traditionally after the separation, in a few well-marked but ossified traits, expressions, similes, maxims, all the more tenaciously adhered to because they are looked upon as ancestral wisdom, henceforth incapable of correction. Moreover, does the fact that Jew-plays were written and performed with applause in London prove that


53
there were Jews in England? Does the playgoer stipulate and the author guarantee that nothing shall be presented which they have not the experience or the capacity to appraise? There is no doubt a certain proportion of plays portraying contemporary English manners, like Bartkolomew Fair. These are of immense value for the social history of the time. They contain no Jews proper, but a fair amount of that proverbial Jew-lore, which will be duly noted. On the other hand romantic drama was frequently an escape from the humdrum life at home into more picturesque climes. Those plays whose scènes are laid in foreign countries merely show the current English ideas about men and life in those foreign parts. Thus Italy in the popular fantasy was the land -of thrüling romances in balconied palaces, olive groves and gondolas; of family feuds and star-crossed lovers; cruel husbands and naughty wives; murderous politicians, and wifekilling Moors. But the favourite foreign country was also the most important abodeof Jews in the 16th century. The bloody-minded, crafty, extortionate Jew was therefore among the few exotic devices available to produce the foreign atmosphere; and he was just that sort of half-known figure that tempts marvelling curiosity. There is a parallelism in the attitude towards Italians and to Jews: Classical Romans and ancient Bible Jews are both regarded with traditional awe; the good and the bad are carefully classed and kept apart, on somewhat hard and fast lines; occasionally the bad characters acquire from their associations some glamour of dignity not due to them: a character in Livius or in the Bible is at any rate somebody. Renaissance Italians and Jews are treated more


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"romantically", being such stuff as full-flushed rumour is made of, before it has had time to subside. Also a new religious factor came in: no blame attached to ancient Jews and Romans for being miscreants; but the modern Jews were unconverted, and the Italians were Papists.
Take for example the myths woven round theBorgias, the Medici, Aretino or Macchiavelli. Macchiavelli was chiefly notorious through Gentület's and Patericke's travesties and refutations of his tenets. Mr. Edward Meyer1 has collected over four hundred references in the Elizabethan drama to Macchiavelli and Pietro Aretino, which is quite as many as the whole number of Eüzabethan passages referring to Jews. Says Marlow:
Albeit the world thinke Machevill is dead, Yet was his soule but flowne beyond the Alpes, And now the Guize is dead, is come from France To view this land and frolick with bis friends. —
Yet even the most nervous of Elizabethan scaremongers were sure that MachevüTs body had never defiled the English shore; he could have no friends there to frolick with. But for a time English audiences could not do without their Macchiavel on the stage, though English theatrical imagination could not have run riot so wildly about "Sathan in disguise", if the scholarly little signor had been a familiar figure in the London thoroughfares. If one foreign politician could engross so much stage attention, why not a whole nation of equally foreign Jews? The Jews indeed fared similarly to the Italians, only worse. They were handicapped by
1 Ed. Meyer. Litterarhistorische Forschungen I: Macchiavelli and the El. Drama.


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the ancient grievances against them which have been incorporated immutably in the standing phrases of every language, and will thus last the world. Neither had they a chance of literary self-advertisement or even defence, since they commonly used the medium of Hebrew. The Press had not yet been invented. The Italians on the other hand, possessed a fine romantic literature which supplied Europe with interesting and not always unfavourable interpretations of themselves. The Jews lacked this advantage, and the political prestige that goes with armaments and the possession of famous cities.
Does not it seem possible that the position of certain classes of foreigners in the drama was almost independent of their bodily presence in London? Literature may be rich tapestry on very flimsy material. There were always a few score Italians in London, but they were hardly the models for Romeo, Juliet, Mercutio, Benedick, Desdemona, Jago and so many more. Suppose there had been Jews in London, would they haveshown themselves of the stamp of Barabases, Shylockes and Zariphs? And never a man of them hanged drawn and quartered? I would sooner argue that for the formation of such grotesque and lurid types as the Elizabethan stage-Jews, some recession in time and distance — in fact their absence — is if anything a favourable condition; and I concur with the trend of the following remarks of Charles Knight1:
"The London or English Jews of our day have no connexion whatever with the English Jews of the olden
1 "London" by Ch. Knight, revised by E. Walford. (s.a.) voL VI. p. 34.


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time. The banishment of the Jews from England in the 16th year of Edward I was succeeded by a long interval during which no settlements of any consequence were attempted. We say of consequence, for we have that confidence in the commercial enterprise and versatility of this race where a trade was to be driven, that we believe at no time has England been without
individuals belonging to it Still they must have
been very few, and must have shunned observation.... It is probably for this reason that the Jew was turned to so liüle account in the dramatic literature of the Elizabethan age. Even Shakspere's Jew, though it has traits of human individuality, has few traits of Jewish individuality. His Hebraisms — and he has some noble ones — are such as any Christian might be supposed to have incorporated with his imagination. Shylock is every inch a man, as Othello is every inch a man; but Shylock betrays as little knowledge of the natural history of Jewish morale, as Othello of the natural history of Moorish physique — and for the same reason: that Englishmen were never brought into habitual contact with either Jews or Moors. Both Shylock and Barnabas [sic] belong more to the legendary world than to the real. In countries where Jews have abounded and been objects of popular odium, the dramatists who have pandered to prejudice, have uniformly made their Jews mean and ludicrous, as well as hateful. Now you may hate Barnabas and Shylock, but you cannot despise them. Shakspere and Marlowe found their Jews in the legends of other lands, not in real life, nor even in popular apprehension." For the sake of the broad sense, let us forbear to


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piek holes in the above paragraph. It is the old-school view. "It may perhaps be remarked—says Sir Adolphus Ward 1 — that the popular feeling which prevailed in England against Jews cannot be set down as more than the continued unthinking and unciiscriminating acceptance of a popular prejudice of ancient standing; for Jews in London during the whole of this period were only few in number and very little known; and neither Shakespeare nor Marlowe is likely to have made the acquaintance of any Jews abroad."
This also rejects the theory of Karl Elze, who supposed that Shakespeare saw Shylocke in Italy, perhaps during the closure of the London theatres owing to the plague in 15932. Simüarly Sir A. Quiller Couch8 thinks it curious to reflect that Shakespeare most likely had never seen a Jew in his life. Would he have recognized one in a Portuguese Maranno? In the words of Abbot4: "Marlow's Barabas and Shakespeare's Shylock are both replicas of the Jew as conceived by mediaeval imagination. The abhorrence of the Jew was that which was inspired by a repulsive abstraction rather than by a concrete individual. The Jewinthefleshwaspractically anunknown creature to the ordinary Englishman and woman of the age. If he was hated as a blood-sucking ghoul, he was not more real than a ghoul. But scarcely had the generation that hissed Barabas and Shylock on the stage passed away, when the Jew re-appeared as a human reality upon the soil which his fathers
1 Camb. Hist. vol. V.
* E. K. Chambers. El. Stage IV. p. 346—351 gives a complete table of plagueclosures.
* Forto. Eev. March 1918.
« F. G. Abbot: Israël in Europe 1907.


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had quitted more than three hundred years before."
From the moment of his resurgence in England the Jew disappears from the stage for half a century. He was not recognized as in the same class with those legendary generations which in far-off unhappy times had left such a wounded name behind. This observation applies even more fully to the Elizabethan Marannos: a few doctors and wholesale-merchants. These are the only "Jews" (in a very qualified sense) whose presence the veteran Professor Graetz admits1:
"Die Schöpfung des Shylock steht in bisher kaum geahntem Zusammenhang mit den Zwangstaufen der Juden in Spanien und Portugal. — Juden als solche sind gewisz damals und auch lange spater nicht in England geduldet worden; konnte noch Cromwell ihre gesetzliche Zulassung nicht durchsetzen. Aber spanische Marranen erschienen hier unter der Maske von Christen; es war aber ein öffentliches Geheimnisz dasz sie im Innern Juden geblieben waren, und jüdische Riten, wenn auch nicht in auffaUiger Weise befolgten."
That remark about the open secret is the crux. It is sometimes repeated but never substantiated: "In elisabethanischer Zeit musz die Zahl der Juden in England, vor allem in London, schon wieder betrachtlich gewesen sein. Offiziell war ihre Verbannung zwar noch nicht aufgehoben; aber die Behörden selbst nahmen es offenbar damit nicht so genau", echoes Eckhardt. Lee even asserts that "a few were so situated as to remain here as professing Jews without molestation". He thinks that in the higher classes the hatred of the Jews was expiring, and points out that the Queen
1 Shylock in der Sage etc. Kxotoscbin 1889.


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herself did not refuse intercourse with some Jews and Jewesses. But the Maria Nunez with whom Queen Elizabeth rode through the London streets while she was a "Maranna", left the country when she had resolved to return to Judaism. No doubt she would have preferred to remain in England and have Queen Elizabeth for a friend, if that had been possible. In the course of a debate on alien immigration (1593) Sir Robert Cecil expressed the best educated feeling of the day, when he asserted that the reliëf afforded by England to strangers "hath brought great honour to our Kingdom: for it is accounted the refuge of distressed natións; our arms have been opened unto them to cast themselves unto our bosom." Suppose this did apply to Marannos admitted at Court, there is not the slightest reference in the drama to such high-class and favoured persons, but only to the mean bloodsucking usurer and pettifogging pawnbroker.
Prof. W. Creizenach's wide scholarship made him chary of expressing a subjective opinion 1: "Es laszt sich schwer feststellen inwieweit die englischen Theaterdichter in ihrem Lande für die Darstellung der Juden das nötige Beobachtungsmaterial fanden, aber es kann nicht zweifelhalft sein dasz einzelne sich schon früher Eintritt zu verschaffen wuszten. — Es ist kaum zu bezweifeln dasz der Jude Marlowes ebenso wie derj enige Shakespeares auf selbststandiger Beobachtung des jüdischen Wesens beruht. Es laszt sich noch verfolgen wie der rothaarige Jude mit der langen Nase von Alleyn dargestellt sich dem Gedachtnis der Zuschauer einpragte." Since there have been Jews in
1 Geschichte des neuern Dramas, IV. p. 514.


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England the red Shylocke wig and even the long nose have disappeared from the stage. Red is a traditional Judas colour, but it is in no sense typical of Jewish physique x.
Professor Leon Kellner published important though inconclusive researches on the sources of the Jew of Malta (Engl. Studiën X. 1886). These were occasioned by Lee's provisional article: The Original of Shylock, in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1880; it is to be presumed that Kellner took notice of the Lee-Wolf developments in 1888. Yet in his Shakespeare 1900, he wrote discussing Shylocke: "England hatte seit 800 Jahren keinen Juden mehr auf seinem Boden gesehen."
Georg Brandes is intensely interested in things Jewish; he makes, however, no reference to Lee-Wolf and writes: "In Venice the traveller would have an opportunity, which he lacked in England, of studying the Jewish character. Shakespeare seems to have availed himself of it. The English public had no acquaintance with Jews except in books and on the stage. From 1290 until the middle of the 17th century Jews were entirely excluded from England."
O. Jespersen 2 looks at the matter from the linguistic side: — "Although Sidney Lee has shown that there were Jews in England in those times and that consequently Shakespeare need not have gone outside England in order to see models for Shylock, the number of Jews cannot have been* sufficiënt for his hearers to be familiar with the Jewish type, and no Anglo-
1 Red is the colour of the soldiers of Antichrist, out of whom legend made the Red Jews of the Caspian Gate, in Alexander Romances. J Qrowth and Structure, § 218.


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Jewish dialect or mode of speech had developed which Shakespeare could put into Shylock's mouth so as to make him at once recognizable for what he was. I have not indeed been able to discover a single trait in Shylock's language that can be called distinctly Jewish."
Unlike the preceding, Ed. Eckhardt who has made an exhaustive study of Dialekt- und Auslandertypen des otteren Englischen Dramas1, not only agrees entirely with Lee but light-heartedly goes beyond him. "Es ist wahrscheüüich dasz manche durch Bestechung oder dadurch dasz sie versprachen Christen zu werden es doch so einzurichten wuszten dasz sie dablieben [in 1290]. Andere verstanden sich unter falscher Firma einzuschmuggeln: Lombarden, angebliche Vlamen (s. Besant). Die Behörden selbst nahmen es offenbar damit nicht so genau.... Die Frage die noch Elze aufwerfen konnte, ob Shakespeare überhaupt einen Juden gesehen oder gar gekannt habe, ist also für die neuere Forschung überhaupt keine Frage mehr.... Diese Forschung hat die Anwesenheit vieler Juden im damaligen England erwiesen. Modelle für den Shylock bot dem Dichter das wirkliche Leben in London ja in Hülle und Fülle."
Eckhardt is nothing if not positive and I shall have to animadvert on his dicta occasionally.
Prof. F. S. Boas (Shakspere and his Predecessors, 1902) is equally sure: "The long prevalent tradition that Jews were unknown in England between the time of Edward I and the Protectorate, and that thus Shakspere must either have been entirely unacquainted with
1 Bang's Materialiën, Band 27 & 32.


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them, or have met them abroad, has been completely disproved from examination of the State Papers and other authoritative sources. It is perfectly certain that Shakspere had some opportunities of acquiring first-hand knowledge of Jewish life without leaving England."
Professor Boas's certainty rests upon his implicit acceptance of the Lee-Wolf evidence.
The clear-headed Charles Lamb must have been in the land of Nod when he penned 11 "Barabas is just such an exhibition as a century or two earlier might have been played before the Londoners by the Royal command, when a general pillage and massacre of the Hebrews had been resolved on in the cabinet." He would have woke with a start at sister Mary's whisper: The Expulsion was in 1290!
With Levin Schücking we come to a determined form of reaction 2:
"Whatever Shylock says bears the stamp of his character. The consummate skül shown in this character has made it almost 'a dogma among Shakespearean critics that Shakespeare must have drawn from life. The older critics held that he had acquired this knowledge of the Jewish character on a journey in Italy; later researches proved that in spite of the prohibition which was in force until Cromwell abolished it, some Jews had managed to exist in London, and these Shakespeare was said to have studied. Closer observation, however, shows that this preconceived opinion has not much to recommend it either.... Very little
1 Specimens of Dramatic Poetry.
2 Character Problems, London 1922. G. Harrap & Co.


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remains of Shakespeare's supposed studies from Jewish models. The witnessing of a good representation of the Jew of Malta made him independent of all the models in the world; it is quite unnecessary to assume that he studied Uving persons. Marlowe's Jewish type is the origin of Shylock."
Schücking's note, of which the above is only an abstract is admirable, but it does not explain where Marlowe made his study of the Jew; and it does not criticize Lee's documentary evidence. There are more authors who do not seem to be struck with the necessity of accounting for Barrabas and Shylocke by some theory of direct observation: "One thing is certain—says John H. Ingram—that the various wild guesses. of his editors that Marlowe had spent a portion of his time in the army or in foreign travel, have nothing to support them. Until he settled in London his time can be fairly well accounted for." Dr. Stokes 1 supposes that by that time the Jew of Malta had already been written, that it was composed in Marlowe's college days at Cambridge just before he took his M. A. degree in 1587 2. This would diminish Marlowe's chances of observing real Jews of the blood in England, except perhaps the Hebrew lecturer at Cambridge. In 1587 the Portuguese doctor Ruy Lopes had just been made chief physician to the Queen, he was in the height of favour and probably no one had as yet thought of him as a Jew, though his Jewish descent was brought up against him to engineer his disgrace and execution seven years later. It is utterly impossible
1 Studies in Anglo-Jewish History.
* The Prologue may be of later date, and need not be the original one.


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to connect Barrabas with Lopez, or with such other Marannos of the Lopez-type as may have lived in England at the time.
For the present I would conclude this symposion by putting before the reader the judicious summing up of Dr. Stokes, which cannot be far removed from the truth: "During this period no unconverted Jew could legally enter England. Certain converts were admitted and even housed; some Jewish medical men were here as elsewhere exceptionally treated; some Marranos and other crypto-Jews occasionally are found in London and other places; a Jew may have obtained a footing for a while disguised and incognito, but otherwise there was a barrier. From 1290 tot 1656, it may be repeated, no unconverted Jew could legally enter England" 1.
My own view is that the Lee-Wolf researches prove just this and no more, and I agree with Knight, Schücking, Ward and Abbot, that no more is required to account for the literary quality of the Jew-figures in the Elizabethan drama.
In covering once more the same ground as my predecessors, I propose to be guided by the following dirigent questions:
tl What sound historical evidence is there of the presence of recognizable and typical Jews, settled in England in Shakespeare's time? Some of this has already been discussed.
2. To what extent and in what aspects did the contemporary (not the ancient) Jew absorb attention of Elizabethan playwrights and audiences?
1 A short History of the Jews in England by the Rev. Dr. H. P. Stokes. S. P. C. K. London 1921, p. 66.


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8. Does the accuracy of the main outlines, and of detail, the variety of knowledge, the quality of the achievement in portraiture, suggest studies made at first hand from the life; or the reverse? Were those studies made in England or outside England?
4. Do the dramatists that bring Jews on the stage introducé them in plays whose scène is contemporary England? In that case Jews are represented as an element, alien indeed, but having more than a temporary footing in England. — Or contrarily, is the Jew only found and referred to as present, when the scène of the action (or of the reference in the particular passage) is expressly or presumably outside England?
5. Are there differences in these respects between literature aiming at a realistic effect, and purely imaginative productions?
Various classes of evidence have different values, and no mean part of research consists in appraising their relative weight. We may find in authoritative sources direct statements meant as information on matters of fact. If these are made by contemporaries on the spot, who cannot, unless witfully biassed, err in dealing with facts of common knowledge, and whose words could not have passed unchallenged if grossly untrue, then we are bound to let such dicta outweigh both the opinions of contemporary outsiders and of later historians. As such a weighty authority I will examine John Stow's Survey of London.
On the other hand allusive references in frankly imaginative literature, should be seven times tried
5


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before deductions from them can be opposed in the scale to statements by writers who with or without expert knowledge, describe objectively their own familiar surroundings. A volume full of indirect allusions cannot upset ten matter of fact lines from the parish chronicler, the Dryasdust observer. We should be particularly careful to distinguish the figurative, paradoxical or ironical modes of expression. Thus when we are told that in 1428 "the Jews of Abingdon" performed an interlude before Henry VI \ we should understand even without quotation marks that this is the name of that company of actors, probably derived in part from the subject of their play.
It is thus seen that a good deal of work remains to be done by the reviser of so subtle a theory and such ample materials as are implied in. the Lee-Wolf thesis. To this task we will now address ourselves. And as a preliminary step, can we estimate how much attention the contemporary Jew did absorb, dramaticaüy speaking? Supposing some fifteen hundred Tudor-Stuart plays, from Elizabeth to the Restoration, do we find twenty or fifty with Jewish characters in them? Are those important or minor parts? How many in each play?
The number of plays, characters and scènes are simple quantitative matters; and the following table is intended to furnish as complete a survey as I am at present able to supply.
1 Sidney Lee in The Times, Nov. 1.1883; the quotation marks are in the original.


A. PLAYS WITH JEWISH CHARACTERS IN THEM roughly contemporary
Short Title of Play Jewish oharaoter(s) Looality Date Authorfs)
1 Three Ladies of London Gerontus (Turkey) 1584 R. Wilson.
2 Jew of Malta Barrabas,Abigail etc. Malta 1588 Chr. Marlo.
3 Selimus Abraham Turkey 1594 R. Greene.
4 The Merchant of Venice, al- Shylocke, Jessica, 1
socalledTheJewofVenice Tubal, (Chus) ƒ Vemce 1596 Shakespeare.
5 Machiavellus (Latin MS.) Iacuppus Florence 1597 anon.
6 Travailes of the brothers Zariph Venice 1607 John Day, Wm. Row
Sherley ley, G. Wilkins.
7 A Christian turn'd Turk Benwash, Rabshake Tunis 1610 Rob. Daborne.
8 The Custom of the Country Zabulon (Lisbon) 1622 (Beaumont and) Flet
cher.
9 The Raging Turk Hamon Turkey 1627 Thom. Goffe.


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We have therefore nine authentic extant Jew plays. One of these, Macchiavellus a university entertainment, exists only in a single manuscript copy, in Latin \ incomplete, at the Bodleian Library (Douce Ms. 234) The rest are all English and in print, though the Jew of Malta does not exist in the form in which Marlow wrote it, and we have no earlier quarto than that of Tho. Heywood, 1633.
With regard to locality, the scène of the Three Ladies is London, but the Gerontus scènes are significantly shifted to Turkey.
The Travaües of the Three English Brothers Sherley, are represented as taking place in Persia and elsewhere, but the scène is erratically shifted to Venice for Zariph only.
Of The Customoftyhe Country the scène is partly Italy and partly Lisbon, and I must reserve for a subsequent' section some comment on the circumstances which led to the Jewish scènes with Zabulon being transferred from Rome to Lisbon (see p. 81 & 181).
Three lost plays must be mentioned, because in all likelihood they dealt with modern Jews; two of them yield clues as to their scène of action: o. The Jewe showne at the Buil, ante 1579, mentioned by Stephen Gosson. That this Jew was an Itaüan we infer from a passage in a playful letter by Edmund Spenser to Gabriel Harvey 2, in which the poet subscribes himself "he that is fast bownde unto the in more obligations than any marchant of Italy
>■ Die lateinischen Univ. Dramen, Churchill-Keller, Jahrbuch 34 (1898). 1 Harvey's Letter-book (Camden Soc. 1884) p. 178.


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to any Jew there", which has been supposed to allude to this play.1
h. "Decker's Jew of Venice, 1653", which whatever may have been its relation to Shakespeare's play, at any rate states its locality in the title.
c. The German play of English descent: " Comoedia genandt dass Wohl Gesprochene Uhrtheil eines Weiblichen Studenten, oder der Jud von Venedig." (1608?), which though extant in German is lost in English and need not for the present engage our attention, except to notice that the scène is again Venice and Cyprus.
The play by Richard Brome, "The Jewish Gentleman" (circa 1630?) has left no clue to its scène of action. Its subject may possibly have been that of the pamphlet "The Wandering Jew telling fortunes to English men (1625?)", in which case the scène was London, but the Fortune-teller was a Christian, masking as a Jew. The character-pamphlet will be discussed below2.
In addition there were a large number of Biblical or Sacred plays such as: 1561. Two Sins of King David [App. M.]. 1561. Godly Queen Hester (Anon). 1568. Jacob and Esau (Anon).
1 Ed. Scott. Athenaeum 1881. July 2nd.
2 In this oonnection we may compare one much older play: "The Play of the Sacrament and the Conversyon of Ser Jonathas the Jewe." It is unique in one respect viz. in being, though a religious morality, topical of its own day. The colophon runs: "Thus endyth the Play of the Blyssyd Sacrament, whyohe myracle was don in the forest of Aragon, in the famous cite Eraclea, the yere of ower Lord God M.CCCCLXI; to whom be honower. Amen !" This supports our locality test: being the only 16th. c. English Jew-play that deals with a contemporary event and modern Jews, its scène is not England, but Sicily (Aragona, Girgenti), an island where Jews flourished in the 15th century.


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1577. Abraham's Sacrifice (Transl. Golding).
1578. Suzanna, by T. Garter.
1599. David and Bathsabe, by G. Peele.
1613. The Tragedy of Mariam (and Herod) by El. Carey.
1638. The Jewes Tragedy, by Wm. Hemmings.
These will be left out of account because they do not deal with contemporary Jews; being mostly faithful reproductions of the Bible or of Josephus, they have no actuality (except Queen Hester, which glances at the contemporary Christian church), and they do not reflect contemporary opinion on the modern Jews.
Before drawing some provisional conclusions, I submit a small hst of:
"Very doubtful Jew-plays", i. e. plays in which I consider that certain characters have been erroneously identified as Jews by commentators: 1601. Jack Drum's Entertainment] Mammon London. 1604. Eastward Hoe Security London.
1609. The Scornful Lady Morecraft London.
1610. The Alchemist Abel Drugger London. 1620. Women Pleased Lopez Florence.
The first nine plays of table A are, as far as I have been able to find, all the extant dramas with undoubted Jews expressly so designated. Adding to these some of the lost plays, we arrivé at a total of a dozen, in which one or more modern Jews are among the acting characters. I could not give an opinion as to whether a dozen plays in about fifteen hundred is a strikingly large proportion.
In only one of these is the Jew quite the principal


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character, viz. Barabas, who carries the whole; he and his daughter Abigail are hardly ever off the stage.
In the Merchant, Shylocke's part is indeed very important and so powerfully written, that he is among the dramatis personae of eternity; yet in a complete performance he does not fill the stage to the end; there is no mention of his name in the last act.
In Fletcher's Custom of the Country, Zabulon bustles about a good deal. In A Christian Turn'd Turk, Benwash and his confederates are prettymuch in evidence; they are however renegade Jews (Mahomedans). The Jacuppus of the Latin University play shares the honours about equally with the Macchiavelli of the comedy, but as a Jew he is as phantasticalfy wide of the mark, as the other is from being an embodiment of the Satanic Florentine. The terrible Zariph in the Brothers Sherley, comes intensely to the fore in two short scènes, after which the play rambles on and forgets him and his victim. Gerontus, Abraham and Hamon are conf ined to a few passages each, in plays crowded with other characters.
This survey lessens the quantitative impression by a great deal.
Qualitative appreciation is a subjective matter and not easy to put in a few words. Lee and others consider that the quality of some of the Jew f igures would have been unattainable without live models in England. Schücking attacks this view as applied to suprème geniuses, quoting Goethe who said of himself that "experience in his own case had never been anything but confirmation." If this was true of Goethe, then Shakespeare could evolve Shylocke out of his own inner


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consciousness, his reading, hearsay and other sources of information. Schücking and Knight are furthermore of opinion that Shylocke is not a Jewish type. "Shylock was neither a typical Jew, a probable Jew, nor a possible Jew; (says a recent American author) the picture of Shylock is so antagonistic to the Jewish character, that it need not even be defended. If it is so to speak idiopathic and not intended as representative of the race, all the more pity that it has for so many centuries and to so many readers [and spectators] served as an epitome of all that is Jewish" 1.
"As a rule — says Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu 2, a Christian and a Frenchman — the Jew shrinks from deeds of violence; perhaps one of his most marked characteristics is his horror of blood." The materials of Shylocke's speech may be partly Old Testamental, but his style is only so where he quotes the Pentateuohi Jespersen could not find a single Jewish characteristic of speech in Shylocke. He cannot dismiss the thought that "Shakespeare made Shylock's language peculiar on purpose, just as he makes Caliban, and the Witches in Macbeth use certain words and expressions used by none other of his characters, in order to stamp them as beings out of the common sort." It is very little use quoting among those peculiar words: "synagogue, Nazarite and publican"; the last 'publican' a startlingly un-Jewish word 8. And if the peculiarities of Shylocke's style are on a level with, though distinct from, those of Caliban and the Witches, the impression that
1 Shylock not a Jew by Maurioe Packard. Boston 1919.
* Israël parmi les Nations 1893: (Psychologie du Juif) p. 215.
* The line in which it oecurs is assigned by B. O. Moidton to Antonio ! Richard G. Moulton's note on the Merchant 1. iii. 42 is so good and so


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Shylocke was observed in England does not gain thereby.
There seems to be some little danger of Shylocke being set up with the half-educated majority as more authentically Jewish than the most racy Jews themselves. "For the majority of modern readers — says Prof. Boas 1 —Shylock has supplanted the great historical figures as the type of the sons of Israël." The odd consequence, never intended by Shakespeare, is that Jews are expected to conform to Shylocke. A trait of character is proclaimed Jewish if it is in Shylocke, for instance bloody-minded vindictiveness, moroseness, Buchstabengerechtigkeit, cruelty to daughters, cringingness. Graces that Shylocke lacks, such as dignity, mercy, sweetness, enlightenment, must be borrowed plumes if found in Jews. If the Jews are expected to live down to Shylocke, then of course there need be no
persistently neglected by editors, that I beg leave to transcribe the gist of it: No commentator — says Moulton — has succeeded in making intelligible the line:
How like a fawning publican he looks! as it stands in the opening of Shylock's soliloquy. The expression'fawning publican' is so totally the opposite of all the qualities of Antonio that it could have no force even in the mouth of a satirist. Read as follows: Enter Antonio.
Bass : This is Signor Antonio.
Shylock [aside] Antonio [aside]
I hate him for he is a Christian,] How like a fawning publican he looks
But more &tc.J (Bassanio whispers Antonio and
brings him up to Shylock).
Both the 'fawning' and the 'publican' are literally applicable to Shylock, and are just what Antonio would be likely to say of him. It is again a natural effect for the two foes on meeting for the first time in the play to exchange scowling defiance. Antonio's defiance is cut short at the first line by Bassanio's running up to him, explaining what he has done, and bringing Antonio up to where Shylock is standing; the time occupied in doing this gives Shylock scope for his longer soliloquy. Shak. as a Dramatic Artist. Oxford. 1901'. p. 62.
1 Prof. F. S. Boas, Shakspere and his Predecessors, 1902.


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literary criticism of the character, but it is asking a good deal of them even in this topsy-turvy age.
The Shylockes on our modern stages are more realistic in make-up, in accent, intonations, gesture, gait, complexion, physiognomy etc, than ever Alleyn or Burbadge were with their Judas wigs and exaggerated nose *i The silent muttered by-play, with the gabbling of mock-Hebrew curses and blessings, is an addition to the text — possibly a permissible addition — but Shakespeare never set them down. Yet all these outward features superadded by actors who are themselves Jews or thoroughly familiar with Jews, should not be taken for granted in Shakespeare's mind and in the Globe presentation.
Barabas is also a curious compound; to discuss his character at all we must confine ourselves to the first half of the play; the second imitates humanity so abominably. "There is indeed — says Tucker Brooke 2 — hardly any explanation short of insanity, which in a modern dramatist would account for the sudden change from the vivid realization of Barabas's character as indicated in the first two acts, to the complete absence of sympathetic insight which marks the last three." The conclusions as to the verisimilitude of the Barabas figure would not be materially altered whether the insanity was Marlow's (Heywood's), or Barabas's. Since Barabas ceases to be human he must have ceased being Jewish. In the opening scènes then, Barabas is an honoured and dignified merchant, until too too soon
1 The Furieral Elegy on the Death of Richard Burbadge, with its reference to the 'red hair'd Jew' (Shylock) is our sok authority, and perhaps a forgery of
Collier's (vide Furness p. 370). s Marlowe's Works. Oxford 1910.


he degenerates into a travestied Macchiavelli. "He favours me", says Machevil of his cliënt. Henceforth he becomes a pragmatic Marlowesque atheist, in spite of his detailed knowledge of and appeals to the Testament. Logic-chopping was as characteristic of Christian divines as of the Rabbis in the age when religious disputation was the chief business of intellectual life. The most distinctive trait about him is the trick of interspersing his speech with Spanish tags, which make one curious to know how Marlow got hold of them 1: Bueno para todos mi ganado no era. Hermoso placer de los dineros. Yet the effect of the Spanish as a Jewish trait is diminished by the incongruous Latin: Ego mihimet sum semper proximus; and by the comparison of his one sole daugther with "Agamemnon's Iphegen". To the victims of the Church, Latin was a heathenish tongue, and these interlardings (to use an un-Jewish simile) spoil the unity of the effect.
Marlowe's book-lore concerning Jews is superior to his knowledge from observation; his picture is not consistent. Observe the mixed effect of such passages as:
The plagues of Egypt, and the curse of Heaven Earths barrenesse, and all mens Hatred Inflict upon them, thou great Primus Motor ! And here upon my knees, striking the earth, I banne their soules to everlasting paines.
1 Were they originally copied pure from a Spanish phrasebook, probably accessible to a university man like Marlow, and then corrupted in the press, like Shakespeare's Italian? Shakespeare learnt his French from the wigmaker Mountjoy at whose house he lived from 1598—1604 (see Wallace, Shakespeare Jahrbuch 43. p. VIII) Marlow may have sought acquaintance with a Spaniard, a sailor, or perhaps a Maranno in some London haunt.
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Primus Motor seems un-Jewish. Jews do notkneel in prayer or in making vows \ as any one would know who had spent a week among them. Did not Gideon reject from among the soldiers of the Lord "every one that boweth down upon his knees to drink" ? There may be realism in Barabas's attitude under insult: I learn'd in Florence how to kisse my hand, Heave up my shoulders when they call medogge, (766) and Shakespeare recognized the value and wisdom of the "patiënt shrug" as a factor in IsraeFs survival. Did Marlow also learn in Florence that: "when we (Jews) speak with Gentiles, we turn into the ayre to purge ourselves?"(780) Shakespeare did not adopt this trait. When Barabas says:
I am not of the Tribe of Levy, I,
That can so soone forget an injury, 751—2)
he seems to have in mind the saying of Hillel: "Be ye of the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and striving for peace" (Pirkè Aboth 1.12). Here again Marlowe's booklore seems superior to his knowledge from observation, though he was evidently a keen hunter after picturesque touches. It seems to me he borrowed such vivid traits from süghtly exaggerating travellers' accounts. It would be strange if Marlow and Shakespeare had no reference to the Jew's inbred loathing of the hazir or pig. In Marlow it takes the form of the remark: "The slave [Lodowicke] looks like a hogs cheek new singed", which betrays too much technichal knowledge, for a Jew, as to culinary processes connected with pork. Barabas must have been of "that people that provoketh
1 Compare Othello's and Jago's vows in Othello Hl, m, 463.


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me to anger continually.... which eat swine's flesh, and broth of abominable things is in their vessels".... but who yet say, "Stand by thyself, come not near me; for I am holier than thou." (Is. LXV. 3. 4). Shakespeare's contribution to the fertile subject is miles beyond the common jokes. What wisdom there is in Lancelot: "This making of Christians will raise the price of hogs!" And the other Shakespearean reference to pork affords a sample of his unique power of selecting the essential trait and chiselling it in a form more durable than marble:
"Yes, to smell pork; to eat of the habitation that your prophet the Nazarite conjured the devil into. I will buy with you, seli 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." This is the very essence of the Ghetto-Jew. Yet this argument contra pork, though terribly incisive as used against Bassanio, is certainly not a Jewish one, and f inally Shylocke does feast with the prodigal Christian. After all, the horror of the hazir or swine, was matter of common knowledge. None of the dramatists evinces a suspicion of the all-embracing food-laws, built upon that touching commandment: Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mothefs milk. (Dt. XIV. 21). A reference to that would have argued some intimacy with the life of Jews.
Then as to Barabas's account of his earlier years, we must go back to Methusalah to find scope in one life for so many successive careers: an attempt is made to roll all the current types of Jews into one complex. First the physician: being young he studied Physicke, not as an ordinary healing practitioner, but to enrich


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the Priests with burials. It may be thought peculiar that one class should labour thus to enrich their constant adversaries, though Barabas is no doubt glozing over his own gains, the heirspaying doublé. The whole affair is as wild and whirüng a hit at "Priests" as it is a stock accusation against Jews. Next he acquired a position as an Engineer in the employ of Charles the Fifth, and abused the confidence of that unsuspecting Monarch, by slaying both friend and foe in the French wars. The Maranno Enginer expert in stratagems and gun-powder mining, was indeed a living type in the Levant; on the stage poetic justice required to have him hoist with his own petar. The medical and the martial careers being given up, Barabas settled down and became a usurer, which in his case was but the steppingstone to business operations on a princely scale. When the bankrouts of his making hanged themselves, he courted disaster by sticking daggers with explanatory scrolls into them: such was his love of dancing on the edge of precipices. The planting of Hospitals with young orphans was for the ingenuous purposeof profiting by their prayers for him as the founder; there must have been some shuffling in Heaven. Even now the old gentleman (with the remarkably young daughter) still walks abroad a'nights to poison wells and kill sick people groaning under walls. His versatility was far greater than what his servant Ithimar boasted of himself1. But still the wonder, grows whether this is a study of the interloping, secretive foreign Jew supposed to have been observable in London?
The character nevertheless took firm hold of the
1 The whole passage in Jew of Malta II. 900 seq. should be read.


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stage, for about the time of the Jew of Malta revival by Heywood (ab. 1630) he is bettered by Romelio the Christian merchant of Naples \ into whom the spirit of Barabas-Machiavelli passed when he assumed the disguise of a Jewish doctor:
Excellently well habited! Why methinks That I could play with mine own shadow now, And be a rare Italianated Jew; To have as many several change of faces As I have seen carved upon one cherry stone. To wind about a man like rotten ivy, Eat into him like quicksilver, poison a friend With pulling but a loose hair from's beard, or give
[a drench
He should linger of nine years and ne'er complain, But in the Spring and Fall, and so the cause Imputed to the disease natural. For slight villanies As to coin money, corrupt ladies' honours, Betray a town to the Turk, or make a bonfire O'the Christian navy; I could settle to't As if I'd eat a politician, and digested him To nothing but pure blood....
By the virtue of his disguise Providence made this "Jew-doctor" an instrument of blessing instead of bane. He had come to murder a rival, but the stab that was to have killed the victim, opened a deadly tumour that doctors were af raid to pierce; and thus he saves the man!
All this does not argue very close observation in
1 The DeviVs Law-Case (III—II) by John Webster 1623.


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England of live Jew models, and yet with the Jew of Malta and Shylocke we have almost exhausted the "detailed Jewish characteristics" that aroused the wonder to which we owe Lee's thesis.
Gerontus is so shadowy that to allude to him as supporting the theory of direct observation is hazardous, unless as a case of lucus a non lucendo; he was imagined from no concrete data whatever.
Zariph and Benwash have some verismiilitude if Barabas and Shylocke are taken for granted; theirs is partly borrowed sheen. As to Zabulon, of whom Sir Sidney says "an attempt is here made to do some justice to his racial characteristics", so that like Zariph, "he is clearly the outcome of the dramatist's careful study", I fail to see any fruits of direct observation in the painting of him. In fact Italo-Portuguese Jews were copied rather weakly from the foreign sources whence the plays were drawn; they were never created in London. No doubt Cervantes' keen eye observed Jews of different types. During his military service in Italy he saw ex-Marannos struggling to mend their ruined fortunes. Persilas and Sigismunda (Bk. IV. c. III) has Zabulon and his malicious wife Julia, Abiud and Manasses. In Los Bahos de Argel a Jew serves as laughing-stock. In Don Quijote (Part II c. 8) there is a sporadic reference to Jews of another kind, the only one with which Cervantes could be familiar in his own country, viz. Judaizing Marannos, whom Sancho duly declares he hates. Of these few references, those in Persilas and Sigismunda are the most elaborate, though they only fül a few pages. Fletcher derived his Custom of the Country from Cervantes' novel, showing


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but scant révérence for his original by an injudicious alteration: he transferred the Jews from Rome to Lisbon. In view of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal this was absurd. Fletcher was the more prone to such and other improbabilities from his want of familiarity with Jews in England \
The remaining Jewish figures are utterly insignificant. The only two Jewesses in the whole range of Elizabethan drama, are none on their own showing: before the plays are half over they have both followed their heart's desire and become Christians, and help in bringing down ül-fate on their Jewish fathers. Jessica in this respect is far worse than Abigail. Abigail deserved a better father, Shylocke a better daughter. That Jessica should have obtained the tender homage of certain critics is a staggering sample öf the aberrations to which aesthetic criticism is liable; but at any rate no one has ever desired to celebrate her as a Jewess, which is the point here.
Nothing can be surmised as to the verisimilitude of Brome's Jewish Gentleman, who was not good enough or too good to live. As to the Jew shown at the Bull-inn, it is tantaüzing that we know so little about him, for he bequeathed to Shylocke his bloody mind and even his name 2. Decker's Jew of Venice may have been a combination of Barabas and Shylocke with the Joseph of the German "Comoedia das wohl gesprochene ührtheil". A confusion between Barabas and Shylocke was not unknown even in England; 'G. M.' asks: "If
1 Iowe the reference to Espina y los jvdios espanoles, by R. Cansinos—Assens (Monchis, Tortosa 1919) to Dr. J. A. van Praag, of Amsterdam. * See post the chapter The name Shylocke.
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with the Jew of Malta in stead of coyne thou requirest a pound of flesh next to thy debtors heart, wilt thou cut him in pieces?" 1 As a matter of fact the few Jewish characters there are have a tendency to run to type and coalesce.
On this, the qualitative count therefore, I also conclude that the Jewish features of the dramas. do not suggest "that Jews resided in Elizabethan England and met the dramatists face to face."
In conclusion I must refer again to the objective test, not hitherto applied: the question of locality. If my lists are correct there is not a single authentic English Jew on the Elizabethan stage: no Jew is definitely presented as an Elizabethan inhabitant of England, not even as a convert or as an interloper to be finally unmasked. The scènes of action are Venice (several times: Shylocke, Zariph, Decker's Jew, der Jud von Venedig andGosson's Jew); Turkey (three times: Gerontus, Abraham, Hamon) Malta (and Cyprus) once; Tunis once; Lisbon once, by mistake for Rome; the earüer play of the Sacrament (1470) is located in Sicily. All the Jews are therefore without exception Mediterraneans. This is also borne out by the other literature of the time to which reference will sometimes be madeinthesequel.
Now this locality-test is open to certain objections. The scène of so many Romantic dramas is in foreign parts, that it proves little if the Jew parts happen also to be located there. Against this it may be urged that the test will be found to work also outside the domain of
1 Geoffrey Mynshull. Essays and Characters of a Prison, 1618, quoted in Catalogue of B. M. Snak. Exhib. 1923. (p. 31).


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romantic drama and to explain apparent abnormalities with exactly the same result: not a single Jew in England, all of them in what were countries inhabited by Jews in the 16th century. Since the Jews had no country of their own there would have been all the more reason to introducé at least an occasional one as English. They may have approached just as near to the English shore (without touching it for more than a stolen visit) as the Wandering Jew of the Percy Ballad: (II. III. 3).
He hath past through many a foreign place
Arabia, Egypt, Africa,
Grecia, Syria and great Thrace,
And throughout all Hungaria;
And lately in Bohemia, [about 1625?]
With many a German towne;
And nowe in Flanders, as 't is thought
He wandreth up and downe .
The ballad does not teil us whether he crossed the narrow seas. Should not we have known if he had ventured to?
There remain the plays of which I deny any characters to be Jews, though they have been "made so" by certain well-known critics. The scène of four out of those five "very doubtful Jew-plays" is London. I hold that neither Mammon, nor Security, Morecraft, nór Abel Drugger are Jews. I also think that Lopez in Women Pleased (whose scène is Florence) was not meant to be a Jew. If I am mistaken about Lopez it would only confirm the test. On the other hand, if the Londoners could be proved Jews, I should be bound


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to withdraw my contention. It will therefore be expected of me to show that the rejection of Jack Drum, Eastward Hoe, The Scornful Lady and The Alchymist as plays containing Jews (as distinct from references to Jews) rests, not upon the locality-test, but upon a complete and independent view of each case. Even then I have proved nothing as long as the Lee-Wolf documentary evidence stands. I must therefore deal critically with the most important points remaining in it, thus showing cause why I dissent definitely from their theory that there were more or less genuine Jews in Elizabethan England, who (could have) served as models to the dramatists. This I propose to do first, leaving the character discussion of a few figures till afterwards.


CHAPTER IH
lee's evidence examined; clothiers, pawnbrokers and usurers. jews or french? semi-judaei. dissenters called jews.
The Lee-Wolf evidence is so important for our object that an effort must be made to analyse some points that have been misinterpreted.
We may as well start with Lee's first contemporary quotation from: A true Relation of the Travaües and most miserahle Captivitie of William Davies, BarberSurgion of London, and borne in the Citie 'of Hereford. (1614).
This is a poorish pamphlet telling of nine years spent as a galley-slave among Moslem pirates. One of the twelve principal places visited is 'Cyprus, a famous Hand of the Turkes'. The description of which island concludes thus:
"Also there are Jews in all parts of Turkie and Barbary, and all parts of Christendome, England excepted. One thing I have greatiy marvelled at: that a Jew is respected more in Christendome, then with the Turks; for the Turk detests him above any nation, tying him to a notable marke of apparell, and yeelding no Law or right, eyther against Turke or Christian; whereas contrarywise in Christendome, he is tyed to no manner of weare, but may goe in what shape he lists:


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and for Law, by reason of his wealth, he shall söoner have right done to him then a Christian: wherefore in my minde, the Turke greatly in this condemns the Popish1 Christian. If a Jew had put Mahomet to death, they would not have left one of them alive, nor yet any building unraced, that might procure their memory. But in Christendome they are suffered to build Sinagogues, and to use their Religion publickly. But I beseech the Almightie God that this our land of England may never be defiled by eyther Pope, Turke or Jew."
All this may not bear the impress of a distinguished mind, but Davies is earnestly anxious that he should be believed:
"Thus farre gentle Reader — says the Conclusion — I thought good out of my slender capacitie to acquaint thee with a plaine discourse of my Traveil; which though it be rude, yet assure thy selfe it contains undoubted truth, being no more then I have to my griefe and perill feit."
After quoting some of the above (it is here set down more fully) Sir Sidney Lee comments:
"At a first glance it would therefore seem that the English dramatists must have obtained their knowledge of Jewish life and character from foreign sources. Then as now the English were a well travelled people, and many other travellers beside William Davies printed their foreign experiences." It speaks for Lee's freedom from bias that he frankly prints this proof against his
1 Davies had also visited Italy: "Civita Vecchia, a Citie of the Popes; Lagorne, Naples, Malta,an iland of the Popes, very famous." He only knew of Jews in Catholic countries.


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own theory, but he does not deal with it. Davies is insignificant compared with famous voyagers of the age, but in this respect they bear him out: they do not refer to Jews in England, though what they saw abroad would naturally have suggested comparisons. Their observations on foreign Jews contain sufficiënt information to account for the scraps of Jewish knowledge observable in the dramatists, some of whom were also travellers themselves, especially to Germany. Though Davies may rank low, he is as much of an authority as any on the question of there being Jews in his own contemporary England: a thing he emphatically denies, though he feels they were coming. With his experience he would have recognized as Jews some of those whom the untravelled Londoner could only class as foreigners; yet in 1614 after his return he had made no such discovery. So proud he is of England's signal exemption that he forgets to except Spain from the parts of Christendom inhabited by Jews.
Eckhardt, who refers to Lee throughout, avoids this particular passage.
The Voyages of Hakluyt and of Laurence Aldersey contain descriptions of Jewish settlements in many parts of the world. A highly remarkable passage to which attention was first drawn by Furness (Variorum, Merch. of Ven., Jews in England, p. 395) is the following from Th. Coryat's "Maturities", which is a chapter in the famous collection of Voyages entitled Purchas his Pilgrims.
1 Thomas Coryat wrote Crudities in 1611; the riper work of 1625 was called by Purchas: "Coryat's Maturities, otherwise Coryat's Crambe or his Colewort ttoise sodden."


The wonderful travelier set forth on October the twentieth Anno 1612, and in the following year, 1613, he was at Constantinople:
"The seventh day of August, being Saturday, my courteous friend Master William Pearch being desirous to gratifie mee in a matter for the which I had often before solicited him [scil. to witness the rite of the circumcision] invited mee and Master William Ford, Preacher to our Nation, to the house of a certaine English Jew called Amis, borne in the Crootched Friers in London, who hath two sisters more of his owne Jewish Religion, commorant in Galata1, who were likewise borne in the same place. This aforesaid Amis, for the love of the English nation, in the which hee lived till hee was thirty yeeres of age, being at the time of my residence in Constantinople sixtie...."
This passage is not in the original edition of Coryat's Crudities (1611); Furness quotes part of the above from Coryat's Travels (vol. III, p. 303) of the edition of 1776. I thought it safest for critical purposes to give it in more detail from Purchas, 1625 (vol. II, p. 1824) where it figures as Maturities. Furness is entitled to his conclusion that here 'we have one clear assurance that Jews were born and bred in England' towards the end of the 16th century. While in England, such people as Amis would live as Roman Catholics, attending mass at the Spanish or Portuguese embassies. As factors of foreign business firms they were not seriously molested, to avoid reprisals on the far more numerous English factors in Spain. Let us now remember the report of
1 Galata is a suburb of Stamboul where Jewish immigrants, especially German ones had their quarters.
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Mare Antonio Ferrer, the Venetian ambassador in London (1609) as to the Portuguese merchants who had been discovered to be secreüy living as Jews, and were expelled, in accordance with the laws 'which are very severe on this subject.' Perhaps Amis' exit from England had been more peaceful; at any rate it took place 'long before 1609, for he was sixty in 1613, and had lived in England till the age of thirty only. Well, Amis and his sisters found life more bearable along with the barbarous Turk, under the conditions sketched by William Davies, than in London. When life in Flanders, or England became too irksome, such partJews, crypto-Marannos, would emigrate to Turkey and there re-assume the religion of their fathers, which they could not practise in the Western countries: Coryat had to go to Turkey to attend a circumcision. About the time when Amis would have left England for Turkey, this immigration was financed on a liberal scale by the ex-Maranno Ioao Miquez, known in the Sultan's domains as Don Joseph Nasi, Duke of Naxos, Franghi Bey etc.; in Europe he was known as the Great Jew (1500—1587)'% The children of those wanderers whose bark at last would find a quiet harbour in the Levant, might be born in any place where the parents had been "commorant" for the time being. This Case of Amis, the sometime English Jew in Turkey, is by far the strongest
1 Nasi is Hebrew for Prinee or Patriarch. There is quite a literature about him and his peregrinations before his splendid fortune in Turkey, where he even became Grand Vizier. See a. o. Carmoly, Don Joseph Duo de Naxos, 1866; M. A. Levi, Don Joseph Nassi 1859; Graetz, Oeschichte der Juden IX. p. 400 ff.; N. Jorga, Gesch. des osmanischen Reiches III, p. 140; M. Franco, Israëlites dans 1'Empire ottoman, 1897. Older references are to be found in Strada, De BeUo Oallico, 1643, p. 236, Artus Thomas, Histoire des Twrcs, 1612, 1. 5, p. 779; Folieta, De sacro Foedere in Selimum, Genuae, 1587.


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of Lee's arguments. I have done it what justice I could. If there were more references of that quality, they would throw a different light on the matter in hand, but it is unique.
Whatever the value of testimony derived from abroad, a higher importance must be attached to evidence at home, and it is sometimes none the less striking for being indirect and undesigned.
What can we infer from Marlow? He would be more alert and observant of aliens while he was engaged on his large-scale Jew-drama, than almost anybody else. We may fancy him picking up his few scraps and bits of Spanish in the East-End. Where and how he collected the proud catalogue of Jewish correspondents which he puts in the mouth of Barabas of Malta, is still unexplained, but it is as complete and varied as Marlowe knew how to make it:
There's Kirriah Jairim, the great Jew of Greece,
Obed in Bairseth, Nones in Portugall,
My selfe in Malta, some in Italy,
Many in France, and wealthie every one. (157 ff.).
Marlow would not overlook England as an abode of Jews; it is unlikely that he would omit it, if it could be brought in. Those in France and Portugal were Marannos, and Marlow had to strain a point to include them; he would certainly have done the same with regard to England.
Barabas has commercial relations with England, as with the rest of Europe:


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In Florence, Venice, Antwerpe, London, Sevill, Frankeford, Lubecke, Mosco and where not, Have I debts owing; and in most of these Great summesof money lyinginthebancho. (1543ff.).
No doubt most of his correspondents would be Jews, but the fact that, while having business relations with London, he yet fails to mention an English peer of Kirriah, Obed and Nones, points pretty directly to the absence of Jews from England. If the edict of expulsion was 'in habitual abeyance' as Lee asserts, and the presence of Marannos was 'ein öffentliches Geheimnisz' (Graetz), Marlow appears to be unaware of it. Or shall we say that he obtained his international Jewish information from Jews in London upon a promise of burying the secret of their existence in his bosom and taking it to the grave With him? With such an opportunity for blackmail he would have been a wealthy man. From Machiavell's Prologue we gather that it took a dauntless, cynical Italian to 'present' or show a Jew, by way of a foreign monstrosity. Lee would hold that there was no need for secrecy; to me this seems too bold a way out of the difficulty.
From the same point of view we find the Three Ladies of London by R. Wilson (1584) instructive. There is a Jewish character Gerontus in the stately London morality; he is an ideal creditor, who forgives a debt of "three thousand ducats for three months" to a dishonest Italian Mercatore. Was he a London Jew? Though the scène of the whole Moral comedy is London, and Mercatore is even furnished with broken English in which to conduct his iniquitous transactions, yet


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when the author wishes to enliven his canvas with a Jew, he has to transfer the action abruptly to Turkey, — because otherwise he could not bring his Jew in. He had to choose between the improbability of brusquely shifting his scène to the Levant, or the impossibility of importing a Jew into England.
Wilson's knowledge of Jews does not strike one as intimate; the final scènes are however lively enough.
Gerontus: Signor Mercatore, why do you not pay me? Think you I will be mocked in this sort? This is three times you have flouted me; it seems you make thereat a sport. Truly pay me my money, and that even now presently. Or by mighty Mahomet I swear I will forthwith arrest ye.
Mercatore is not frightened at the threat: by turning Moslem he can clear himself of debt. He accordingly appears before the Judge in Turkish weeds:
Judge: Sir Gerontus, you know, if any man for sake his faith, king, country, and become a Mahomet, all debts are paid: 't is the law of our realm, and you may not gainsay it. Signor Mercatore, draw near: Lay your hand upon this book, and say after me:
(Judge — Mercatore repeating after him).
"I Mercatore, do utterly renounce before all the world my duty to my Prince, my honour to my


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parents, and my good-will to my country — and thereupon I forsake my Christian faith —" Ger.: Stay there, most puissant judge.
Signor Mercatore, consider what you do: Pay me the principal; as for the interest, I forgive it you.
And yet the interest is allowed amongst you Christians, as well as in Turkey; therefore, respect your faith, and do not seek to deceive me.
Merc.: No point da interest, no point da principal. Me will be a Turk, I say. Me be weary of my Christ's religion, and for dat me come away.
Ger.: Well, seeing it is so, I would be loth to hear the people say, it was 'long of me thou forsaketh thy faith: wherefore I forgive thee frank and free, protesting before the judge and all the world never to demand penny nor half penny.
Merc.: O Sir Gerontus, me take your proffer, and tank you most heartily.
Judge: But Signor Mercatore, I trow, ye will be a Turk for all this.
Merc.: Signor, no; not for all da good in da world me forsake a my Christ.
Judge: Jews seek to excel in Christianity, .
and Christians in Jewishness. (Exit] Merc.: Veil, veil; but me tank you, Sir Gerontus,
with all my very heart.


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Ger.: Much good may it do you, sir;
I repent it not for my part. [Exit].
Merc. You say vel, sir; it does me good dat me have cosen'd de Jew. But now me will provide my journey toward England to take.
How peculiar: a benevolent Jew, accent-free, who swears by Mahomet; boldly contrasted with a faithless, almost renegade Christian, who speaks broken English (and broken Turkish).
It is obvious that this scène has not the remotest connection with the Merchant of Venice. Surprising it is to read Dr. Furnivall's remark (Introduction to the Century Shakspere 1908) that in The Three Ladies "a Jew attacks his Christian debtor much in the way that Shylock attacks Antonio." Lee also is obviously mistaken in supposing it possible "that the Jewish scènes in the Three Ladies lare adapted from the lost play which was familiar to Gosson and Spenser." The 1579 Jew was a bloody-minded usurer. [If we could besure that the Three Ladies is not older, we might possibly hold that the London morality was a reaction and a compensation for Gosson's Jew. The "similarities between the dialogue of Mercatore and Gerontus, and that of Antonio and Shylock" which Lee and others refer to, do not exist; except that
Gerontus says, 'Pay me the principal';
Shylocke says, 'Give me my principal' (IV, I, 885), whilst Gerontus forgives the interest, and Shylocke finds it advisable not to stipulate any. In the sequel-


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play of the Three Lords and Three Ladies of London there is much the same incompatibility between the desiderata of the play, and contemporary fact. That Usury is indigenous to London is the main theme, discussed by Conscience:
But Usury is made tolerable among Christians
as a necessary thing,
So that going beyond the limits of our law,
they extort and many to misery bring. Wilson's namesake and perhaps relation Dr Thomas Wilson, in his treatise on Usury (1572), states that the place of the banished Jews was held in his day by Englishmen, whose extortions exceeded those practised by the Jews in foreign countries K However, in the play, Simony makes an attempt to foist a Jewish extraction upon Usury:
thy parents were both Jews, though thou
wert bom in London. This is evidently slander, nor indeed could anything but lies be expected from so black a character as Simony; when rogues fall out the result is not always pure truth.
1 Thomas Wilson: Discourse upon Usury 1572 foL 37b.
"And for this same cause they [the Jews] were hated in England, and so banyshed worthelye, with whom i woulde wyshe all these Englishmen were sent, that lende their money or other goods whatsoever for gayne, for i take them to be no better then Jewes. Nay, shall i saye: they are worse then Jewes, for go wither yon will throughout Christendom, and deale with them, and you shall have under tenne in the hundred, yea sometimes for five at their handes, whereas englishe usurers exceed all goddes mercye, and will take they care not howe muche, without respecte had to the partye that borroweth, what losse, daunger, or hinderaunce soever the borrower sustayneth." There is a new edition by r. H. Tawney 1925, which i have not been able to see.


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To return to historical evidence, let me for a change quote Dr. Eduard Eckhardt, whose condensed volume Auslander-typen (Bang's Materialien n. 32) represents a library, and who prints:
"dasz im Jahre 1584 ein englisches Buch erschien, worin das Handelsmonopol der englischen Juden in der Levante hervorgehoben wurde", referring to "Lee 157". "An English book in 1584 emphasized, — says Lee^ i# c> — the monopoly exercised by the Jews in the [Levant] trade. An English company, promoting English trade with the Levant, was formed at the same time, and it is clear that Jews and Englishmen were associated in its councils". The book referred to is, however, anything but English:
"The Navigations, peregrinations and voyages, made into Turkie by Nicholas Nicholay, Daulphinois, Lord of Arseuile, Chamberlaine and Geographer ordinarie to the King of Fraunce. Translated out of the French by T. Washington the younger. Imprinted at London by Thomas Dawson 1585." This French book, imperfectly translated and hardly worth dedicating to the Sidneys, never mentions any Englishmen, let alone English Jews, though it has a good deal to say and show about Levantine Jews. But not in Lee's sense, who evokes visions of round-table conferences in London, with Jewish Directors fraternising with English colleagues. A few lines of quotation dispel that illusion:
Of the Merchaunt Jewes dwelling in Constantinople and other places of Turkie and Grecia: (C. 16.)
"The number of the Jewes dweiling throughout all the Citities [sic] of Turkie and Grecia and principally at Constantinople is so great,thatitisathingincredible


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ble at this present day they have in their handes
the moste trafique of merchandize and ready money that is in al Levant.... Likewise they have amongst them workmen of all artes and handicraftes most excellent, and specially of the Maranes of late banished out of Spaine and Portugale, who to the great detriment of the Christianitier, have taught the Turkes divers craftes and engines of warre; as to make artillerie, harquebuses, gunne pouder, shot and other munitions".
The prowess of Jews in league with the Turks and teaching them the use of explosives, was feit by Venice where the arsenal was blown up on the eve of an expedition against Turkey (1570); it is reflected in literature by Barabas who was one of those Maranno Engineers, blowing up whole fortresses with his stratagems (II. 925).
.... "Besides this detestable nation of the Jewes are men ful of all malice, fraude, deceit and subtill dealing, exercising execrable usuries amongst the Christians and other nations without any consciences or reprehention: but have free licence, paying the tribute.... If a Jewe would become a Muselman, he should not bee received, except first leaving his Judaical sect, he became a Christian...."
Nicholay illustrates his own book with very good woodcuts, among them being: A Merchant Jewe; a woman Jewe of Andrinople; a maiden Jewe of Andrinople; a Phisition Jewe. "For their mark and token to be knowen from others they weare a yealow Tulbant. This which I have drawen is one of those that carie cloath to sell through the citie of Constantinople."
1 the Christianitie = la Chrétienté; a Gallicism for 'Christendom'.
7


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Sidney Lee's constant harping upon the word English in his references to Nicholay and the English Levant company, which is not discussed there, has landed Eckhardt into the blunder of stating that the "English book" drew attention to the monopoly of English Jews in the Levant trade, an absurd notion altogether. Eckhardt might have formed a correct idea of Nicholay's statements, from L. Kellner's essay Die Quelle von Marlowe's "Jew of Malta", in Englische Studiën X (1886) which layready to his hand, and thus have avoided committing himself so egregiously.
Let us return to London.
Lee is right in attaching importance to the Standard Survay of London by that eminent antiquary John Stowe (d. 1605). This contemporary historian of London — writes Lee — noticed among the clothiers and pawnbrokers of Houndsditch "a base kind of vermin, or rather as St. Bernard thinks it is more convenient to call them 'baptisatos Judaeos\ who take themselves to be Christians."
Here the quotation is interrupted at a critical point. From this and another passage to be dealt with hereafter, Lee concludes that "Elizabethan Houndsditch may fairly be credited with pawnbrokers of Jewish prigin", by which I suppose he means converted Jews.
Stowe is the author of a Chronicle, not apparently a very accurate piece of work; but his Survey of London is classical. Two editions were printed in the author's lifetime: 1598 (by J. Wolfe) and 1603 (by J. Windet). Neither of these, the tmly Elizabethan editions, contains the passage quoted by Lee. No man knew Hounds-


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ditch and clothiers better than Stowe who was a working tailor for thirty years and lived for over twenty years at the corner of Aldgate and Houndsditch, near the 'Saracen's Head'; but he never wrote the passage in question. It is found for the first time in the 1618 edition: 'continued, corrected and much enlarged with many rare and worthy notes; such as were never published before this present yeere 1618'. The continuation and notes are by A. M. i. e. Anthony Munday. Next there was a re-issue just after Munday's death in 1633 by H. Dy son and others. This is the latest edition that can be properly quoted as contemporary, being already a generation after Marlow and Shakespeare.
Even a century later "Stow" was still the authority on London, and was re-edited by John Strype in two large folios: 1720, 1734; 1753. Strype's edition retains every word of the old Stowe-Munday-Dyson, but embeds the authentic and carefully dated matter of the Elizabethan antiquaries in huge masses of modern additions. In this uncritical form the book continued in esteem down to the 19th century. It was not till 1842 that W. J. Thoms reprinted the venerable original text of 1603, and in 1908 the nucleus without the overlayings was rendered accessible by C. L. Kingsford, at the Clarendon Press.
Lee chooses to quote from an undated "Strype's edition I, p. 144", the 18th century réchauffé altered beyond recognition. He must, moreover, have stumbled upon a reprint that lacks the marginal notes. How exceedingly confusing this is will be seen on comparing the earliest appearance of the passus in Munday's additions.


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A matter greatly deserving reformation in Hounsditoh.
The unoonscionable Broaking Usurers their living.
The Iewes were never any such gripple Extortioners.
Portsoken Ward. In the last yeere of King Edward the 6. the same was parcelled into Gardens, wherein are now many faire [houses of pleasure builded...., which houses be for the most part possessed by Brokers, seüers of olde apparell and such like. (thus far Stowe. 1598—1603].
Munday in 1618 continues (p. 233): Within the limits of Houndsditch dweil many a good and honest Citizen: yet there are crept in among them a base kinde of vermine, wel deserving to be rancked and numbered with them, whom our olde Prophet and Countriman Gyldas 1 called Aetatis Atramentum, the blacke discredit of the age and of the place where they are suffered to live. Or rather (as S. Bernard thinks it more convenient to terme them) Baptisatos Judaeos; who take themselves to bee Christians, when they are worse (indeede) then the Jewes ever were for Usurie. These men, or rather monsters in the shape of men, professe to live by lending, and yet will lend nothing but upon pawns; neither to any, but unto poore people onely, and for no lesse
gaine, then after fifty or threescore pounds in the
1 The British monk Gildas wrote in Latin the only extant account of the English and Saxon Conquest from the point of view of the conquered; it is a fervently Christian, anti-heathen book. Its genuineness has been questioned. Joh. R. Green (Short Hist. TL 1) is convinoed of its authenticity, but oalls it diffuse and inflated. It was reputed genuine by Bede who cites the 'Lamentable Discourse' (approximately dated 560 A. D) as an authority. I have not had access to Gildas, but assuming that in a digression Gildas glances at Jews, then Munday's reference here says that his base vermin "derserve to be ranoked and numbered with them", — i. e. they are not Jews, but deserve for their punishment to be stigmatized as such.


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hundred.... The interest groweth to be so great,
that the pawn, which (at he first) was better than
twice worth the money borrowed on it, doth not
(in the end) proove valuable to the debt which
must be payed, before the party can redeeme it.
By which extorting meanes of proceeding, the
poore borrower isquite cheatedof his pawne, and aretheGreedy
for less than the third part, which it was truly usurers glory.
worth indeed. It is a great error (in my poor opinion)
that.... noorder is taken for such a publieke stocke,
for the truly poore, that when in their urgent
necessitie, either by want of meanes, sicknesse and
other hindrances, their pawnes may not goe to the
cut-throat Usurer;.... And let me not here be
mistaken, that I condemne such as live by honest
buying and selling, and make a good conscience of
their dealing: no truly, I meane onely the Judas
broker, that lives by the Bagge and (except God
be more mercifull to him) will follow him that
did beare the bagge."
There needs no apology for quoting this document, which occurs verbatim in the successive editions (in Munday-Dyson's Survey 1633, p. 122—123; in Strype 1720. Bk. II. p. 28). I have reproduced it to draw attention to the marginal notes: "The unconscionable Broaking Usurers their living; The Jewes were never any such gripple Extortioners". Note that the distinctly nonJewish extortioner is called almost in the same breath the Judas broker.
These marginalia are present unaltered in the successive editions to be seen at the Museum. Lee can only


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have missed them because he happened to use the Strype 1733 issue, which is the only one I could find without the rubrics; even W. Maitland's Survey 1756 (vol. II. p. 1008) reprints Munday's passage literatim with the marginal rubrics. The genuine Stowe has no reference whatever to post-expulsion Jews; Strype's very full indexes do not refer to the Portsoken-Houndsditch passage under any headings connected with Jews. Strype knew the district particularly well, for just like Stow, he had lived in this ward, Strype's Court having been named after his father k Even though there were Jews in Aldgate and Houndsditch in the 18th century, Strype does not suggest that this was so in the time of his predecessor Munday, whom he refers to by name 2: the context and the marginal rubrics forbade any misconception. We may therefore take it that the "Baptisatos Judaeos, base vermine and gripple extortioners" were positively not Jews, though evidently new-comers and foreigners who crept in about 1600.
Before going into the question of who they were, (I think I can show they were French Huguenots) let us thrash out those expressions base vermine and baptisatos Judaeos which misled Lee.
Munday supplies the key: Saint Bernard, the Abbot of Clairvaux, who lived from 1091—1153. It is confusing that in characterizing recent arrivals in Elizabethan London, Munday or Stowe should borrow their epithets from two monks, neither of them English and belonging to the 6th. and the 12th centuries respectively. We must
1 We learn this from the 1733 Strype, p. 280.
2 Strype states he reprints the passage from Munday who wrote 'a hundred years ago'. He may have meant 1618 or 1633.


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be prepared for some figurative quality in the terms. How does Bernard refer to the Jews of his own distant day and country? The Crusades were a dark period in the history of Jewish trials and sorrows. In earlier times, though treated with cruelty, the Jews of Western Europe had known intervals of peace. Charlemagne and his son Louis had shown themselves their protectors. But with the growth of the desire to fight the infidelsabroad,new hatred was developed against the Jews in Europe: they were miscreants akin to the Saracens, close at hand, and from their being dispersed, easier to kül. At the commencement of the first crusade they were sofiercely persecuted that men stabbed their children in mercy, women threw themselves into the rivers. While Bernard was preaching the second crusade fifty years later, the same tragedies were about to be repeated. A monk Rudolph travelled through the towns along the Rhine, inflaming the people against the Jews. Peter of Cluny, reputed a gentle soul, swelled the chorus of virulence by hearsay charges of their desecrating altarvessels and sacraments. Massacres soon followed; the Jews were like to have been exterminated from those parts. These events reached the knowledge of Abbot Bernard, who despatched letters to the communities swayed by Rudolph. In spite of the angry mobs Bernard summoned the monk to Mayence and argued with him: The Jews were not doomed to be slain but to be dispersed: "Does not the Church triumph more fully over the Jews by convincing or converting them from day to day, than if she were to slay them all with the edge of the sword.... Is it not written: When the fulness of the Gentiles be come in, then shall Israël be saved?'" (Epistle 365).


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Did this same generous Bernard vent spleen against the oppressed Jews? To suggest this is not fair either to St. Bernard or to the Jews. Delving for the expressions in the bulky folio1 we find in Epistle 822: AdEpiscopem.... Spirensem, hortans arma contra infideles suscipienda, — (an exhortation to the unwilling men of Spierstojoinin rescuingthe Sepulchre; they had begged to be excused from so great atask, as being toounworthy
agents) — "Suscipe crucis signum Quid tarnen
arbitramur fratres? Nunquid manus Domini impotens facta est ad salvandum, quod ad restituendum sibi haereditatem suam, exiguos vermicvlos vocat? Nunquid non potest mittere angelorum plusquam duodecim legiones?"
Here are Munday's "base vermin", the exigui vermiculi2. They are the too reluctant Crusaders. "Mean worms" is nothing but an expression of their humility. The rest of the epistle, however, is mostly concerning Jews, and speaking about them the Abbot says: "Non sunt persequendi Judaei, non sunt trudicandi, sed nee effugandi quidem.... Taceo quod sicubi desunt, peius Judaizare dolemus Christianos foeneratores; si tarnen Christianos, et non magis baptizatos Judaeos convenit appellari."
The Jews are not to be massacred, not even to be driven away.... "Not to mention that if they are absent from any place, we grieve to say that Christian usurers 'do Judaize' even worse; that is, if it is becoming to call them Christians, and not rather baptized Jews."
Perhaps neither appellation is very becoming. Any-
1 Divi Bernardi opera omnia, Basiliae 1566.
2 Lewis' Dictionary translates eziguus a. o. by 'mean, paltry\


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how, here are the baptized Jews in the Bernardine sense, and in the same epistle with the base vermine. They are natural members of the Church and indelibly baptized at birth, yet doubly guilty of the sin of usury for which the Jews are blamed. It is a two-edged rebuke, plainly addressed to bad Christians and perhaps hitting the baptized Jews quite unintentionally: it is not customary for prelates to sneer at proselytes. As to Elizabethan Houndsditch, baptized Jews would not be in business there, but in otio at the Domus Conversorum in Chancery Lane; not to be reyiled, but to be made much of.
Sir Sidney Lee would 'credit Elizabethan Houndsditch with Jewish clothiers and pawnbrokers.' I think he antedates the Jewish features of Houndsditch by a century; it did not acquire its present character till after the Hanoverian succession and the increased settlement of German Jews. Inversely Mr. Lucien Wolf carries preExpulsion events forward into Elizabethan times. The Old Jewry near the Guildhall is distinct from the present Houndsditch district. The Old Jewry was abolished as such in 1290; it never became a Jewry again, nor is it now. Generations come and go, localities remain, sometimes retaining strong traces of their old traditions, with which they imbue the new settlers.
I will for once appeal to Strype-Stow 1720, to whom both Mr. Lee and Mr. Wolf are partial, rather than to the Elizabethan book: (II, p. 8).
"Somewhere within the liberties of the Tower, and as it seems in this part of St. Katharines, was a place called Judaismus; which being a Place of Privilege, such as were Jews (as well as others) resorted thither for their safety, who feil off from the Religion then pro-


106
fessed and practised; and particularly Priests that had taken Wives, and so esteemend Apostates from the Unity of the Catholic Church." Strype is here referring to pre-Expulsion times, and makes this clear by quoting as his authority the antiquarian Wm. Prynne:
"An. 1279, 8th. Edw. L Upon the Archbishop's Request, the King issued a Writ to the Maior and Sheriffs of London, to apprehend certain Apostates, qui recesserunt ab unitate Catholicae Fidei : but they were in Judaismo i. e. the Jewry, and so out of the Power and Jurisdiction of the Magistrates of London; in Judaismo sub Custodia et Potestate Constabularii Turris, ubi ingredi non possunt utt dicitur sine speciale mandato. Some of these Enemies of the Faith, and Apostates from Catholic Unity seem to be such Priests as had wives."
Prynne speaks as if there were many cases; it was his cue to represent the presence of Jews as a danger to the Faith. I doubt whether sanctuary taken in Jewry would save apostates. The only well authenticated case is that of the year 1222, when a certain deacon feil away from Catholicism for the love of a Jewess. At the Provincial Council held at Oxford under Archbishop Stephen Langton, he was degraded and committed to the secular arm of the powerful Sheriff of Oxfordshire, Fawkes de Bréauté, to be at once burnt with her *. By later Chroniclers 2 the story was assigned to the last years before the Expulsion. None, however, transcend the limit of 1290. Thus when Mr. Wolf writes that "The Parish of St. Catherine had been from
1 The Deaeon and the Jewess, by Prof. Maitland 1886; repr. Trans. J. H. S. 1912.
1 Holinshed (ed. 1807) voL II. p. 261.


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time immemorial a sanctuary for aliens and heretics and even converts to Judaism", what he really means it that it used to be so, in days long gone by, i. e. before the Expulsion.
After the departure of the Jews this and other districts became more or less mixed aliens' quarters. For our purpose it will be early enough if we look at them again in the opening years of the 16th century. In 1517 there was a serious riot against the "Lumbards" of St. Martin's le Grand, not far from the Guildhall and the Old Jewry. Who were the objectionable aliens that provoked the Evil May-Day riots in 1517 ? They were Flemings as we know from HalVs Chronicles, and from the play of Sir Thomas More:
"About the ninth yeere of the reign of King Henry the Eight a great heart-burning and malicious grudge grew amongst Englishmen of the City of London against strangers." At the instigation of John Lincoln a broker, Dr. Beale (or Bell) preached against them; "ffor so it is — as Lincoln's proclamation has it — that aliens and straungers eate the bread from the fatherless children, and take the living from all artificers and the entercourse from all merchants: whereby povertie is so much encreased, that every man bewayleth the miserie of other." The foreigners make free with all the market provisions, and with the citizens' wives. "Sir Thomas More, lateunder-sheriffe of Londen and now of the Kings Councell, laboured to pacify the rude multitude;" he earned his knighthood by his wise eloquence (Act. II, sc. IV, possibly from Shakespeare's pen, 1590, is among the finest in Elizabethan literature). "Four hundred men and eleven women were sentenced to be


hanged on ten payre of gallowes set upon wheeles".1 Sir Thomas interceded for them, and nearly all were let off, considering they had indeed had great provocation. We know some of the overbearing aliens by name:
Mutas, a welthy Piccardye, At the Greene Gate,
De Bard, Peter van Hollocke, Adrian Martine, With many more outlandishe fugetiues 8.
There is no whisper of any Jews among those Flemish Lombards. Francis de Barde and Caveler are indifferently described as 'Frenshe-Flemings' or 'Fleming-Frenshe'; the principal man among them was, as we have just seen a Picard. When they came thus rudely into conflict with the people and the authorities, any Jews among them would have been found out and we should have known.
Fifty years later the parish of St. Katharines was still a home of refugees who "had been inhabitants of Calais, Hammes and Guisnes; which places being lost in the reign of Queen Mary, the poor Tradesmen and others were glad to flee over into England; where wanting habitation, a place belonging to St. Katharines (now a Lane, says Stow-Strype) was allowed them". The foreign census of 1567 mentions: 2030 Dutch; 428 French; 140 Italians; 45 Spaniards and Portuguese; 44 Burgundians, besides 45 Scots. Supposing the Italian and Spannish strangers lived together between the Tower and
1 Stowe-Dyson 1633; p. 80: 'The number of strangers in London misliked.'
2 The Shakespeare Apoorypha (Tueker Brooke 1018), p. 391, Act II. So. II, 27—30; the spelling of some of the proper names varies.
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109
Bishopsgate (where the French consulate was) parts of those districts including Houndsditch would have a Mediterranean but not a Jewish character; these people would not be likely to harbour Jews amongst themselves undenounced. By 1580 the "French" had increased to 1838, nearly as many as the Dutch, and more numerous than all other foreigners put together. This new influx of Flemish-French and Picards is a direct consequence of the religious wars then raging in France and the Netherlands. "In 1568 — writes Sir Walter Besant1 — to escape the cruelties of Alva a vast number of Flemings came across the sea, and were received hospitably. In the next generation they appearto have been completely merged in the English population." Therefore they could not serve as a disguise for Jews. When Besant comes to Shakespeare he neglects whatever statements he may have made concerning Jewish interlopers, "Deep indeed must have been the popular hatred of the Jews [pre-expulsion usurers] since Shakespeare could stir the blood of his audience by the spectacle of a Jewish usurer three hundred years after there had been Jews in the land". The Huguenot refugees though morally of a better cast than the earlier "French Lumbards", were poor ruined men, struggling to begin life anew. England was not an ideal refuge for them; the humble lace-makers, silk-weavers, cheap tailors and wig-makers, became the butts of popular ridicule and even religious animosity, for as Calvinists they were Dissenters. Many wandered off again to Holland, especially during the High-Church reaction under
1 Survey of London. 10 vols. 'London in the time of the Tudors' (1904) is one of the best thumbed volumes, frequently quoted by Eckhardt.


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Charles I. Some of the jeers and mocks supposed to be levelled at "Jews" were aimed at Dissenters generally and at the Dutch and French Calvinists specially. Those were the English "Jews" from Ben Jonson till Cromwell's triumph. Many quotations from the dramas to be examined will confirm this interpretation. Things remained so until the 18th Century, when Hanoverian Jews, attracted by facilities for the clothiers' trade and pawnbrokers' business, came over from their King's continental home, and settled in the East End, which had been connected with those trades for two centuries. From a superficial similarity in outlandish appearance, the fact of their similar pursuits, and their being both outside the National Church, the Jews and the Huguenots were jocularly lumped together. Though I am anticipating by more than a century, an illustration from an 18th century politico-religious pamphlet will put this beyond a doubt:
"The Complaint of the Children of Israël, by Soloman Abrabanel" 1732, was penned by a caustic Anglican clergyman 1 under a Jewish pseudonym. The tone of that sprightly tract is ironical even from the author's assumed Jewish point of view:
"There is not a more common Case in this great City, than to see the Jew and the Dissenter blended together in one and the same person. It were needless to name a great Number of Persons in this Predicament, when there are two of such Notoriety as the Venerable P-r W-t-r Esq.; and the worshipful Sir G- -e C- -1, Knight. The former is so extremely sensible of having AU the Marks of Judaism upon him, that a woman with a coun-
1 William Amall.


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terfeited Pregnancy would not be more afraid of a Writ de ventre inspiciendo ; the latter, God bless him, is so sincerely one of Us, that he is not ashamed to own it. It is a well known Circumstance related of one of these Gentlemen, that being by the Lenity of the English Constitution admitted to give Evidence in Courts of Justice, on the Faith of a Christian, the Officer who administred the Oath, though a Stranger to his Person, by a right Judgment of his Phisiognomy gave him the Old Testament to depose on. With regard to Publick Employments, are there not Abundance of them in this happy Island which are fitter for Jews than for Christians, and which have insensibly transformed good Christians into real Jews by the prevalent Force of Example? What may you think, Sir, of us Jews in the Capacity of Excise Officers ? Or what think you of Excise Off icers as different in any thing from Jews ? How great Analogy there is in general between Dissenters and Jews, and how easily we are to be mistaken for each other, wants no other Witnesses than the Pastors of each Persuasion. How happily do they concur in the black Cloak and the short Bib ? How perfectly does the dirty Phiz of a French Refugee accord with the sable hue of a Rabbi in Israël? How exactly alike are the Size of their Consciences and the Reach of their Understandings; their Zeal for Works of Faith and Piety, and above all, for the ready Penny?....
"However, without giving offence to good Protestants by unseemly Reflections, we insist that the Jews are in all respects of equal Merit with the French Hugonots, who show themselves conscious of our [the Jews'] superiority by their continual attempts to outvy us in the


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Frowziness of their Persons, and the Sallowness of their Complexions; in magnifying the Losses they have suffer'd through Persecution abroad, and hoarding up the Gains they have acquired by Usury at Home: nay we are ready to acknowledge that, as far as Dirt, Avarice and Extortion can make them Jews, they might be convicted upon any Statute against Judaism; and even Circumcision is not wanting to most of them, though we will not say as Proselytes. [coin-clipping?] But then you will do us the Justice to own that we were led by wise Men, which will at any time set the Children of Israël above a rabble of ridiculous Enthusiasts, who were led by such snivelling Vermin as Prophet Lacy", etc...
The 'snivelling Vermin' who sought refuge in England after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, were the countrymen, though not the descendants, of the 'base vermin' who crept in about 1600. There were successive waves after Bartholomew's Day 1572, the death of Henry of Navarre 1610, the fall of La Rochelle 1629 and the Revocation of the Nantes Edict in 1685.
The Huguenots and Walloons have been impartially abused with the Jews, almost as Jews. In 1753 an Act for the Naturalization of the Jews was carried by the Pelham government, but such an outcry arose against the measure in the country, that the Act had to be repealed on the first day of the next session. The warcry was: 'No Jews, no WoodenShoes', the woodenshoes being French Huguenots.1 Trade rivalry obliterated finer distinctions as regards these somewhat
1 Por 1753—4 see Leckey. Hist. 18th Cent. I, p. 262; Gerald. B. Hertz: British Imperialism in the 18th Cent. 1908; Hyamson, Proceedings J. H. Soc. E. vol. 1908. The literature is enormous but not very varied.


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similar looking foreigners. It may have been just the same in the early 17th century, with the difference that the "Jews" were then all Puritan Dissenters, following the "Jewish" callings, trades and avocations.
The grounds on which Lee, Wolf and Eckhardt look upon pawnbroking and frippery as a Jewish trade in Elizabethan times seem to me insufficiënt. "The state of the Difference between the Clothiers and the City of London; by S. D.", 1630, explaining their grievances, does not mention Jews.1 Houndsditch and the vicinity were certainly in the 16th and 17th centuries the headquarters of the old-clothes trade, as a few quotations will prove:
William Rowley's: A Search for Money, or the Lamentatie Complaint for the Losse of the Wandering Knight Mounsieur VArgent (Joseph Hunt, 1609) has much to do with pawnbrokers and usurers, and it contains the word Jew a few times. A search-party is formed to find the French Knight, Money. He is not found at a tailor's shop, nor at a painted lattice (an alehouse). Then comes a description of Houndsditch: "Going East we spied a streete on the left hand (the verie hand that Heil standes on). There were executed and hung (some by the necke, some by the heeles, many innocent garments, whose first owners themselves were hung on the other side of the Citty [Tyburn]. We did imagine that our lost Mounsier had been there at the receit thereof, but sure he would not lodge nor abide amongst such a tribe of Jewish brokers". This looks even nearer to Jewish clothiers in Houndsditch than the "Judas broker that lives by the Bagge", who was emphatically not a
1 Brit. Mus. 8245. f. 11.
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Jew. There is no difficulty in Jacobean English in calling a man a "Jew", and saying in the same breath that he is worse than a Jew. "Jew" is a humorous abbreviation of Usurer, a self-evident abbreviation because it was pronounced identically with the first syllable of that word. The pronunciation like "Yew" still survives.
London and the Countrey Carbonadoed and Quartered into several Characters, by D. Lupton, 1632,1 has a detailed description of Houndsditch and Long Lane: "These two are twinnes and they have both set to one Profession, A stranger would think that there had beene some great death of men and women, hereabouts he sees so many suites and no men for them. Suites enough for all the Lawyers in London to deal withall: the Inhabitants are men of many outsides, their faults are not seene easily, because they have so many cloakes for them; they should be well affected to the Romane Church, for they keepe and lay up old Reliques".... and more to the same punning effect, but not a breath about Jews.
"How comes it — asks Lee — that in a comedy of manners, a thoroughly English city-wife should advise a friend to borrow a court-suit from a Jew's secondhand clothes shop?" "Thoroughly English" is the point.
It was not unknown in England that in Germany, Italy and the Levant the poorer Jews were clothiers, as they had been in 13th century England. Ben Jonson's Volpone, or the Fox, shows Sir Politiek Would-Be
1 HalliwelI's Boohs of Characters; an extremely rare book, only 25 copies having been struek off.


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and Peregrine discussing the furnishing of a temporary abode in Venice:
Sir Pol W.-B.: I will teil you, sir,
(Since we are met here in this height of Venice)
Some few particulars I have set down,
Only for this meridian, fit to be known
Of your crude traveller. — I'll acquaint you, sir,
I now have lived here 't is some fourteen months;
Within the first week of my landing here
I had read Contarene, took me a house,
Dealt with my Jews to furnish it with movables.
Therefore let the crude traveller from London know, that when he gels to that meridian, he must obtain his second-hand things from a Jew there. Was there any need to instruct him if such was also the regular London practice?
Contrast the similar passages in Every Man in his Humour, a thoroughly English play. The scène is London, and especially the Old Jewry. A better from young WellBred, who lives there, to Edward Kno'well begins:
"Why Ned, I beseech thee, hast thou forsworn all thy friends i'the Old Jewry? or dost thou think us all Jews that inhabit there, yet? If thou dost, come over and see but our frippery; change an old shirt for a whole smock with us. Do not conceive that antipathy between us, and Hogsden, as was between Jews, and hogsflesh."
Notice the last word in: Dost thou think us all Jews that inhabit there, yet. (after three centuries). Take this in connection with the "antipathy that was between


116
Jews and hogsflesh". Jonson knows perfectly well that the Jews' antipathy to the flesh of swine, however fine, is not a thing of the past; but the time when England had anything to do with Jews and their horror of pork, was. In the passage from the same play (III. II):
Well-Bred : Where got'st thou this coat, I mar'le ?
Brainworm: Of a Houndsditch man, sir, one of the devil's near kinsmen, a broker .... there is nothing to suggest that this broker was a Jew. The bitter words in Decker's Wonder of a Kingdom (1623)
in one weeke he eate My wifeup, and three children, this Christian Jew did; Ha's a long lane of hellish tenements Built all with pawnes,
are spoken of a Christian pawnbroker, Munday's Judas broker. One of the two words Christian Jew must be figurative,and that word must be Jew; for if the greedy extortioner were a racial Jew, why give him the epithet? In A Christian turn'd Turk Rabshake calls pawnbrokers Citie-Christians. Both religions are equally abused here. To explain the f igurative use of "Jew" in similar passages we do not require to suppose that there were any Jewish pawnbrokers; the use of "Jew" for broker is nothing but a die-hard reminiscence. We have a composite historical reminiscence in the expression "A wardrobe that would furnish a Jewes Lumbre."
The sentence just quoted is from Thomas Nabbes, The Unfortunate Mother, quite a late play, 1640. Nabbes only wrote a few plays: The Bride, whose scène is London; Covent-Garden, and Tottenham Court, located


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as their titles; and the present play of the Unfortunate Mother. This is the only one in which a reference to Jews is discoverable, and it is the only one of Nabbes's with a foreign setting: the Court of Ferrara is the 'constant scène' (Nabbes aimed at the unities and at the decencies). Ferrara was noted for an important Jewish community. If it is therefore desired to take Jew in 'Jewes Lumbre' literally, the man in question is a perfectly legitimate Ferrarese Jew.
The "thoroughly English City-wife" referred to by Lee, figures in the anonymous comedy Everie Woman in her Humour.1 It contains the following crux: Hostis: By my troth, Gossip, I am half sick of a conceit.
Citty-Wife: What, woman? Passion of my heart, teil
me your greefs. Hostis: I shall goe to court now, and attired like
an old Darie woman, a Ruffe holland of eight
groates, three inches deep, of the olde cut;
and a hat as far out of fashion 'as a close
placket.
Citty-Wife: Why I hope your husband is able to maintain you better. — What is his is yours, whats yours your owne.
Hostis : The best hope I have is: you know my Guest, Mistris Getica; she has pawned her Jewels to me already, and this night I look for her hood and tyer, or if the worst chance, I know I can intreate her to weare my cloathes, and let me goe in her attire to Court.
1 Bullen's Old Plays, vol. IV (1609).


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Citty-Wife i Or if all faile, you may hire a good suit at a Jewes, or at a broakers; 'tis a common thing, and specially among the common sort." I must impugn the thoroughly English quality of this Citty-Wife. The scène of the play is Rome, the subject is the marriage of "Marcus Tullius Cicero, the Orator", with Terentia. There are certain complications caused by the lady's guardian Flaminius, who destines her for Lentulus; the latter has just come home with Julius Caesar. "Harke how the generall noise doth welcome from the Parthian wars." Though Lentulus left the field to come to her, "Terentia daughter to the old Senate, hath forsaken him in the open field and shee's for our young Orator Tully." Lentulus thereupon consoles himself with Flavia, who has thus far pursued Cicero. The two weddings are to be on the same-day.
Our Citty-Wife and the Hostis of the Hobbye Inn across the Tiber, want dresses to attend the doublé event, and to see the show of Diana and Acteon. In honour of the nuptials Caesar, already Emperor, orders a jail-delivery:
We heere command all prison gates flye ope, Freeing all prisoners (traitors all except) My promise is irrevocable.
And the "dread sovereigne" closes the scène with thanks. It is true that the play is full of anachronisms. The corpse of Philautus is to be attended by neither dirge nor masse, yet he is granted Christian burial; when the corpse rises he is conjured by a Friar, per Trinitatem. Another curiosity, more surprising than any is, "Behold yon ChristaU Palace", which would be


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prophetic, if it did not mean: the firmament. Lentulus and Flavia go to Church with an early prospect of bidding the Gossips to the Christening. There are indeed many "thoroughly English" elements in this comedy, but the clothes-Jew is not necessarily so. The Italian, especially the Roman clothes' Jew occurs frequently; thus in Marston's Antonio and Mellida (1602), Fiero the Venetian Prince, Mellida's father, intercepts a note from Antonio, Duke of Genoa: "Meet me at Abraham's, the Jewes, where I bought my Amazon's disguise."
The frequent references of the playwrights to the "broakers of cloathes" have to do with the importance of clothes to actors, and with the fact that Henslow their paymaster was such a broker. It is at least supposed that in Day's Parliament of Bees (c. 1610) the Fenerator or Usuring-Bee, who 'takes up clothes', is Henslow.1
Every Man out of his Humour, which served as model for the above-mentioned Classical comedy (!), is in its present shape as English as Stepney, though the characters still bear foreign names, and the scène is undetermined. It presents a puzzle of its own. When Sir Puntarvolo'sdoghas cometogrief, CarloBuffoneadvises:
"Flay me your dog presently (but in any case keep the head) and stuff his skin well with straw, as you see these dead monsters at Bartholomew Fair.... or if you like not that, sir, get me somewhat a less dog, and clap [the live dog] into the skin; there's a slave about the town here, a Jew, one Yohan ; or a fellow that makes perukes will glue it on artificially...."
1 Fleay 1. 115; Chambers. EL St. Hl, 288.


120
Emil Koeppel had this single passage in mind when he made the extraordinary statement that Jews were known in London as "harmlose Hundeausstopfer".1 Needless to say there are no dogstuffers in the Trades'Lists of Abrahams' "Jewish Life". It is difficult to devise a more certainly forbidden trade to Jews than dressing the carcass of the uncleanest animal but one. Surely it did not require Koeppel's learning to see that 'Jew' is the nickname for a Dutchman or a Fleming. Yohan is a name avoided by Jews and specially affected in that form (Yaughan) by the Low-Germans, of whom there were so many in London. Compare The Hóllander by Henry Glapthorne (1635). As soonas Jeremias Sconce, a gallant naturalized Dutchman, introducés himself to Doctor Artlesse in London, saying his father was a Dutchman, the Doctor asks: "Pray sir, what tribe was he of?
Sconce: He was no Jew Sir; yet he would take pawnes, and their forfeits too." A Welsh doctor, rival to Artlesse, had given Sconce an ineffective medicine: "like a Turke he answered me that Hollanders were Jewes, and that the salve was only for made Christians." When the Hollander is knighted his cupbrothers dub him Sir Barrahas.
In Sir Thomas Overbury's Characters (1613) the Button-Maker of Amsterdam is a (Huguenot) refugee from England, who has caught the Dutch infection of semi-Judaism: "He is one that is fled over [from England] from his conscience, and left his wife and children upon the parish. When he speaks of his owne countrey, he cries, 'He is fled out of Babel'. If there be a
1 Jahrbuch 1904. Konfessionelle Strömungen.


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great feast in the towne [of Amsterdam] he will outeate six of the fattest Burgers: he thinks, though he may not pray with a Jew, he may eat with a Jew." Hence the obligation when on business in England, to take the pork-test. Rabbi Zeal-of-the Land Busy1 takes good care "by the public eating of swine's flesh to profess [his] hate and loathing of Judaism, whereof the brethren stand taxed". The Dutch are worse than the English Puritans: Adam2 penned a treatise in High-Dutch. 'The Jews are innocent to them' is said of the Hollanders in Shirley's Gamester. In the Netherlands, which also harboured Portuguese Jews, real English converts to Judaism are not ehtirely unknown, in spite of Rabinical discouragement: In 1623 and 1625 two children of 'Abraham Ger den Engelsman' were buried in the Jewish Cemetary of Amsterdam, and in the latter year 'Sara vrouw van Abraham Ger den Engelsman' was interred in the same House of Life. 'Ger' is the Hebrew for proselyte, and there can be little doubt that the persons here meant were English, and had gone to Holland to be formally received into the Jewish Pale. From these items in de Castro's Auswahl von Grabsteinen 8, the obviously mistaken deduction has been made that the (English) Jews made converts by personal contact in England. The fact remarkable enough, is that a few English people sought incorporation in the Jewish fold, but had then to emigrate to Holland, never to return.
Certain types of Puritan recusants evinced a predilection for the Old Testament, spoke the tongue of Canaan, wore Hebrew pre-names, and beards, and abhorred
1 BarthoL Fair I ad fin. a The Alchymist. 3 Part 1, p. 28_


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xitualism, looking upon the High Church as idolatrous. These are currently referred to as "Jews" without any qualification: in the absence of real Jews no misunderstanding was possible. These semi-Judaei were cruelly hunted down; the Pilgrim fathers were harried out of the country. Yet Judaizing tendencies continued so rife that in 1655 Wm. Prynne,' with some conscious exaggeration could write, in his Demurrer: "that it was now an ill time to bring in the Jews, when the people were so dangerously and generally bent to Apostasy, And all sorts of Novelties and Errors in Religion; and -would sooner turn Jews, than the Jews Christians." With the accession of Laud to the Primacy the fate of the English 'Jews' grew still darker. Traskites, Seventh Day Men, Sabatarians, held that the Fourth Commandment was of perpetual obligation; they insisted on using Sunday as a workingday. They also scrupled to eat the meats forbidden in the Levitical scriptures. The mildest punishments inflicted upon them were the ^pülory, whipping at the cart-tail, rotting in the Fleet prison. Most of them were humble, ill-educated persons; the dramatists from Jonson downwards safely abused and libelled the pious sufferers. The World hst at Tennis, a mask by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley, has a catalogue of them:
There's Rabbi Job, a venerable silk-weaver, Jehu a throwster dweiling in the Spitalfields. There's Rabbi Abimelech, a learned cobbler, Rabbi Lazarus, a superstitious tailor.
As for their love of Hebrew diction, Ananias, an English Anabaptist pastor of Amsterdam declares,


(in Jonson's Alchymist) that 'All's Heathen but the Hebrew'; Gossip Polish in the same author's Magnetic Lady (1632) says of Mistress Steele:
She was too learned to live long with us, She could the Bible in the holy tongue, And read it without pricks (i. e. vowel-points) Had all her Massoreths (i. e. she could supply the
punctuations).
The less respectable Doll Common went mad at
Hebrew.
The Monarchy and the stage deserved succumbing to the Dissenters. They may have been an unappreciated amalgam of Christianity and Judaism, but that a touch of the old faith is compatible with humble sublimity under ferocious persecution must here be illustrated if only from one example. In passing sentence upon John James, a Sabatarian, (1661) the Judge said:
"John James, thou art to be carried from hence to the prison, and from thence to the place of execution and there to be hanged by the neck; and being yet alive, thy bowels to be taken out (a fire having been prepared beforehand), and to be burned before thy face; thy head to be severed from thy body and thy body quartered; thy head and body to be disposed according to the King's pleasure."....
John James mounted the scaffold, not dismayed, but with a smiling countenance made his extreme confession: "Blessed be God. Whom man has condemned, Hehathjustified. I do own the Lord's holy Sabath, the seventh day of the week. Bless the poor witnesses; and as they have sought to imbrue their hands in my
123


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blood, somay they be washedin the blood of the Lamb; forgive, and have mercy upon the poor executioner who is to destroy me...." 1
Admirable too was Mary Chester, expressly described in the State-papers for 1635 as a "Jewess, prisoner in the Bridewell, who held certain Judaical tenets touching the Sabath and distinction of meats".
This current and unqualified use of the word "Jew" for a dissenter, a recusant, foreigner, üsurer, pawnbroker or clothier, was only possible in a country bare of racial Jews; it goes a long way towards explaining the frequency of the gibes at "Jews" in the literature of the day. In Nich. Breton's Fantasticks (1626) a character pamphlet, we read: "The holy feast of Easter is kept for the faithful, and a known Jew hath no place among Christians". The strongest instance is perhaps in R. Brome's Covent Garden Weeded, where Nicholas, the son of Rooksbill a great Builder, refers to his own father thus: "Then the old Jew my father's gone."
A glaring case of this vile abuse occurs in Thomas Heywood's: "A Challenge for Beauty" 1636.
Enter Pineda and CenteUa. [p. 26]. Pineda: Heres both their Ransomes [throwes downe
the bags]. Turk: And theres both the slaves,
a better peny-worth of flesh and bloud Turk never sold. Ferars: Nor Christian but a Spanyard would ere have bought.
Pineda: Oh yes, your English Jewes, they'le buy and sell their fathers, prostrate their wives, and
1 W. E. Mellone, Jew. Quart. Rev. 1898.


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make money of their own children, the male stewes can witnesse that; come on Sir, you must along. Monhurst: How must?
Centella: And shall; prating, you English slave? This has proved an idiomatic trap to unwary readers:
W. Reinicke (Der Wucherer 1907) "lm II Akt
tadelt Pineda die unersattliche Habsucht der englischen Juden: sie kauften und verkauften um des Mammons Willen ihre Vater, traten ihre Frauen mit Füszen, und verwandelten wenn es anginge sogar ihre eigenen Kinder in Geld."
W. Creizenach (IV. 127 note, 1909) says: "In den schwarzesten Farben schildert Heywood im Challenge for Beauty die englischen Juden"
Ed. Eckhardt (Mater. 32,1911) "Sehr schlimme Dinge werden in Challenge von den englischen Juden erzahlt: 'Oh yes, your English Jewes, they' le buy and sell their fathers, prostrate their wives, and make money of their own children, the male stewes can witnesse that."
We thus see Reinicke on the look out for usurers, annex a passage that strikes him as suff iciently germane to his subject, which he then paraphrases peculiarly. This started a hare in the coursing of which joins so reverend a seignor as Creizenach, who describes the incriminations as Heywood's, — not Pineda's. Eckhardt follows the same cry and is the first to quote a sentence in the original English, but as it happens not enough for a proper understanding of the somewhat tricky context.
I propose to to show that "your English Jewes" is a vulgar turn of phrase, intended to signify: "you mean


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or wicked Englishmen." How could the English as a nation be referred to as Jews in an English drama, and under circumstances which render the abuse both of the word English and of the name Jew intolerable? A glance at the Dramatis personae tells us: Centella, Pineda: two Spanish sycophants. Mant Ferrers and Manhurst: two noble English seacaptains; three more Englishmen sold for slaves in Spain.
We are struck with a few things; Mont Ferrers (Ferars) is a rather Spanish name for an Englishman. Though similar names are not unknown in England, it is not improbable that the story may have been taken from a Spanish or Italian romance, and the nationality of Ferars altered to English for dramatic purposes. We next notice that Englishmen are being sold for slaves in Spain, which seems incredible; yet it happened in 1685, fifty years after the date of this play. The Monmouth rising and the Battle of Sedgemoor were followed by the "bloody circuit" of Jeffreys; besides the hundreds who were hanged and burned more than 800 were sold into slavery beyond sea \ The sale was probably not made in Spain, but to the Moors. The deadlyfeud between Protestants and Catholics was also raging with unprecedented ferocity when Heywood wrote about 1635. La Rochelle had fallen and cost the lives of thousands of Englishmen; in Germany Lutheran and Calvinist alike lay beneath the heel of the Catholic house of Austria.
Now let us gather the facts about the persons concerned:
1 Green, Short Hist. p. 666.


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The Spanish naval captain Valladaura has suffered defeat and shame in combat with the English sailor heroes Ferars (Mont Ferrers) and Monhurst. On learning that those Englishmen have been captured by a Turkish pirate and are to be sold for slaves, Valladaura resolves to purchase the two bosom-friends vowing that "what the art of man knows of tormenting mine shall inflict." His Spanish friends Pineda and Centella are commissioned to buy the two English prisoners from the Turk, and hand them over to Valladaura, that he may 'split their hearts'.
Therefore we have Protestant English slaves, bought by Catholic Spaniards from an (infidel) Turk. To understand the passage aright we should not, in spite of the similar names, lose sight of the contrasted nationalities; and we should remember the opposed faiths. Protestant versus Catholic, a Turk — and Jews? There's the rub.
As I read it, Ferars upbraids the Spaniards, saying they shame their Christianity, because they buy fellowChristians like chattels from a miscreant Turk. This taunt has such a sting that Pineda, mortif ied both as Spaniard and as Christian, retorts wildly: 'If we are bad Christians, the English are Jews!' and then flings out the worst he can think of; nor does fury impair his vituperative power, though his vision is false. In 'your English Jewes' the word 'your' is the now archaic contemptuous demonstrative. It was vulgarly used in giving instances: 'Your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson dead body.'
The idiom could not be misunderstood by English commentators, who have every reason for ignoring it, as


128
the idle wind which they respect not. Suppose, if further argument be needed, we did take: English Jewes in the literal sense of "Jew citizen of England, Jew of English birth", as Reinicke, Creizenach and Eckhardt have done, and as from their presèntment the general reader must do, then Pineda's repartee would be of the lamest:
Ferrars: No Christians — except you, Spanish Catholics — could be so wicked!
Pineda: Oh yes! English Jewes!
How could Pineda reject the charge of being wicked Christians upon a particular class of Jews? The outrageous charges of prostitution are levelled at Englishmen stigmatized as 'Jews'. St. Bernard would have shrunk from using 'baptizatos Iudaeos' with such a connotation, but then Pineda is on a different level. The English audiences probably jeered at it, as a piece of impudence of the mad Spaniard.
In the original story the enemies of the Spaniards might have been Portuguese: 'the nation we most hate', before the countries were united. Though the several varieties of Mrs. Warren's profession were nowise shunned on the later stage, "male stewes" are a Southern iniquity. Fletcher in his licentious play The Custom of the Country locates his at Lisbon, with an Italian dancing-master as the protagonist, though from a perverted national pride he adds that this worthy's most strennous predecessor had been "an Englishman, the Rutter, a brave rascal." The Jew Zabulon there, only leads the lady bawd to the altar at the end of the play. As for the other charges such as selling their fathers, we need not take them as more typical than when the pirate Ward boasts, even before he turned renegade:


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'I would rob mine own father, and sell him when I had done'. Even Zariph may permit himself irony which will not delude the most confirmed literalist among commentators: Zariph is a Jew
A crucifying Hang-man trayn'd in sinne,
One that would hang his brother for his skinne.
We had better rule out Pineda as a critic of racial ethics, and clear our minds of any vestige of a notion that Heywood's passage refers to Jews in England.
The general misunderstanding of Pineda's billingsgate shows how detached quotations will often convey impressions that are misleading on essential points. In Lee's argument the need for compression into a few hours' lecture packed with matter, led to an accumulation of such mistakes. They are like the mendacious effects resulting from too blunt a handling of the camera: the gentleman with the huge feet and vanishing body, is nothing but too literal a picture taken at too short a range. Yet the task of the photographer in securing the proper foreshortening is simpler than that of the literary critic desiring to show his perspectives truly.
Now seeing that Lee's demonstration is to show there were real Jews present in a particular country, and is therefore in the nature of historical geography, it will be conceded that the dramatic locality should be scrupulously noted in each and every quotation. The English dramatists of course knew that there were Jews on the Continent. They would tend to exaggerate their prominencé and their peculiarities. In Romantic drama the golden rule was to avoid the golden mean: 'Nothing succeeds like excess.' And so a really lurid Jew did well to key up an intrigue in a foreign setting, where
9


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a realistic one would miss the strong effect. Proportionately there would be rather more and worse Jews in stageland than in the real world abroad.
If it be too strict a rule that all plays located abroad should be barred for the purposes of this particular problem, at least they should not be adduced without mention of the place of action, together with such further particulars as are necessary for the reader to see the reference in its true light.
Let us study another instance. Lee quotes:
"Would I were a Jew," says a character in Webster's White Devil, when reflecting on the bitter religious dissensions among the Christians of his day. — "Oh! there are too many", remarks a bystander. — "You are deceived" says the first speaker, "there are not Jews enough, priests enough, nor gentlemen enough: If there were Jews enough, so many Christians would not turn usurers." Thus far Lee.
Most readers imagine this is said in bitter earnest, and that it applies to England. Unless we are informed to the contrary, we assume that. But when we take the book we find:
The White Devü; or the Tragedy of Paulo Giordano Ursini, Duke of Brachiano; with the Life and Death of Vittoria Corombona, the famous Venetian Curtizan. By John Webster, 1612.
Scène Rome and Padua. (Act IEL sc I).
Flamineo: Religion, O, how it is commedled
with policy! The first bloodshed in the world happened about religion. Would I were a Jew! Marcello: [his good brother] O, there are too many.


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Flamineo: You are deceived: there are not Jews enough, priests enough, nor gentlemen enough.
Marcello: How?
Flamineo : I'll prove it; for if there were Jews enough, so many Christians would not turn usurers; if priests enough, one should not have six benef ices; and if gentlemen enough, so many early mushrooms whose best growth sprang from a dunghill, shouldnot aspire to gentility. Farewell.... I'll go hear the screech owl." How much of the above was meant of England, and how little would require alteration if so applied, are certainly matters to be considered. It is true the seventeenth century artist was not strict in keeping a foreign scène free from direct undramatic importations from the author's home. But the fact to start from if our apparatus is to be properly focussed is that this was spoken at "Rome and Padua" (the particular incident belongs to Rome). There is no warrant for transferring what is here said about Italian Jews and priests to England. Neither is it a typically English trait which came uppermost and made the author forget he was in Italy; like the chili June evenings in England which made Shakespeare have fires in Capulet's balhoorn at Verona *.
Furthermore Flamineo's threefold maxim has not much to do with religion; contrary to appearances there is no tracé of 'religious dissensions' in the whole play. Flamineo is the most abject villain in this tragedy of
1 In Romeo and Jvliet the time is mid-summer; in Brooke's poem of Romeus and Jvliet it was winter.


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horror, and the last man to "reflect on bitter religious dissensions among the Christians of his day". Then how does he come to use these words? To extricate himself from complicity in varous crimes, he thinks meet to put an antic disposition on: "To keep off idle questions I will feign a mad humour: I will talk to any man, hear no man, and for a time appear a politic madman." He is, however, looser in his method than Hamlet, and the stage direction: Be-enter Flamineo as if distracted, just before his sally on Jews, priests and gentlemen, d propos de bottes, is a much needed warning to the reader that it is only his crafty humour. For fear of our forgetting this there are occasional reminders:
It may appear to some ridiculous
Thus to talk knave and madman, and sometimes
Come in with a dried sentence, stuft with sage:
But this allows my varying of shapes;
Knaves do grow great by being great men's apes.
Flamineo is Hamlet's ape, and his three-fold quip is 'a dried sentence', at least twenty-five years old when Webster annexed it, apologizing for its staleness. Compare the identical triplet from:
"The Choise of Change, Containing the Triplicitie of Divinitie, Philosophie and Poetrie", by S(amuel) R(owland) stud. Cantab. 1585. This is a colleetion of three hundred brief triads under the motto Tria sunt omnia. The first hundred, Of Poetry has (no. 23): "There is scarcitie of 3 sortes of men in this our age; 1°. Of Priests, for if there were not, one should not need to have three or four benefices; 2°. Of Noble-men, because citizens doe aspire to honour, and buy nobilitie; 3°. Of Jews,


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because Christians make an occupation of usurie."
It is difficult to see how these observations bear on poetry; no more does no. 32: Three thinges whereof wee may hope for no goodnesse: 1°. Of a tamed wolfe; 2°. Of a Jew baptized ; 3°. Of a theefe saved from thé gallows.
Shall we conclude that the young gentleman had any experience of the limited efficacy of baptism on Jews in England ? This is how Lee puts it before us, for without noticing the parallel with Flamineo's sally, he writes: "According to a pamphlet Choice of Change etc. by S. R. Gent., issued in 1598, there was a scarcity of Jews in England, because Christians made a practise of usury."" The book only says: in this our age.
There is some importance in quoting the 1585 edition rather than the 1598 one, though the two are identical, because if the remark about the "baptized Jew" had not been written before-1598 some would see in it a reference to Dr. Lopez, executed in June 1594.
What, after all, is the value of the passage in The White Devil, as bearing upon the presence of Jews in Elizabethan England? A mere cut-and-dried joke, not necessarily of English origin. That it was repeatedly quoted in England— though not with any express reference to the country — leaves it nevertheless problematical whether it would apply there.
In think I may fairly conclude that the apparent "proofs" from contemporary literature, will not stand any reasonable tests.
Before taking leave of this part of our studies, which after all should not take up too much space, I


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will let the Wandering Jew telling Fortunes to Englishmen speak for himself. Undue reticence in quoting from this rare book leaves the reader in the dark as to the true meaning of a positive-seeming utterance quoted from it: "Store of Jewes we have in England; a few in Court, many Vth Citty, more in the CountreyT The circumstances under which this is said and which throw the true light on the meaning, are pleasant enough to rehearse. The tract is one in the Books of Characters illustrating various habits and manners of Englishmen from the Reign of James I down to the Restoration, selected by James O. Halliwell and printed (1857) by J. E. Adlard, Bartholomew Close, who certifies that the impression "has been strictly limited to Twenty-five copies." Of the five treatises contained in the volume: 1. The Wandering Jew; 2. The Man in the Moone; 3. Stephen's Essays and Characters; 4. London and the Country Carbonadoed ; and 5. Extracts from Breton1 s Fantasticks, some have already been quoted. About the first two a little more must now be said. The older of the two is The Man in the Moone, telling Strange Fortunes, or the English Fortune-teller, 1609. Our tract of 'The Wandering Jew or a Jewes Lottery\ 'from the very rare edition published in London, A. D. 1649' and of which no earlier issue is known, is largely, I think, an edited version of the former, with a quasi-Jew substituted for the Moone-dweller. The machinery of the two tales is identical: the anonymous narrator, having slept in the fields one warm afternoon, finds the citygates closed, and has to seek shelter for the night at a lonely house in the suburbs, which proves to be the dweiling of the Wandering Jew.


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"At last lighting me into a faire Parlor, I followed where was a good fire and an antient Gentleman, in an odde Jewish habit Sir (said I) by your strange outside I know not what language you speake Sonne
(said he) y'are wellcome: I have travelled farre, and speake many languages, yet am as you are, an Englishman (you may heare by my tongue). I had a roaming head when I was as you are now, yong .... but age bid me hye home to mine owne Country, whose smoake to me was more sweet then all the perfum'd fires by which I warm'd myself abroad.... Here I live as obscure as I can.... yet they take me for a rare fellow, a Conjurer, a Cunning-man, a Sooth-sayer, a Figur-caster, a Starre-catcher, a Fortune-teller. This night you shall lodge here, to-morrow morning my Clients will come in tumbling; not that I can doe them any good (for alas I have no such skiü), yet talke with them I doe....
"The next morning I found my old-new father sitting in his chaize, as soberly as Erra Pater 1: his beard was reverend, face comely; a Jewish gowne girt to him, and a Jewish round cap on his head. His courtesie over night made me bold with'him so that I prayd him to let me know why, being an Englishman, he was call'd the Wandring Jew, and a teller of Fortunes. Your questions (quoth hee) shall come home to you answered:
"I have been a Traveller many yeares, and feit the heate of the Sunne in change of Countries. At my living in Venice, I came acquainted with an Italian Jew
1 An almanac of the period entitled "The Prognostication of Erra Pater, a Jew bom in Jewry". The astrologer's name is, possibly, a corruption of Ezra.


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named Orlotto, whom meeting often upon the Rialta, diverse Venetians noting his face and mine, said we were so like, wee might very easily be taken for brothers. The Jew being told this, sent for me to his house, entertain'd me with curious complements, curtesie and cheere, making mee vow (for the equall likenesse we both carryed) to call him brother. Nay, he did so affect my company (I speaking as good pure Tuscane as he himselfe) and discoursing home with him, that he wonne me to sojourne with him; and in the end he wrought me to goe in a rich Jewish habit such as you see I sit in; so that all Venice swore I was his brother, and I went (as he did) by the name of Orlotto, which name I retaine here still \ albeit my own true name is Egremont....
"By this time one knocked. He whistled for his other half of the house-hold, which was a pretty sprightly boy, whom the Master brought from Wittenburgh in Germany, and was cozen to knavish Wagner. This Joculo comes running in saying: 'A Courtier comes to know his Fortune'. 'Fetch him in' said Orlotto; he's fetch'd and thus begins his scène:
"Noble Sir, I am a Courtier, depending upon a great man. But for all this, I gaze at Starres, but reach none; gape for preferment, but none falls into my mouth These rich clothes cost me nothing, the Mercers uncrost booke shall sweare for me. What my Fortunes are I know; what they may be I come to know: Few Christians are to be trusted: store of Jewes we have in England; a few in Court, many i'th Citty, more in the
1 In the Greeting to the Wandering Christian he calls himself: Gad Ben Arod, Ben Balaam, Ben Ahimoth, Ben Baal, Ben Gog, Ben Magog.


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Countrey. These I scorne: but come to you, a knowing Jew, a Rabbin, a Synagogue of learning. In short I have a rich London widdow in chase. Teil me therefore (worthy Jew) whether it be my Fortune to have this golden girle or no."
His fortune as predicted by Egremont-Orlotto is 'to live in debt and yet die worth a trunk full of gorgeous apparel, which afterwards, if his ghost can walk, he might see worn on a stage by players.' The Courtier looking red with anger, flung away with this only in his mouth: 'Y'are a Jew'.
'Another knocks' sayes the good Christian-Jew
'Looke out boy.' The visitor is an Extortioner.
In the older Man in the Moone the famulus, "Opinion," gives the following character of the Extortioner, who appears there also:
— "He is miser qui nummos admiratur. Gold is his God and Silver his Saint; bonds are his bibles, and obligations his (h)orizons; scriveners are his priests, and cousening brokers his Christian brethren. Security is his secretary, and sergeants his servingmen; better is a poore gentleman to fall into the pawes of a lion then between his clutches, and may with more safety escape the Gripe of a she-beare then to be released from his leases; to be briefe with him, he is an insatiable cormorant or rather corne-vorant, a merciless money-monger, a filthy forty-in-the-hundreth, a vile unconscionable extortioner". —
This served as model for our Extortioner's speech in 1649:
'Jew, Jew, honest Sir! Thou art a cunning man
Not to lie to thee, Gold is my God, Silver my Saint;


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Bonds axe my deare Bookes; an Obligation better then fat Venison; Scriveners are my Cookes; couzeningBrokers my Boyling-men, and Sergeants my Turne-Spits that wast Rogues in prison, till they pay me my sweet Moneys, — hony, hony Moneys: I am a Lion if I paw an Heire; a Beare if I fang a Citizen; I am a moneymonger of Fortie-in-the-hundred; now thou knowest what I am, Jew. Teil we what I shall bee. My Fortune, my Fortune. Come, shall I live long? Does not my Wife picke my Counting-house; plot not theeves to rob me? And then I hang my selfe. Say, say Jew, / am a Jew too. Dispatch me."
When he meets with some candid criticism the Midas cries out: "Out out Cur-Jew", and so hobbled home. At this stage we do not require any warning not to take the Extortioner's self-description as a "Jew" literally.
Sir Thomas Overbury's Character of the Devillish Usurer: — "Is far better read in the penall statutes then the Bible; he puts his mony to the unnatural act of generation, and his scrivener is the superior bawd to 't. He comes to Cathedrals only for love of the singingboyes, because they looke hungry. He likes our own religion best, because 't is best cheape; yet would faine allow of purgatory, cause 't was of his trade, and brought in so much money." We thus see that Overbury does not even take the opportunity of alluding to Jews, but only makes an allusion to Roman Catholicism, much like the punning author in London and the Countrey Carbonadoed. Overbury mentions Jews in his Newes from Rome: "That Jewes and curtezans there, are as beasts that men feed to feed on." That he refrains


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from mentioning Jews in England is not for want of wishing.
By far the most powerful description of a Usurer in the pamphlet literature of the time is found in Wm. Rowley's Search for Money; and as it has a wellknown reference to an Elizabethan stage-Jew, I must be allowed to reproduce it. We remember that the scène is contemporary London, and that a party are hunting out the lost French Knight Mounsieur Money: "We approached a post garden dore beset round with many petitionary attendants, and was indeed the kennel of a mostdogged usurer.... Wemightnowhearethe tonguelesse staires teil us, by force of an oppressive footing, that there was somebodie descending; which was better verified by a rewmatique disposition of the descendor, for with small interims we might heare on(e) hawking and vomiting his fleame. Anon his gouty footmanship had reacht the dore, where after the quest of 'who was there?' and our most humble answere given, the locks and bolts were set at liberty, and so much of the dore was opened as we see the compasse of a bakers purgatory; or a pillory, for even so showed his head forth the dores; but as ill a heade in forme and worse in condition, then ever held a spout of lead in his mouth at the corner of a Church; an old moth-eaten cap buttoned under his [chinne: his visage (or vizard) like the artificiall Jewe of Maltaes nose ; the wormes, fearing his bodie would have gone along with his soule, had taken possession, where they peept out still at certain loopeholes; upon which nose two casements were built, through which his eyes had a little ken of us. His heart


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(was) made of foure feit-makers hands, his soule not so bigge as an Attome, & thats lunggrowne to his conscience, which conscience is the true forme of a hedge-hog.. To this lumpe of iniquity, this living carrion, wee bent in the hammes, and told him we sought a wandring concealed traveller, and that we had receiv'd certaine notice that he had taken up his lodging at his house.
That face that was wild-fire before, was now Hellfire, raging and boyling as if the wormes should then have suffered torment; the bloud ranne about his guiltie nose, with the suddaine skrewing of his face; yet after coller had procur'd a foaming vent, hee randed out these sentences:
Money! vengeance and Heil so soone as money; he will not bide with mee; he has promised me increase, but he returnes not himselfe. I have parchment indeed, which is rotten sheep-skinnes, I have inke, which is gall to me, but no honnie, no money; no money no honney. Het him forth a galley-slave to banckrouts, and now hee's sold to the Turke or the Divell. I have bills and bonds, and scroules and waxe, but no honnie no honnie, no monie no money! With that in a great rage hee clapt to the dores, and went up the staires (I hope) to hang himselfe."
Shylocke and Barabas are noblemen to these dirty creatures.
I have thus tried to find and group together the points of tangency between the subjects of Jews and Usury, and leave the reader to judge whether the Elizabethan usurers were Jews, otherwise than in name.


CHAPTER IV
THREE PLAYS CONTAINING JEWS
I — The Travails of the Three English Brothers Sherley (1607)
This is a play of contemporary adventure in distant lands, 'written by a Trinity of poets John Day, William Rowley and George Willrins' 1607. I must concentrate upon a single scène in it and rehearse only so much of the plot as leads up to the Zariph-episode.
Sir Anthony Sherley and his younger brother Robert have arrived at Casbin in Persia to offer their military services to the Sophi. They meet with a cordial reception. The Pot-Shaugh (m the Padi-Shah) demonstrates the game of polo and a martial skirmish, the conquering side re-entering with the heads of the slain on their spears. Sir Anthony and his fellows counter with a civilized battle, with 'high tongues of war' (ordnance) and the moral lesson of 'clemencie in victorie' i. e. no heads on spears, but prisoners very honourably treated. 'This Christian's more then mortall' murmurs the Sophi, and he makes the gentle Englishmen the objects of his boundless favour. Sir Anthony is appointed Persian General against the hereditary foes, the Turks; he leaves for the wars assuring his new lord that 'In death of Pagans all


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Christs sonnes delight'. It seems to have been thought natural to represent the Persians as a kind of semiChristians. The Sophi inclines to wards a league with the Western nations of Europe to 'fight for Heaven against the Turks'. After Sherley's victories the Despot does indeed 'make an idol of this fugitive', who thus arouses the jealousy of Hallibeck (Ali Bey). Enyy grows still ranker in the Persian's heart when the Sophi's 'Neece' is about to become a Christian and marry young Robert. After a time Sir Anthony Sherley is sent to the courts of Europe as the head of an embassy, with the darkly-furious Hallibeck as his subordinate. At the Muscovian court Sir Anthony is disgraced through Hallibeck's slanders. At Rome the smouldering feud at last bursts into flame before the Pope's throne, where Hallibeck's unhallowed feet had presumed to take precedence of the brotherhood of Cardinals. The Persian having been duly chastised, the incompatible couple are despatched together to Venice. We hear nothing about the alliance against the Turks, but find Sir Anthony commissioned by the Sophi to buy from Zariph a Jew a wonderful gem the price of which is prohibitive even to princes. Sherley has bought and despatched it, but by the time the debt is due the Shah fails to 'send in the cash', which the alarmed Jew is now clamouring for. Sherley is to pay no later than the next night, when they are to meet at a parting entertainment to be given by William Kemp h This comedian might have been
1 The visit of William Kemp to Italy, 1601, where he plays an 'extemporall merriment with an Italian Harlaken', is historical. The mother of the Sherleys was Anne the daughter of Sir Thomas Kemp, Knt.,so that the famous comedian may have been a déclassé member of a gentle family, glad enough to provide


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a witness of the terrible scène that followed: Hallibeck had informed Zariph that he had that very afternoon intercepted the purchase money sent from Persia; Sir Anthony defaulting is arrested at the entertainment and clapped into jail 'to rot and starve'. 'While Sherley here sinks lowe,' Hallibeck returns to Persia to spin further intrigues that no longer concern us.
The play thus deals with actual events of the day and persons then alive; but though the poets asseverate that their 'sceane is mantled in the robe of truth', they probably invented something. Did they invent the Zariph scène? Or was it supplied to them by Kemp, as a fruit of bis trip to Italy? Almost the only known source of the loosely constructed play was a pamphlet on the Sherleys by Ant. Nixon entered on the Stationers' Register on June 8th. 1607x. This is the rarest of some tracts relating to these three remarkably adventurous brothers. The play bears the stamp of the extraordinary hurry with which it was dashed off by the three combined authors in less than three weeks' time2. In the same year it
a show or pastime for bis distinguished relation. Creizenach, V, 359; Chambers n, 263, 292, 326: Sep. 2. 1601. Kemp, mimus quidam, qui peregrinationem quandam in Germaniam et Italiam instituerat, post muitos errores et inf ortunia sua, reversus: multa refert de Anthonio Sherley, equite aurato, quem Romae (legatum Persicum agentem) convenerat.
1 The Three English Brothers: Sir Thomas Sherley his Travels, with his Three yeares imprisonment in Turkie; his Inlargement by his Maiesties Letters to the Great Turke: and lastly, his safe returne into England this present yeare, 1607; Sir Anthony Sherley his Embassage to the Christian Princes; Master Robert Sherley his wars against the Turkes, with his marriage to the Emperour of Persia his Neece. London. Printed and are to be sold by John Hodgets in Paules Church-yard 1607. To the Rt. Hon. Thomas Lord Howard, Earle of Suffolke, Lord Chamberlaine; by Anthony Nixon.
a Arber's reprint of the S. R. (m, 354) has: '1607, June 29 (Buck.) A playe called the travaüles of the Three Englishe Brothers as yt was played at the Curten.' John Wright.


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was printed, perhaps while it was still on the stage at the Curtain by the Queen's men, and at the Red Builx. The biographical facts were given much later in: 'The Sherley Brothers, A Memoir by One of the same House, Evelyn Philip Shirley, for the Roxburghe Club' (1848). But even this chronicle does not give the Zariph incident. That Sir Anthony went through a somewhat checkered time at Venice appears from an 'Intelligencer from Mr. Simon Fox', June 20th, 1602: 'Sir Anthony Sherley hath been lately assaulted in this City, or leastwise maketh it to be given out so, and that one of his company was sorely hurt; himself happily escaping the blow, was borne over a bridge into the water, and this was done somewhat before midnight'. Again on April 27th, 1603: 'Sir Anthony Sherley lieth also fast in these prisons'. Arrested for debt by Zariph? The name Zariph, of Arabic or Jewish derivation, may have been picked up by one of the soldiers that fiollowed the Sherleys, of whom there were a good many. There is a publishers' venture: The Three Brothers Sherley, printed for Hurst, Robinson & Co., London 1825; a useful compilation in which by a special providence 'the several portions extracted from different works are given in the words of the authors'. Besides fragments from Hakluyt, Purchas and Parry it contains the delightful 'True Discourse' by George Manwaring (1601). This unfortunately breaks off before the episode in which Sir Anthony is supposed to fall into the clutches of the 'bloudy Jew' at Venice, though Sir Anthony 'did solace himself there almost three months', before he
1 E. K. Chambers. Elk. St. II, 446.


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went to Persia. The 1825 book also reprints most of the Nixon and Parry tracts. Now what do we learn from Nixon and Parry as to the contact of the Sherleys with Jews? A surprisingly different story: Sir Thomas Sherley, we are informed, sailed from England with three well-built ships early in 1602, "on a religious crusade, to make war against the Infidels, for the honour of the religion of peace". He has repeated mutinies to contend with, losing thus two of his ships and crews. To occupy his men he attempts to capture the island of 'Ieo in the Turkes dominion' (Zea); but the crew deserting him, he is made prisoner and carried in irons to Constantinople. The English ambassador when appealed to, flatly sends word "that he would neither make nor meddle with him, but told the Bashaw he might use him according to his discretion." Sir Thomas is subjected to incessant vexations in order to extort from him a ransom of some 50.000 chichenos (sequins), which he cannot scrape together:
"Sir Thomas beeing thus returned into prison and his old torments renewing, .... a certain Jew dwelling in the city, in pity and compassion of his estate found meanes to speake with him in prison. 'As you are a stranger, so you also seeme to bee ignorant of their Natures and Conditions. I grieve much at the manner of your handling. Be ruled by me and make promise of this great summe of money to the Bashawe, but take a long time for the paiment. You may before the prefixt day taken for the paiment, by the benefit of your King be freed without ransom. And I will also give you a further comfort: this Bashaw that now hath your life in pursuit is like ere long to loose his own.' Sir Thomas, having a woolfe by the ear, wherein there was danger either to hold or to let go, doubting whether he were best follow the counsel of a Jew or trust the cruelty of a Turk.... yet thought it best to follow his advice. And so he promised the Bashaw forty thousand chichenos, conditionally to have reasonable day for the payment, and in the mean time to be used like a gentleman. - The Bashaw was glad to receive this proffer and promised him more than he demanded, a good house and two servants at his choioe
10


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either men or women, and that for his money he should have good meat and wine."
The play as we have it does not reproduce this episode of Sir Thomas and the unnamed Jew at Constantinople, but it does contain an apocryhal(?) scène about Sir Anthony and Zariph at Venice. Some critics have been struck with this noticeable departure from the facts in a play that otherwise follows its sources closely. H. A. Bullen is frankly offended at the substitution: 'No doubt — he says — it would have been a hazardous experiment to bring on the stage a charitable Jew; but it is really too bad that we should be afflicted in the person of Zariph with a travesty of Shylock'. Ward (II. 602) is puzzled: 'It appears that Sir Thomas was befriended by a kind-hearted Jew, and that this statement was adapted by the dramatists in the ungenerous way indicated'. Creizenach (IV. 27) also thinks of an adaptation: 'In der Dramatisierung wird aus diesem Juden eine traditionelle Shylock figur', and Eckhardt notes 'dasz Day den Character Zariph's gegenüber seiner Quelle geandert hat'. E. Koeppel (Jahrbuch LX) blames in this 'Verwandlung, die Absicht den Juden in ein möglichst ungünstiges Licht zu rücken'. Sidney Lee is the only one to make no charge of misrepresentation, and somewhat resignedly remarks: 'He is not a pleasant character, but he is clearly the outcome of the dramatist's careful study'.
Bullen's remark hits the nail on the head. The Constantinople incident could not be adapted or transformed into the Zariph scène; it is an entirely new insertion derived from unknown sources, possibly


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as I suggested above, from oral communication. We should remember that the whole affair, knocked together in about twenty days, is the loosest of patchwork by three hands; each of the journeymen-authors appears to have been chary of doing more than his allotted share, and the one who did the Zariph scène need not have been aware that there was a decent Jew in another part of the materials to be written up by his colleague. There are no links between the movements of Sir Anthony and Sir Thomas. One of the authors gave a lead by enriching the play with a telling Jew scène, but an amazing proof of the incoherence of their joint production is the fact that the Zariph knot is never untied. The coadjutor who trumped up the later scènes failed to take up the lead given. The victim (Anthony, not his brother Thomas) is left at Venice in the clutches of the jailor, and then together with Zariph he drops out of the action. We are left in suspense for a trial scène, or news of his death, escape or release, but it never comes. At the close of the play a perfunctory attempt is made to gather up the loose threads of the web in an 'inexplicable dumb show' when the supposed prisoner is shown in a magical mirror as in Spain, 'Knight of Saint Jago and Captain of th'Armado'1.
Zariph cannot be adduced as literary evidence to the presence of Jews in Shakespeare's England. The scène is Venice, and the'careful study' that Lee perceives is the study of literay stock types, eked out by travellers' anecdotes. Any clever Elizabethan playwright could compose an Italian Jew scène simply from hearsay.
1 Corbett, England in the Mediterranean, p. 14—15.


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Thomas Nash the author of Jack Wüton (1594) testifies to this; it is highly doubtful whether Nash had ever been out of England, neither does he suggest that he ever saw a Jew; yet he was able to write a luridly powerful 'Adventure with the Jews at Rome'. Says Jack Wilton: 'That such a young Gallant consumed his substance on such a Curtizan; these courses of revenge a Merchant of Venice took against a Merchant of Ferrara, and this poynt of justice was shewed by the Duke upon the murtherer: What is here but we may read in books without stirring our feete out of a warme studie. So let others teil you of strange accidents, of treason, poysonings, of close packings in France, Spaine and Italy. Should I memorize halfe the miracles that they tolde me, I should be accounted the monstrous lyer that ever came in print; and it were frivolous to specifie, since he that hath hut once dronke with a traveller talks of them'. Day, Rowley or Wilkins could write the Zariph scène after drinking once or twice with a fellow that had swum in a gondola.
As the only Jew scène of any length or power outside Shakespeare and Marlow, the Zariph scène, accessible only in Mr. Bullen's edition, is worth reprinting here.
Zar.: The Hebrew God and sanctified King
Blesse them that cast kind greeting at the Jew.
Sir Anth.: I owe thee mony, Zariph.
Zar.: Thats the cause
Of your kind speech: a Christian spaniell clawes And fawns for gaine; Jest on, deride the Jew:


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You may, vext Zariph will not iest with you. [Aside] Now by my soule 't would my spirits much refresh
To tast a banket all of Christian flesh.
Sir Anth.: I must entreat thee of forbearance, Zariph.
Zar.: No, not an houre:
You had my Iewell, I must have your Gold.
Gent.: Let me intreat thee, Zariph, for my sake Thathave stood friend to all thy brethren.
Zar.: You have indeed; for but this other fast You sold my brother Zacharie like a horse, His wife and children at a common outcrie.
Gent.: That was the Law.
Zar.: And I desire no more;
And that I shall have: tho' the Jew be poore He shall have lawe for money.
Sir Anth.: Nay but Zariph,
I am like thee, a stranger in the Citty: Strangers to strangers should be pittifull.
Zar.: If we be curst we learn't of Christians
Who like to swine crash one anothers bones.
Sir Anth.: Is it a sinne in them? 't is sinne in you.
Zar.: But they are Christians; Zariph is a Jew, A crucifying Hang-man trayn 'd in sinne, One that would hang his brother for his skinne.
Sir Anth.: But till to-morrow.
Zar.: Well, you shall not say
But that a Jew will bear with you a day: Yet take't not for a kindness, but disgrace,


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To shew that Christians are then Turkes more base; They'le not forbearë a minute. — There's my hand; To-morrow night shall serve to cleare your band.
Sir Anth.: I thanke thee, and invite thee to a banket.
Zar.: No bankets; yet I thank you with my heart, — [Aside] And vow to play the Jew; why 'tis my part.
[Exit.]
[In the evening]. Enter Zariph. (= Iew)
Iew.A hundreth thousandDuckats! sweete remembrance. I'le read it againe; a hundreth thousand Duckats! Sweeter still: who owes it? a Christian, Canaans brood. Honnie to my ioyfull soul: If this summe faile (my bond unsatisfied) Hee's in the Jewes mercy; mercy I ha, ha! The Lice of Egypt shall devoure them all Ere I show mercy to a Christian. Unhallowed brats, seed of the bond woman, Swine-devourers, uncircumcised slaves That scorne our Hebrew sanctimonious writte, Despise our lawes, prophane our sinagogues Old Moises ceremonies, to whom was left The marble Decalogue twice registred By high Iehovahs selfe. Lawlesse wretches! Heaven grant he may want money to defray: Oh how I'le then imbrace my happinesse. Sweet Gold, sweet Iewell! but the sweetest part Of a Jewes feast is a Christians heart. —Whose there ? a friend, a friend: good newes, good newes ?


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[Enter Hallibeck.] Hall.: Zariph, the best; the Christian is thine owne, He sell him to thee at an easie rate; It shall but cost thy paines, ioynd with a heart Relentlesse as a Flint, that with more strokes Reverberates his anger with more fire: I know it's thine, I'me sure 'tis my desire.
Iew.: It is, it is; sweeten my longing hopes: For charitie give me the happy meanes.
Hall.: He should discharge thy bond to-night?
Iew.: He should, but I hope he cannot.
Hall.: He cannot: The money he expected from the Sophy
My selfe have intercepted by the way;
Tis (to him unknowne) given to my hands,
And ere this shall ayde him —
Iew.: He shall die with Core
As poore and loathsome as was leprous Job; Sink downe with Dathan to hells dark abisse. A Christians torture is a Iewes blisse. For further execution, say, say.
Hall.: Sit at his banquet with a smiling cheeke; Let him runne out his prodigal expence To the full length: the beggar has a hand As free to spread his coine as the swolne clouds Throwne their watrie pillage, which from the sea The mistie Pirats fetch. Then ceaze on him, Deferre not, this night; Vengeance in the height of mirth
Galles deepest, like a f all from Heaven to earth. Iew.: Oh that thou wert one of the promised seed


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To sleepe with blessed Abraham when thou diest, For this good newes. Here shalbe Cannibals That shall be ready to teare him peecemeale And devoure him raw; throw him in the wombe Of unpittied misery, the prison; There let him starve and rotte; his dungeon crie To Zariphs eares shall be sweete harmonie.
Hall.: It is enough: determine, follow it. My selfe will presently backe to Persia And by the way I will invent such tales As shall remoove the Sophies further love. Ere any stranger shall with me walke even, I'le hate him, were his vertues writ in heaven.
[Musique.]
The Musique says the banquet is at hand.
[Enter Sir Anthony, some Venetians, others with a banquet.]
Sir Anth.: Let us abridge the office of our breath To give to each of you a severall welcome I doe beseech ye, take it all at once Yee are all wellcome: now, I pray yee, sit.
Iew. Weele not strive for first.
Hall.: 'Tis more used then fit.
Iew.: O this sweete Musique is heavens rhetorique! The arte was first reveald to Tuball Cain, Good Hebrew; 't is now forgot, 't is growne stale; New-fangled ages makes olde vertues faile.
Sir Anth.: So much the Hebrew writ doth testifie, Yet there are different to that opinion;


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The Grecians do allow Pithagoras,
The Thracians give it of their Orpheus
As first inventors of the harmonie. Iew.: All errors; Tuball, Tuball, Hebrew Tuball! Sir Anth.: But howsoever, weele hold no dispute;
Our attention is tyed to other sports.
[Enter Prologue.] Prol.: Our act is short, your liking is our gaynes;
So we off end not, we are pay'd our paines. Iew.: No more of this, weele have a Iewes Iigge.
To your businesse, delay not.
[Enter seriants and take hold on Sir Anthony.] Sir Anth.: What meanes this violence? Iew.: Weele not stand upon Intergatories; away with him. Sir Anth.: Iew. — Iew.: Christian; away with him. Sir Anth.: Heare me — Iew.: In prison; Be listen to laugh at thee. Sir Anth.: Be mercifull — Iew.: MercifulL ha, ha!
Sir Anth.: No, not to mee, I scorne to aske it of thee, But to thine owne black soule be mercifull. Inhumane Dogge, that in midst of curtesie Dost yoke me in a Serpents arme, true seed Of that kisse-killing Judas, can thy black soule Have hope of pitty, being pittilesse?


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Iew.: Pray for thy selfe; I am saved already.
Sir Anth.: Hallibeck, does not your eye discover A treacherous heart in this?
Hall: Ha, ha!
Sir Anth.: Dost laugh at me?
Cü.: Sir, be comforted: Venice shall not see your fortunes long opprest for a greater matter than this.
Sir Anth.: I am not moov'd Sir,
It hath not emptied the least pipe of bloud
That are within my cheekes: onely this is all
That wrappes my senses in astonishment;
In all my travailes I nere saw heil till now,
Tis her true portrait, set in open view
In an envious knave and a bloudy Jew.
[Exeunt with him.]
Iew.: There rot and starve, starve and rot. O my delight, I shall dreame of this happinesse to-night.
Hall.: To Persia now: while Sherley here sinks lowe, There Hallibeck above his height shall grow.
[Exit.]
To me there are no traits arguing more than a hearsay acquaintance with Jews in this Zariph, though the name is remarkable. His claiming the invention of instrumental music for the Jews on scriptural grounds is conventionally typical. His speech is stuffed with well known Hebrew names, but it is startling to hear him pronounce the ineffable Name, or what passes for it. A peculiar feature in him is his positive


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eannibalism, not I imagine a trait drawn from the life at first hand. There are three reiterations in the single scène:
a) 't would my spirits much refresh
To taste a banket all of Christian flesh.
6) here shalbe Canniballs That shall devoure him raw.
c) the sweetest part
Of a Jewes feast is a Christians heart.
If the delineator of Zariph thought there was Shakespearean authority for this, he displays supratalmudic literalism, for he can only have arrived at this by taking Shylocke's "to feed upon the prodigal Christian" in conjunction with "I will have the heart of him" and with the saying of Barabas: "Having Farneze's hand, whose heart I'll have." Turks' and Saracens were likewise believed to be ogres1. The pirate Ward turned Turke naturally lapses into this Saracen sin:
allow me but every week A Christian; I am content to feed upon raw flesh, If 't be but once a month a Brittaine.
Reminiscences from the Standard Jew-plays are frequent:
TRAVAILES MERCH. of VEN. (JEW of MALTA).
Zariph : A Christian spaniell Anthonio : How like a fawning clawes and fauns for publican he looks.
gaine. Barabas : We Jews can fawne
like spaniels.
»Contrast the Taffurs, i. e. Christians who ate Saracens in crusading times, (article W. Mulder in Neophüologus 1919, IV, p.p. 289-299).


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Sir Anth. j I invite you to a Bassanio : If it please you to dine banket with us.
Zariph : No bankets! Shylocke : I will not eat with you.
Zariph : Seed of thebondwoman Shylocke : Hagar's offspring.
Zariph : Good newes, good Shylocke : Good newes, goode newes? newes! the lice of Egypt Barabas : the plagues of Egypt.
swine devourers „ swineeating Christians.
Hallyb. : Sit at his banket, Shylocke f to feed upon the Let him run out his prodigal Christian,
prodigal expense. help him to waste his
borrowed purse.
Zariph : A Christian's torture Shylocke : I'll torture him, Til
is a Jewes bliss. plague him.
Haüyb. : requires Zariph: "to Poriia : refers to hard Jewish have a heart relentlesse hearts "rough hearts
as a flint. of flint."
Barabas : speaks of "the unrelenting flinty hearts of Christians"
Zariph : Musique is heavens Merch.otVen.: in several passages rethorique though not in the part
of Shylocke.
II A Christian turrCd Turk (1612)
This play by Robert Daborne has been edited by Professor Swaen of Amsterdam (Anglia XX. 1898). It was entered on the Stationers' Register on Feb. 1, 1612, when it had already been publicly acted, so that the composition probably belongs to 1611. From a reference it contains to the assassination of King Henry TV of France on May 14th, 1610, it is clear that the latter half of 1610 is the terminus a quo, for that tragic event is a turning point in the action of the play. It resembles the Travails of the Brothers Sherley in thus dealing with contemporary adventure, bringing the events down tb date, if it does not even


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anticipate. Some of the main characters are indeed persons actually alive and notorious in England and elsewhere up to the time of production. The Christian presented as turning Turk is the terrible pirate Captain Ward1, a fisherman of Feversham in Kent, afterwards of Plymouth, who in the early years of the reign of the wise Arch-Caesar on this earth, i. e. James I took to free-trade in league with Murat-Reys, Prince of Tunis. Whether Daborne had any channel through which he derived particulars concerning Pirate Ward's apostasy and death, has not become known. The printed sources with which Daborne may be assumed to have been familiar, were two prose-tales and perhaps a few ballads.
The prose pamphlets are:
A true report of the Proceedings, Overthrowes and now present Estate of Captains Ward and Danseker, by Andrew Barker, 1609 (Brit. Mus. C. 27, c. 6); and Ward and Danseker, Two notorious Pyrates, Ward an Englishman and Danseker a Dutchman; with a true relation of the most Piracies by them committed unto the sicet of Aprill 16092.
These pamphlets teil of Ward and Danseker as very much alive, though there are hopes that both Ward and his assistants are at length deprived of most of their strength; there has been a mutiny among Ward's men, and "for certaine Ward of Tunis and Dansker of Argier are now at difference."
1 See Julian. 8. Corbett, England in the Mediterranean, 1603—1713, Vol. I, Chapter II. References are also in Father Pierre Dan, Histoire de Barbarie et de See Coraoir«,(1637),andEmmanuel van Meteren's History of theNetherlands; van M. states that 'Simon den Danser' was a native of Dordt.
2 Bodleian, Wood 371. (Swaen-Logeman in Anglia).


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Next there are two undated ballads: 'The Seamans song of Captain Ward, the famous Pyrate of the World, and an English man borrC; to the tune of, The Kings going to Bulloign; and 'She Seamans Song of Hansehar the Dutchman, his robberies done at sed'; to the same tune *.
, The ballads being probably founded on the prose tales, are of a slightly later date; however, there is as yet no rumour in them of the death of either pirate, who still 'display their threatning colours' and it can only be hoped that 'God will give them soon an overthrow'. The mention of 'Ward the Pirat on the boistrous maine' in the Juvenilia of George Wither(s) (1588— 1667) was apparently penned about the same time, though these poems were not printed till 1626.
Daborne assumes his audience to be familiar with 'What heretofore set others pennes aworke', by which he possibly means the pamphlets and the ballads; his words however would be more applicable to some obscure and now lost play, for he says:
Their triviall Scoenes might best affoord to show
The basenesse of his birth etc.
His Muse is to fly a higher pitch, but with no less regard to veracity:
We give not what we could, but what know true.
Such asseverations do not usually inspire much confidence, nor would they have been required if he had given the story consonantly with known facts. The public seem to have resented the odium of having turned Turk cast by Daborne upon a wicked wight for whom they had yet an affectionate admiration:
2 Bodleian, Wood 401. (Swaen-Logeman in Anglia).


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Captain Ward of England!
Christian princes have but few
Such Seamen, if that he were true,
And would but for his King & country fight. They hoped he might some day, and meanwhile they would not see him maligned by a lot of land-lubbers and a semi-parson. Hence the tragedy was "oppressed and much martir'd", probably in terms of bad eggs or apples; and strange to say, to this damning of the play on the stage we owe its publication, procured though carelessly, by the author himself.
About Danseker the Dutch Water-Beggar we know just as little. The archives of his native province of Holland have thus far yielded no tracé of the 'Archpirate of Flushing'. In Captain Barker's report he is always called Danser which is perhaps his nickname derived from a talent for dancing the hornpipe. Father Dan calls him le Danseur. We should however take other possibilities into account: in Hamlet 'Dansker' is the word for a Dane; Dansker has also been interpreted as Dantzigerl. Any high or low German or Scandinavian would come under the category of Dutchman. Longfellow has a fine ballad about him in Birds of Passage: a dutch picture.
1 Langenfelt-Logeman, English Studies (Amsterdam) Vol. VI. Febr. 1924.
Towards the end of Dekker's 'If Ais be not a good Play, the Divett ia in it', among the 'Soules, for whose oomming all heil long hath fought', there is the following reference to Dansker and Ward: Pluto: Is Ward and Dantziker then cornet Omnes: Yes: Dantziker is come.
Pluto: Wheres the dutch Schellum? wheres hells factor, ha? Rufman: Charon has bound him for a thousand yeeres,
To tug ats oare; he scourd the Seas so well,
Charon will make him ferriman of heil. Pluto: Where's Ward?


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Simon Danz has come home again From cruising about with his buccaneers He has singed the beard of the King of Spain, An carried away the Dean of Jaen And sold him in Algiers. He rétires to 'his house by the Maese,' but Voices mysterious far and near, Sound of the wind and sound of the sea, Are calling and whispering in his ear, "Simon Danz! What stayest thou here? Come forth and follow me!"
So he thinks he shall go to the sea again, and Daborne's play is supposed to deal with the latter end of this terrible brace of sea-dogs, whom the united
Rufm: The Merchants are not pilld nor pulld enough,
They are yet but shaven; when they are fleade, hee'le come. And bring to heil fat booties of rich theeves, A crew of swearers and drinkers the best that lives. Omnes: Ward is not ripe for damning yet.
This play of Dekker's must also be dated after May 1610, for Ravaillac the murderer of Henry IV is among those tortured in Heil. Daborn in the Epistle to our play: 'To the knowing reader' seems to be sorry, that he had not let some of his former labors go out»»the divels name alone, i. e. he regretted having had a hand in "The Divell is in it". It would therefore seem that Ward was known to have survived Danseker. The Dutch Schellum's name is here clearly given as Dantziker. This tends to support the contention that Dansker properly means: man of Dantzig, and was incorrectly used as 'Dane'. Was it perhaps rather the Dantzigers than the Danes under Hamlet who smote "the sledded Polacks on the ice" ? Another reference is in The Alchemist V. Hl. Dol.: This is the whistle that the sailor's wife
Brought you to know an her husband were with Ward.
navies of Spain and Venice, and of Sir Anthony Shirley, were insufficiënt to put down.


161
As the plot is rather difficult to follow and Genest's summary is inadequate, an outline is here given:
On the Irish coast [historically in Plymouth Sound] the Pirate Ward has impressed some men, who finding themselves at the mercy of the 'Terror of Kings, the conqueror of the Westerne World', obey neeessity, hoping for a chance of escape. On the Barbary Coast of Africa the pirates sight two vessels: a French merchantman from Marseilles, and a man-of-war in pursuit. Ward is the first to capture the tradingvessel. Among his prisoners is Alizia (young Raymond's bride) who to escape dishonour, had just before the fight put on male attire; she is retained by Ward as his 'French ship boy, Fidelio.' — The other corsair comes up and Captain Francisco claims 'a moyty of the prise', or else chaüenges Ward to mortal combat. Ward accepts the duel on the deck of his own bark; the contest, in which both display generosity, results in mutual vows of brotherhood; henceforward Franeisco is Ward's better spirit.
Meanwhile Gallop (Ward's officer) absconds with some malcontents in Francisco's vessel, and they make their way to Tunis, where the further action is now concentrated as follows: — Dansiker the Dutch pirate has received through his wife (who lives at Marseilles) the prospect of a pardon from King Henry IVth of France. He consequently proposes to his mates to redeem their honour by firing at midnight the ships of all the robbers in Tunis harbour. To draw the crews away to the upper town, they will blow up the house of wealthy Benwash 'the Renegado Iew who gives free and open entertain to all of our
11


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profession,' after which act of gratitude they mean to 'returne nobly' to France. Shortly after the arrival of Gallop and his gang, Ward and Francisco make their landfall at Tunis. Gallop thus caught, saves his skin by pleading that he had been kidnapped by Francisco's crew.
Benwash the Jew bargains for the booty and the slaves. He is accompanied by his Turkish wife Agar (Hagar), her sister Voada and their brother Crosman *. Agar becomes enamoured of Gallop, and Voada of Dansiker and also of the 'lovely boy, rare featured', the disguised Alizia. Rabshake the bond-servant is to guard the women, for though Benwash uses his wife as a decoy for business, yet he 'would keep that Jem untouch't'. Dansiker and Ward brawling over Voada are separated by the Governor. This worthy is an ex-Christian, and together with Crosman and Benwash he schemes to make Ward turn Turk, that he may rid them of Dansiker. To prevail upon Ward 'to abiure the beliefe of his ancestors' is to be Voada's part, though she loathes him with the Judas beard. Ward succumbs to her seduction, and finally allows the Mufti to 'prepare some triviall ceremonies'. In an elaborate dumb show Ward is shown turning Turk, although the Chorus blushes to disclose his renegade name. The rest of the drama proves that 'black deeds will have black ends'.
That same night Gallop climbs up to Agar's window. A fire breaks out in the house (Dansiker's scheme). Gallop, in true Decamerone-fashion, escapes through the sewer. Benwash, come to rescue his wife and
1 Kara Osman, bey of Tunis.


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his gold, suddenly discovers all about Gallop's stolen visit, and now wants the house to burn on with the adulterers, but the fire is got under by the unsuspecting Ward and his sailors.
Ward's fleet being burnt, he returns a ruined man, to find Voada, now his wife, making love to her slave, the French ship-boy, Fidelio ( = the girl Alizia in male disguise). Voada is giving Fidelio a diamond, with which to ransom his (her) supposed brother Ferdinand. Ward she repulses telling him (twice over):
I hate thee more
Then all thy wealth made me love thee before.
When she is gone, Fidelio begs Ward to help him escape that night in the Dutchman's vessel. Ward treacherously leads Voada to the appointed place. The Ferdinand who is discovered waiting for Fidelio is pistolled by Ward. Fidelio then coming up is stabbed, and is now revealed to be the girl Alizia, the young man is Raymond her betrothed who had sought her out. The two innocents breathe their last together. The frustrated Voada vows to famish Ward to death. A scuffle föllows in which he wounds her, and upon her screaming the watch drag away the raving Ward, who conjures them to let him eat the raw flesh of Christians rather than be starved.
Benwash and Rabshake having enticed Gallop once more to Agar's room, the wife is strangled and Gallop slaughtered.* To escape the consequences, Benwash explains, they must pretend to have been overpowered by murderers. So he gets Rabshake to wound him slightly, and then persuades his confederate to allow himself to be bound, whereupon he hangs Rabshake,


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and then starts crying 'Thieves, murderers'. Enter Mufty, Governor, Off icers; and Dansiker disguised. [It appears that Dansiker having failed to obtain his pardon, owing to the death by assassination of King Henry, May 14th, 1610, had returned to Tunis to acquire further merit by killing more pirates: the Marseilles merchants had opposed his pardon, unless he delivered to them 'Benwash the Iew as his just ransome'.] Benwash declares: 'Three strangers rusht in suddenly, and having rif led us, did act this horrid murder.' He recognises and gives away Dansiker, who poniards Benwash and is then handed over to the hangman for torture, refusing to turn Turk and save himself.
Ward now ahnost starved to death, obtains an interview with his wife Voada, kills her, and after cursing 'all Ottamans' he is cut to pieces, his remains being 'cast into the raging bowels of the sea'. Thus Ward 'sold his country, turn'd Turke(?) and died a slave'.
The Jewish characters for whose sake we are studying the play, are not uninteresting. There are three of them; Benwash, a wholesale receiver of pirates' booty and a slave dealer; and his servants Rabshake and Reuben. Especialfy since the Spanish expulsion of 1492 te Barbary states had been the home of many Jews, traders, navigators and pirates. Some of them seem to have had a smattering of English, such as the Barbary Jew who sailed with Captain James Lankaster in 1601 on the first expedition of the EastIndia Company and rendered services as interpreter between the English and the Arabic speaking Sultan


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of Achin in Sumatra \ There is furthermore an *Epistle to the Jewes in Barbarie' written in English, called "The Messiah already come." It was composed in Barbary in 1610 (the time of our play) and adressed to the dispersed Jews of those parts. The author John Harrison2 had learned Hebrew from Rabbi Shimeon: 'Seeing with much compassion the grievous oppression under which you grone, taxations, vexations, exactions, 'grammings' (as you call them); drubbings (so many hundreth blows at once) with that base servile state under which you live, have moved me. God grant you may make use of the remedy." In Barbary however the most effective as well as the most congenial remedy was conversion to Islam. Accordingly Benwash is a renegado Moslem-Jew. The almost contemporary book De universali et novissima Judaeorum vocatione, London 1590, describing the African Jews also says: ab eis undique petantur illae plagae in quibus ampliore fruantur libertate quam si inter Christianos degerent (Turcismus enim Judaismo cognatus admodum et affinis est). Benwash is currently named the Jew and — perhaps secretly — still visits the Synagogue (line 878). The motive for his tuming Turk is peculiar: Iew.:Tash, my wife man, thou hast forgot how deere I bought my liberty, renounced my law, The law of Moses, turn'd Turke, all to keepe My bed free from these Mahometan Dogges. I would not be a monster, Rabshake, a cuckold. Rab.: I have not forgotten sir that you damned yoursélfe because you would not be a Cornuto.
1 Jew. Quart. Rev. IX.
1 Second Edition Amsterdam 1619 (by Giles Thorp).


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It is all the more surprising that he allows his wife Agar to appear so freely in public, and it is his own fault that though the Mahometans respect her wedded state, the English pirates do not.
The Governor of Tunis has also changed his religion:
Gov.: What difference in me as I am a Turke, And was a Christian? If any ods be, 't is on Mahomets side, His servitors thrive best, I am sure. If this religion were so damnable God would soon destroy it quite.
Ward is a match at Divinity for both renegadoes, but Voada's beauty is more potent than all sophistry: The way that leads to love is no black way.
Ward's friend Francisco pleaded in vain against his infidelity, as did also some of the Christian men he had stolen on the Irish coast and whom he had sold as galley-slaves, after breaking their old father's heart:
Heare us but now, Wee'1 forgive all our wrongs, with patience row At the unweldy oare; we will forget That we were sold by you, and think we set Our bodies gainst your soule, the deerest purchase Of your Redeemer, that we regain'd you so: Leave but this path damnation guides you to. Ward notwithstanding turns Turk, though he is gratuitously supposed to have evaded circumcision. This is of course mere hedging on the part of Daborn, who seems to have been afraid to go the whole hog and have his play pelted off the stage. In his frenzied


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doting on Voada, Ward protests to her in the proper Turkish style: thou best of women,
Know if this arm were barr'd all other meanes,
From hearts of Christians it should dig thee food.
This is the true Saracen, feeding on Christian babes, the ogre-Turk. Danseker compares favourably with the Governor, Ward and Benwash, for he not only repents of his piracy but refuses to purchase his life at the cost of apostasy.
The Jews are most actiive in Scoena Ultima, when Benwash and Rabshake kill the unfaithful wife Agar, and Gallop. To entice that scapegrace once more into the house, Benwash had compelled Agar to sign a letter to the red-beard captain, swearing "by Abraham's dust, by the ashes of our forefathers and by written writ" to forgive her. These oaths he now breaks by equivocation: "I sware as I was a Turke, and I will cut your throat as I am a Jew". However he does not, but he has her garrotted by Rabshake. Thus far we have had the common jealous-husband theme. Rabshake is now to be removed as an accomplice who knows too much. Here we seem to come to a point of contact with the Jew of Malta, where the slave Ithimore is poisoned by means of flowers when he has betrayed Barabas, — but as if to prove his independence of Marlow, Daborne borrows a device from another source, the Spanish Tragedy (which contains not a word of Spanish but plenty of Italian). There we have 'False Pedringano hang'd by quaint device'. Rabshake, though he has his doubts, and himself refers to 'the play of Pedringano', is yet gulled with Benwash's glib lies, and is hanged like a weasel.


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But Benwash's own hour is now at hand: the disguised Danseker stabs him; when he feels himself dying, he confesses the murders:
the cause, my wife proved false, untrue;
Beare witnesse, though I liv'd a Turke, I dye a Iew. He says it, but he does not proclaim the Unity.1
There the play ends as far as the Jews are concerned. It does not seem worth while to attempt further comment; it belongs to that class of libels on humanity at large and foreigners in particular by which playwrights had to rake up a living at the mercy of the rabble patronizing the common stages. One of the things it helps to show is that the Jew was an exotic to Elizabethan and Jacobean England.
III The Custom of the Country (1620)
The Custom of the Country, included in the 1647 Folio edition of the plays of Francis Beaumont (1584— 1616) and John Fletcher (1579—1625) must be looked upon as Fletcher's work only. It is based on Cervantes' last novel, Persiles y Sigismunda 1616, just too late for Beaumont to have seen the original.
"With my foot in the stirrup already, and the terrors of death before my eyes, I write, noble Marquis, to thee", says Cervantes' dedication to the Marquis de Lemos. "Yesterday I received extreme unction, and to-day I write this. Adieu to gaiety, adieu to wit, adieu my pleasant friends, for I am dying, yet hoping to see you all again, happy in another world. — Madrid 19th April 1616." Four days after, on the 23rd April
1 Compare Anatolica, by H. C. Luke, 1924, p. 30: "Subtle Dönmes, a aect of outwardly Moslem crypto-Jews, at Salonica."


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1616, aged 67, the author of Don Quixote died; if the Spanish and the English calendars had not differed by ten days, Shakespeare and Cervantes would have departed this life on the very same day.
His last work was Cervantes' favourite; it was reprinted in Spanish (Brucelas ano 1618)1 and shortly after translated into French and thence into English: "The Travels of Persiles, Prince of Thule and the faire Sigismunda Princesse of Friesland. — A Northern
History; wherein are interlaced many witty
discourses. The first Copie, beeing written in Spanish, translated afterwards into French, and now, last, into English. London 1619, printed by H. L. for M. L."
The earliest date for Fletcher's play is therefore about 1620. Though the English translation attempts to prune down the exuberance of the Romance, the reader is still baffled by the extraordinary want of keeping, for whereas Cervantes2 at once determines the period by bringing in the final expulsion of the Moors, and soldiers who served under Charles the Fifth, also speaking of Lisbon as belonging to Spain, at the same time he draws his personages from a Nibelungen or Volsunga-land: "In the furthest part of Norway, almost under the pole Arctique is the He which is houlden the furthest of the world on that side, whose name is Thule, commonly called Island
1 A copy in the Royal Library, The Hague.
* Cervantes' model was perhaps "The Aethiopian Story, or the Adventures of Two Lovers, Chariolea the Daughter of the King of Aethiopia and Theagenes a Noble Thessalian" by Heliodorus, Bishop of Tricoa in Thessaly, who wrote bis romance in Greek towards the end of the 4th century. (Note to the translation by L. D. S. London, 1854).


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(Iceland) More forward under the same North,
about three hundred leagues from Thule is the De called Frisland, discovered within these four hundred yeares, and is so great that it makes a mighty Kingdom, no less then Sicily; another Ile besides, almost alwaies covered with snowe, named Groenland, on a point whereof is founded a Monastery of Saint Thomas." The novel is an inextricable conglomerate of stories, but somehow we gradually drift South, to Spain and last to Italy. Fortunately the only episodes we have to do with are in terra cognita, Rome, though at the very end of the long book. It seems the best plan to give the extracts from Cervantes' novel first, and compare the story as found again in parts of Fletcher's play.
They enter Some, and lodge in the house of a Jew named Manasseh (Bk. IV, ch. UI)
... .Two men saluted [the Pilgrims] and asked if all this company had a lodging prepared where they were expected; and if peradventure they had none, they would lodge them as princes: for you shall know, said they, that we are Jewes; I am called Zabulon and my companion Abiud. Our profession is to furnish houses with all moveables which are needfull for the quality of those that inhabit them; and according to the price which they will bestowe, so rich are the moveables which we give them.... Let me be killed said Abiud, if this be not the Frenchman which yesterday so well liked the house of our companion Manasses, which is furnished as a King's Palace, over against the Portugall Arch; wherefore they guided our Pilgrimes thither, fuH of contentment and ioy.... Whilest the Poet and Periander thus conferred, Zabulon the Jew came unto them, who told Periander that this evening he would cause him to see there Hypolita of Ferara; which was one of the fairest women of Italy.
Of the danger Periander fel into, in the house of the Courtezan Hypolita of Ferara. (Ch. Vil)
Many faults are covered by good education, pompous apparell of the person and rich ornament* of the house. Hypolita enioyed all these; a Courtisan Lady,


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who in wealth was another Flora, and not inferiour unto her in beauty or courtesie.... Neverthelesse, not any of these things availed with Periander in comming into her house. Hypolita had before seene him in the street, and so graven his eomely shape in her soule upon the first sight, that to view him the better at her ease and to have entire possession of him, she had intreated Zabulon to bring him to her house: which shee had so well furnished, hanged with tapestry and adorned, that it rather seemed a marriage-bed then a receptacle for Pügrimes.
Hypolita came to Periander and with a marvellous good grace cast her arms about his necke, saying: "Of a certaine I will now see if the Spaniards be as valiant as they make themselves to be." When Periander saw this boldnesse, he thought all the house feil upon him, and gently putting her back with his arme, thus spake unto her: "Pilgrime», though they be Spaniards are not bound to bee more valiant then others: but advise your selfe wherein you have need of my valor, without prejudioe to eyther of us, and you shall be obeyed." —
"Seeing you promise mee, answered Hypolita to doe what I shall teil you, enter with me into this chamber." — "Although I be a Spaniard, answered Periander, I am yet partly a coward, as are many others, and feare you more alone then an army of enemies. Cause that somebody may conduct us, and leade me where you please."
Hypolita called two of her maides and with Zabulon who was present at all these things, commanded them to be their guides into the Hall.... "O! Hypolita, I wish that among so many portraicts, thou hadst onely one that might have represented chastity unto thee, and mooved thee not to tempt that of Periander: Putting apart all courtesie, he strove to get out at the hall dore and steale away. Hypolita perceiving it, layd hold of his lether cloke, and as she endevored to stay him, and he againe to escape, she descried under his cassocke the crosse of diamonds. And seeing that hee went away cleere, in despite of the sweet force wherewith she would stay him, shee feil upon an imagination: Periander having left his cloke in the hands of this new Egyptian, to triumph over an enemy who could not be vanquished but by flight, she went to the window, and with great cries began to call to the people, saying: "Stoppe this thiefe, who comming into my house as a Pilgrime, hath robbed me of a jewell that is worth a city." Two of the Pope 's guard brought Periander before the Go vernor.] Which when Hypolita saw shee went from the window; and scratohing her face said to her servants: 'Alas my friends! what have I done ? I have afflicted him who hath stollen away my soule....' Commanding her caroche to be made ready she would goe and declare his innocency: for her heart would not suffer to see the apple of her eyes to be beaten. She found the Governour with the crosse in his hands, examining Periander upon the fact, and exclaimed: T am amorous, blinde, foolish: This Pilgrime shall be discharged, and I abide the punishment, which the Lord Governour will impose upon mee'. And there-upon she told from point to point al that had happened betwixt her and Periander. The Governour sharply rebuked the woman, &


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intreating Periander to forgive her, he restored to him his crosse, and set him at liberty.
How Hypolita the Courtizan inchanteth Auristela, through the meanes of Zabulons wife the Iew. (Ch. VHI)
Hypolita returned to her house with greater confusion then repentance, and no lesse pensive then amorous. And reasoning in her selfe she saide: Goe to then, let Auristela die; it may come to passé that he will change his humour and become as pleasant and amorous, as hee is now cruell and savage. She made Zabulon acquainted with her purpose, knowing that he had a wife, who in reputation and effect was the greatest sorceress in Rome. She not onely filled Zabulon with gifts and promises, but adjoyned threatenings: for presents and threats induce a Iew to promise and execute all things impossible. The next morning began the inchantments and witchcrafts of the malicious Iulia, the wife of Zabulon, to work on the bodie of Auristela. It was not above two houres after shee feil sicke, but the naturall roses of her cheekes were of a leaden colour, and the pearls of her teeth, blacke; it seemed that her very haire had altered the colour, and the naturall position of her face was turned. Yet for all this, Periander found her nothing the lesse faire; because hee beheld her in his soule where he had imprinted her.
Hypolita received very great contentment when she saw the inchantments of the cruell Julia were so apparent in prejudice of Auristelas health. But the paine which Periander feit for her sicknesse was so great, that it caused in him the same effects that she had, and brought him to such weaknesse, that all beganne to doubt his life, no lesse then Auristelas. Which Hypolita seeing, and that shee killed her selfe with her own sword (if Auristela died, Periander would not be long alive) shee had recourse to the Iewesse, praying her to moderate the charms which consumed Auristela. The Iewesse upon her intreaty made her well, as if sicknesse or health had beene in her hands. Auristela then ceased to impayre, the sunne of her beauty began to shine againe, the organ of her voyce returned, and the like effects happened to Periander.
We may leave it at that and now turn to the drama, detaching the corresponding part of the plot in which "Zabulon, a Jew servant to Hippolyta" bestirs himself. Cervantes' story moved from Lisbon to Italy, the English play begins there and moves back to Lisbon. As compared with the novel there is a good deal of shifting of names and parts: the witch Zenocia and the Danish Prince Amoldo become the Italian lovers. On their wedding day these fly from some part of


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Italy that shall be nameless to evade the ius primae noctis claimed on the bride by the Duke. Their bark is captured by the Portuguese sea-captain Leopold. In sight of the Portuguese coast Arnoldo, leaving his virgin bride in the hands of the corsair, jumps overboard and swims ashore. Leopold spares thehonour of his captive Zenocia, and destines her as a gift to the lady Hippolyta of whom he is enamoured. Zenocia is to be her slave, and in recognition of Leopold's relative chivalry she consents to plead his love with the wealthy and beauteous Hippolyta. Strange to say this lady residing at Lisbon is an Italian, and quite well related:
Ferrara's Royal Duke is proud to call her His best, his Noblest and most Happy Sister. Fortune has made her Mistress of herself, Wonder of Italy, of all hearts Mistress. This description given by 'good Zabulon' her servant may be partial; we are not bound to believe him as to the facts, whilst adjectives are a matter of opinion; at any rate Ferrara's Royal Duke is for the present out of touch with his adventurous sister. As Arnoldo is wandering penniless and despondent about the Lisbon streets, bewailing Zenocia whom he had left to her fate, he is accosted by Zabulon. Though greeted in the Devil's name
— because you are a Jew, Sir, And courtesies come sooner from the Devil Than any of your nation, — Zabulon professing that he is a man and a brother, gives Arnoldo gold as an earnest of advancement and good fortune, if he will follow. Arnoldo reflecting that:


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— There is an hour in each man's life appointed To make his happiness if then he seize it — follows .'his good Angel the Jew', to the house of his compatriot, the reputed sister of Ferrara's Royal Duke. While he is there changing his tattered garb for magnificent attire, Zabulon has spread a banquet in Circe's bower. Dazed with the splendour, the ravishing harmonies, warmed with spiced and perfumed wines, to him appears Hippolyta the enthralling. She bewitches "the Roman hardly more than boy", lavishing upon him all her expert blandishments. After unblushing wooings Hippolyta orders Zabulon, who spiritedly seconds his mistress, to prepare the green chamber. She slips pearls into the coy young man's hand, but Arnoldo at the crisis of his ordeal gathers his virtue together and determined to 'choak befor I yield', he turns lumpish, shakes off the lady,
Away base woman; disease dweil with thee!
and flies with honour, but also with the pearls and toys. 'Where are your favours now, Madam ?' complains Zabulon, and the wanton mad with despite, sends her henchman after the runaway to complete the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife. Zabulon promises
I'll teach him a new dance For playing fast and loose with such a Lady,
and shortly after returns with the news that Arnoldo has been arrested, and by Zabulon's false testimony, sentenced to lose his head. But this is not 'the means to quench the scorching heat of [her] inraged desires',


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and so distracted with remorse Hippolyta rushes out to save her contemner. Finding him in the custody of the Governor she confesses all, and is forgivenin consideration of services past: 'The hundred thousand Crowns you lent the City was a good then, which I ballance with your ill now; I also forgive your instrument the Jew.' The leniency towards the Jew is a dramatic necessity; he is reserved for further service. Amoldo then is released and with a good grace feigns to make his peace with Hippolyta. He accompanies her home and makes the staggering discovery of the presence of his chaste wife Zenocia in the house of vice. He succeeds in obtaining an interview with her there. Their mutual explanations are both espied and overheard by Hippolyta above and Leopold below, whilst the ubiquitous Zabulon wastes some of his valuable time in securing for Leopold a Bravo, to disfigure Arnoldo so as to leave him an object unfit for Hippolyta's love. This however proves to be an expensive job, and when Leopold hears from the confessions of the lovers how utterly Arnoldo despises the lascivious beauty, he realizes that there is at least no call for jealousy. To Hippolyta her eavesdropping is less reassuring; her raging fit returns on hearing Arnoldo promise that he will rescue Zenocia. She comes forward and orders her servants to pinion Arnoldo, whilst Zabulon is to strangle the slave Zenocia to her husband's face. Zenocia being a bondwoman this is considered within the law. Zenocia forbids her husband to pray to the White Devil for her life, or attempt to save her by yielding to the foul woman's desire. At his other ear


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Zabulon insinuates the advice to satisfy Hippolyta's demand privately and so solve an awkward situation, .... when the Governor Manuel enters and frees Zenocia at the prayers of her father, who had arrived from Italy in the nick of time. Zabulon shares the disappointment of his mistress. Thus baulked of her prey she resorts to witchcraft, and despatches Zabulon to Sulpitia, who (in another plot worked into this composite play, but which we are glad to leave aside) follows an unmentionable variety of Mrs. Warren's profession. He bears to her Zenocia's picture in wax, so that the bawd, assuming Magie Robes, may melt it over a blue flame fed with dead men's eyes, and thus work a baleful spell on Zenocia. When this charm has almost worked its bane and Zenocia is rapidly pining away, Hippolyta comes to gloat over her guiltless rival. But the death hour of the innocent Zenocia is certain by sympathy to be also Arnoldo's. Hippolyta recoiling again orders the spell to be undone, for which there is just time.
When the actors make their bow Arnoldo of course leads his Zenocia. But two further arrangements, Leopold conducting Hippolyta, and Zabulon with Sulpitia, leave us wondering which of them most richly deserves his fate, and which offers the greater insult to decency.
The above is but one strand in the treble plot, the only one that claims our attention, because of Zabulon. Lee said (in 1888) 'he plays an important part, and an attempt is here made to do some justice to his racial characteristics', whilst Koeppel (1904) says 'Fletcher hat den farblosen Gesellen aus seiner Quelle übernommen und nichts getan, der Gestalt eine aus-


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gepragte jüdische Eigenart zu verleihen', with which Eckhardt agrees, remarking 'ihm fehlen auch die typischen Eigenschaften seines Volkes'. Creizenach is silent on this, one of the coarsest plays in existence. Ward (II. 721) quoting Dryden as a witness to its licentiousness, is reticent and only qualifies his rebuke with the admission that the composite plot is well-knit.
I have given prominenee to Zabulon and thus furnished the materials for the reader's judgment, inviting those who can to tracé any *attempt made to do justice to bis racial characteristics'. Personally I cannot help feehng that Cervantes' effort is not a success, and I have no hesitation in pronouncing Fletcher's a failure. The circumstances under which Cervantes wrote about Jews were not favourable to a portrayal worthy of so great a genius. In his day Spain no longer harboured respectable overt Jews; but until the second and last expulsion (1631) the trouble with the crypto-Jews exacerbated hatred of them. Execration of Jews was a Spanish Catholic's birthright and prime duty. During his stay in Italy, his military service in the Levant and his long captivity in Algiers, Cervantes no doubt had some opportunities of observing Jews, but they were ex-Marannos, and on the enemy side. It was beyond nature to see them from any but a prejudiced angle. His book had to be read by Spaniards, and we may be sure Cervantes did not care to go to the stake and to Purgatory for speaking well of Jews. Nevertheless Cervantes does refrain from upsetting the proper semblance of probabilities in the latter part of
12


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bis romance, by keeping the Jews out till he gets to Rome, and then eagerly brings them in. Fletcher's lapses are far worse; especially his carrying the Jew from Rome to Lisbon, is running the film backward. Fletcher would have pleaded ignorance absolute and entire of Jews and their ways, rather than have given his work as the result of studies made in England. If the Spanish book had not possessed an appendix dealing with after-adventures in Italy, and the whole had not been translated into English, there would have been no Zabulon on the Jacobean stage to make the unskilful laugh and the judicious grieve.
Colley Cibber (1671—1757), who as Dr. Johnson said, 'mutilated the plays of two generations', and who as an adapter neither spared Shakespeare nor the lesser Elizabethans, re-wrote the Custom of the Country, under the title of Love makes a Man, or The Fop's Fortune. The correspondence between the plays is closest in the Hippolyta-plot, but'there is no Zabulon. His functions are supplied by the Jacques who was Sulpitia's servant in Fletcher. What caused Cibber towards the middle of the 18th century, to eliminate the Jew from his play? There were plenty of Italian and Portuguese Jews in Hanoverian England, but they would not fit into plays of that style. Probably Fletcher would have had the grace to improve or remove his Jews if there had been any materials in England for correcting bis borrowed prejudices, but seeing that in the absence of any Jews in Elizabethan England, he could neither study, nor grieve them, he followed in the footsteps of his sinularly situated Spanish predecessor, and wronged the absent according to precedent.


CHAPTER V
Names
Will the names of Jews in Elizabethan plays give us an insight into what was in the minds of their sponsors? This is by no means an idle or a prosaic question. Names are poetry. As pain, joy and thought pressed for utterance, song and speech weiled up in early man, shaping his bodily organs to new spiritual functions: the instruments of breathing now became the media of the vocal gift as well. And that art of putting emotion and thought into sound, was it not magie? Man divined the names for creatures and when by deep brooding he had found the right charm, then by the power of the Word he commanded, and was obeyed. Spirits of the unseen remained unsubdued, but that was because the true spell that would bind them or propitiate, had still to be found. Climbing after power, Man would have known the name and essence of the Most High, but God refused: "I am that I am" (Ex. 3.14) was the barrier.
In later ages language was put to humbler uses, but faith in * the power of names was not destroyed. The name is feit as akin to the soul; to name a newborn child is to cast its horoscope. He shall be Imanuel, Victor, Baruch, Leo ; she shall be Beatrix, Simcha, Candida. If Lions prove craven, Felixes


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or Ashers seem to wear their ineffective talismans in mockery, it is in spite of their good names. Alas for the Stephens not worthy of wreaths, the Sophias who refuse to be wise!
Stage-names are often more banal, but in a superficial way more apt. Dramatic characters are simpler in construction than real men, being often Jbuilt up on a few salient traits. And the names to present them by need not be fixed till the characters, their deeds and their end have been determined by the author, who may then shape the names accordingly. When the humorist has a faculty that way the nom parlant is the personality in a nutshell: Murdstone, O'Trigger, Dobbin, Morecraft. Too typical a name, however, commits the author to a character that must remain stationary, or can merely develop along its own already marked line: Pecksniff must remain the hypocrite till the last. A family-name of this kind is inconvenient: there is Joseph Stjrface aü right, but his brother Charles has a different character. Lady Teazle is a tease indeed, but she derives her name from her husband who is not. The more veiled speaking name is therefore best: when Scrooge is reborn we can forget that he ever was a screw; all Cratchits need not forever scratch it at fifteen bob a week.
As for Jewish names, if to some they make but indifferent music, that may be partly because as foreign words they have suffered changes. Some are mere labels stuck on to lay-figures; a few are misfits, yet occasionally thereby hangs a tale. But as a rule they afford us clues to the origin of the character,


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and they are indices to the dramatist's leanings, to the nature and extent of his knowledge of things Jewish. These clues we will endeavour to follow up. But I must begin with a word of warning: There is scarcely a presumption that a real person ora literary character should be thought of as Jewish, solely for the reason that he bears a Hebrew name. Three main streams having sprang from the same fountain-head of the Old Testament, any Gideon, Abel, David, Joseph, John, Samuel or Matthew, may be a Christian or a Mohamedah as likely as a Jew. Ebenezer Scrooge and Jacob Marley were Jewish only in their Christian names. Indeed such Hebrew names as John and Matthew are now chiefly favoured among the nations of the West. Germany is btam, France is ono (sister of Moses, or wife of Herod) there is Uncle btnav and Brother jrur. "In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." Michael is nowhere so much at home as across St.-George's Channel. Taffy was and is a Welshman, jam-r figures in the world in many varieties as Juan, Giovanni, Iwan. Dr. Samuel Johnson is R'bi Shemuel b. Jochan.
Benjamin D'Israeli shared that propensity with some of his hrethren, of seeing a Jewinalmosteverybody and was burlesqued for it by Thackeray in Codlingsby (i. e. Coningsby) one of the witty 'Novels by Eminent Hands', in Punch 1847. It is a persiflage of Jews as imagined by the higher political journalists:
Godfrey de Bouillon, Marquis of Codlingsby, is startled to recognize in a Holywell-street clothier, his friend Rafael de Mendoza. The frippery-shop


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into which he is ushered, is only a masquerade warehouse, just part of his camouflage. "Half the Hebrew^s life is a disguise; he shields himself in eraft." This Rafael de Mendoza the polygot politician was a Prince in France, he had just saved the Turkish monarchy by a scheme of huge bribes. The interior at the back of the tawdry shop beggars oriental luxury. There are wonderful carpets and old pictures. "That Leonardo came from Genoa, and was a gift to our father from my cousin Marshal Manasseh1, and as for the Rafael, I suppose you are aware he was of our people." Mirjam Mendoza seated on a mother of pearl music stool, sings, like Jenny Lind. "Lind is a name of Hebrew race." She sang no other than the songs of her nation, by Jewish composers: a hymn by Rossini, a polacca by Braham, a romance by Sloman, or a melody by Weber. The Mendozas have some Saxon blood in their veins: An ancestress of ours made a mésalliance in the reign of your King John. Her name was Rebecca, daughter of Isaac of York, and she married in Spain, whither she had fled, Sir Wilfrid of Ivanhoe, then a widower by the demise of his first lady Rowena. Ivanhoe conformed to the Jewish religion, yet it is the only blot upon the escutcheon of the Mendozas".... Suddenly three knocks of a peculiar nature were heard: the visitor was an old man, evidently of the Hebrew race; the light of his eyes was unfathomable. He had a cotton umbrella and old trousers. The august individual (King Louis-Philippe) used the Hebrew language." Hush, said Rafael, leading Codlingsby from
1 He means Marshall Masséna. Masséna wasanativeof Nice; in the Piedmontese dialect masena means "a child". (e. G. r. in Notes & Queries 10. 147).


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the room: his Majesty is one of us, so is the Pope of
Rome, so is a whisper concealed the rest." —
Indeed that gift and taste for masquerading which Mr. Lucien Wolf assumes as a natural thing, and which throws Mr. Hilaire Belloc's mind off its balance, is an invention of romantic novelists, not quite harmiess in novels, but disturbing in history and criticism. .Thus in Hyamson's History (p. 120) it is supposed that "Masse Salman, who was Sheriff of Southampton in 1489, might have been a member of the race." It is clear that he could not; the law of the land would not have tolerated him on the Bench. The Jewish sound of the name would naturally strike a reader on the look out for signs of Crypto-Judaism in England. Still, need even that name contain anything Jewish? The Pentateuch contains Masse the son of Ishmael, but Jews avoid Ishmaelitish names; it might be a contraction of Menasse, or could stand for Mosce, Moses (ss represents sh in Norman-French). But after all it is quite as near to Maessa1 an O. E. proper name, which in Middle-English would become exactly Masse. As to the surname Salman, it may pass for a contraction of Salomon. The O. T. also contains the names Shalman (King of Moab?) and Salmon (one of the heroes of King David). So the surname looks and sounds like Hebrew. But it may be as good English as Masse: the fish-name Salmon, if not a relic of totemism, is suitable enough to the highest magistrate of a fishing-port; or may he have been a Sal-man, i. e. of a sallow2 or dark
1 Ferguson, Teutonic Name-System; Searle, Onomasticon Anglo-Saxon. 1897. Maessa, local name: Maessan-wyrth; Maesso, nomen viri. *) Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Diot. ««6 salo = dark.


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complexion ? A Jew could not be Sheriff of Southampton in 1489: the more the name is like Hebrew, the greater the warningit contains against our attaching any value to coincidences. Thus Abel Drugger, in Benjamin Jonson's Alchymist, was not meant for a Jew1. If the name went for anything rare Ben himself was nearer to it. The name Abel is avoided by Jews as of bad omen. In the play Nab is small and has an Italian olive complexion, he keeps a tobacco-shop and procures a damask suit. If the Bill of 1593 prohibiting aliens from selling by retail any foreign commodity 2 became Law, he could only be an Englishman. Ben Jonson's wide knowledge doubtless included Hebrew lore, but Drugger has nothing Jewish about him. The character in the play best acquainted with Hebrew is Doll Common, who calls it the 'tongue of Eber' and refers to David Kimchi, Abr. ibn Ezra and even Onkelos s. In 1771 Francis Gentleman produced a two-act farce The Tobacconist, in which Abel Drugger is the leading character, and though at that time the ridiculous Jew is a stock-fgure on the English stage, there is no tracé of Jewishness about the Abel Drugger of the Tobacconist.
Let us look at Mr. Mamon in Iacke Drum's Entertainment (1601). He is called a Jew by R. Simpson (School of Shakspere II, 1878), Sidney Lee, Eckhardt, (Mamon ist also offenbar auch als Jude gedacht),
1 Calisch, Jew in Eng. Lit. 1909, p. 92, says he is a Jewish character.
* Lee.
* Her case is parallel to one recorded by the Soo. for Psychichal Research, of a servant who spoke Hebrew unconsciously from having lived in the house of a clergyman who studied aloud.


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and by A. B. Stonex (Publ. M. L. Ass. America XXXI. 1916) who says: 'The usurer's speeches recall Shylock's, and his villainy reminds one less specifically of Barabas'. Also Stokes (p. 62) remarks that in Jack Drume's Entertainment there is a Jewish character.
But is Mamon a Jew? Some readers think so from his description in the dramatis personae: "Mamon the Usurer, with a great nose." If Usurer and Jew were controvertible terms in \the popular mind, each of the groups must include a large proportion of the other. Now Reinicke's dissertation "Der Wucherer im alteren englischen Drama" contains over 30 plays with usurers in them, in which he counts as Jews Barabas, Shylocke, and (by mistake) two others, Morecraft and Security; the latter two he withdraws at the end of his book. Stonex's study deals with sixty usurer plays and he produces no further Jew. But let us grant that the combinatkm of the profession and the tell-tale feature amounts to a prima-facie case, and let Mamon stand his trial.
Defendant states that his residence is High-gate, and his occupation that of a money-lender. The evidence shows that Sir Edward Fortune has a younger daughter Katherine wooed by Pasquil a romantic youth; likewise by Mamon an old usurer who 'lends at thirty in the hundred', is yellow toothed, sunk-eyed, gouty-shanked and wears spectacles on a fiery nose as sharp as surgeon's tent. Though a friend of Sir Edward's he is rejected, wherefore he suborns the Frenchman John Fo-de-King to murder his rival. Katherine thinking her lover is killed, flies distracted. After a time Pasquil who had feigned death revives, and


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brings back Katherine. Mamon's renewed suit is once more rejected with scorn. Hereupon he disfigures the girl by pouring 'oil of toades' over her face, which terrible poison induces leprosy. Mamon 'feares no law: Gold in the firmest conscience makes a flaw'. Pasquil goes mad, raves in Latin and tears up Mamon's indentures and bonds. When the usurer also hears that his ship the Hope-Well returning from Barbary has been sunk, Mamon furens bursts out: "Viüains, Bogues, Jewes, Turkes, Infidels! my nose will rot off with grief." Being now regarded as deranged, he is confined in a "citie of Iurie called Bethlem, alias plaine Bedlame". He is heard of no more, and we may leave the play to pursue its bustling course; but we must quote the following:
lach Drum: Hark you Sir, there's but a dozen capons for supper, and therefore let him (M.) have Iack Drums entertainment: Let the Jehusite depart in peace. Sir Edw. Fort: Why Iacke, is not that sufficiënt? Iack Drum: I, for any Christian, but for a yawning usurer, 't is but a morsell. (Act I. 150 ff.). We are in a country officially closed to Jews. Could any repulsive old Hebrew whom Shylocke would have spurned as a son in law, have had Mamon's pretensions ? Mamon himself is utterly unconscious of any racial bar; the irrepressible Iack Drum has no comment to offer. Mamon is also the familiar associate of Sir Edward Fortune, who is not even his debtor. And what is the likelihood that a Jew when his ship is seized by Berber pirates, should drop into a quotation from the Book of Common Prayer: 'Iewes, Turkes, Infidels'?1 And
1 Colleot for Good Friday.


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since the nose is undoubtedly the sensitive part of the Jewish physiognomy, would any such be wiUing to make dramatic capital out of it at such a moment? Yet Simpson confidently rules: "By Jebusüe Jack Drum makes Mamon a Jew." Maimon is a Jewish proper name, but Mamon is not. It is a word of Aramaic origin, meaning: a hiding place, a treasury; in the Gospel the 'Mamon of unrighteousness' means sinful lucre, and so a usurer. Shakespeare's contemporaries suffered miserably at the hands of these "mamons, and money-maggots." Thomas Lodge in the Alarum against Usurers could speak feelingly of them: "O, incredible and injurious dealings, O, more then Judaicall cousonage. They scrape up their coin by making centum per cento". Yet the closest scrutiny of Lodge's pamphlet will not disclose the presence of English Jews in Shakespeare's day. The Sir Epicure Mamon in the Alchymist is not a Jew; nor of course the Great Mamon in the Faerie Queene, who vainly tempts Sir Guyon(Bk. II. C. 7); nor the Lady Aurelia Mamon in Shirley's Honoria and Mamon (1652).
As regards Jebusites we are indeed told that the Jebusites dweil with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem. But they were not Israelites. Whosoever smiteth the Jebusites, he shall be chief and captain. Once when a Levite, pursuing a fugitive concubine was by Jebus, which is Jerusalem, the day was far spent, yet he would not 'turn aside hither into the stranger that is not of the children of Israël'. Marlow was in no doubt about it, for Barabas whispers his daughter Abigail: (11. 1037 ff.).


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This gentle Magot Lodowicke I meane, This off-spring of Cain, this Iebusüe That never tasted of the Passover Nor e're shall see the land of Canaan,
Nor our Messias that is yet to come I
It is not clear how a Jebusite could be prevented from seeing the land of Canaan, but this slip only stresses how well Marlow knew that a Jebusite is not a Jew, but a stranger. Simpson's dictum is therefore rather a bad miss.
Let us now look with some caution at more of the Jew names in our plays; and having already quoted from the Jew of Malta we may as well go on with it. The very unsatisfactory state of the only quarto-text (1683) of that famous tragedy, does not make it easy to recognize the proper names. Yet this may be more he fault of the printer than Marlow's. We must also allow for the interchange between names of persons and place-names, a usual thing in the O. T.: Madai, Tarshish, Mizraim, Canaan, Cush, Sidon, Ophir, Asshur,' oecur originally as names of men, and afterwards as countries. This is not peculiar to Hebrew: Washington was successively an English place name, then a personname, and thence again the name of a territory and of several cities. We may also compare in English such names as Newton, Milton, Mr. York, Abraham Lincoln, Captain Lankaster, Jack London, George Birmingham, Warren Hastings, Mr. England, Mr. Ireland, etc. Some latitude in transferring place-names to persons ought therefore to be allowed to Marlow:
1 Jew of Malta II (1006—1010).


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As for those Samintes1 and the Men of Uzz (89)
There's Kirriah Iairim, the Great Jew of Greece, (157)
Obed in Bairseth, Nones in Portugall
Farewell Zaareth, farewell Temainte. (209) These are some of the names of Jews, intended as proper names of Barabas' contemporaries. 'A hash is made of them' says Dr. Stokes. Nones or Nunes is a typical name for Portuguese Marannos. But there's Kirriah Iairim. Some approach to Iairim as the name of a man occurs in Mr. Lucien Wolf's essay: CryptoJews in the Canaries:* "Sebastian Valera while travelling in Morocco in May 1525 met a Jew named Fernando Jaryam." Though Marlow used hints from contemporary seafarers that had a knowledge of the Mediterranean and could have supplied him with facts and names, yet in the absence of contact with a Jewish community in England, he took most of his names from the Bible. Kiriah Iairim guides us to I Chron. XIII, the synopsis to which reads: — "David fetcheth the ark with great solemnity from Kiriath Jearim; Uzza being smitten, the ark is left at the house of Obed Edom." — From this sentence it is easy to mistake Kiriath Jearim for the name of a person, since Uzza and Obed are both persons. Here we seem to have at the same time our Obed of Bairseth, but geography does not know a commercial city called Bairseth. Among Mediaeval Jews, says Dr. Gross8, Kirjath Jearim was used as a topographical name for Nimes in France; it means
» Por Samintes, Bullen conjectures Sabans; this may be supported by referring to Job L 16. where we read how the Sabeans feil upon the men of Uz, the sons of Job.
8 Proe. Jew. Hist. Soc. 1910. * Gallia Judaica 395.


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'City of Forests', and Nïmes was supposed to be derived from nemus a forest. Similarly Bairseth [Well of Seth?] may have been a Hebrew name for some Mediterranean port. Uzza may have been a man of Uzz, but Marlow's play knows the greater man of Uz, who was upright and eschewed evil, and whose name was Job. His substance was seven thousand sheep and three thousand camels; five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she-asses. We know the fine old drama, with its Prologue in Heaven; how Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord and smote Job, but he refused the counsel of despair: to curse God and die. Yet he cursed his day: Let the day perish wherein I was born. Let a cloud dweil upon
it, darkness seize upon it
These are the words of Job, the man of Uz, but likewise of Barabas, when Zaareth, Temainte' and another, attempt to comfort him: (lines 405 ff.)
First Jew: Yet brother Barabas remember lob.
Bar: What teil you me of lob? I wot his wealth
Was written thus: he had seven thousand sheepe, Three thousand Camels, and two hundred yoake Of labouring oxen, and five hundred Shee-asses: but for every one of those, I had at home and in mine Argosie As much as would have bought his beasts and him ; So that not he, but I may curse the day, Thy fatall birth-day, forlorne Barabas; That clouds of darknesse may inclose my flesh.
But even before lob had first opened his mouth for


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his lament we learned the names of the three friends, and the first is Eliphaz the Temanite, i. e. the man from Teman which is Edom, and this Temanite the Job's comforter is Temainte. The corruption in our only text (the name occurs but once) is the fault of the compositor, not Marlow's, as is proved by restoring the iambic metre of the line:
[Do so]1 Farewell Zaarëth, Farewell Temanite. I had expected to find Zaareth also in Job, but he is not there. The nearest thing is the Zareth of I Chr. IV. 7 2. Two of these names occur again in Ivanhoe (Ch. V) where Isaac of York tells us that "in Sheffield [he]can harbour with his kinsman Zareth", and that "all men know the rich Jew Kirjath Jairam of Lombardy".
Zariph, the pseudo-Shylocke in The Sherleys, is not an O. T. name. In the play he is a goldsmith at Venice who sells a jewel to one of the brothers Sherley. The Hebrew for Goldsmith is ip* tsorif. The vowelling shows that the name Zariph as we have it is the Arabic form, and I should not be surprised if he turned out to be an Arab or a Persian. I am assured on good authority that the Arabic does not mean a goldsmith, but the purifier. It is surprising that some form of the trade-name Tsorif has not survived among Mediterranean Jews, but it seems authentic enough
1 [Do so] is omitted by most editors.
» Mulder, Dutch translation of 0. T., derives the name from briUiance, radiance. This trisyllabic form is useful in explaining Zaareth. Each of the a's represents a syllable, as in Aaron. The name Zareth occurs seermngly m Nazareth, also a place of 'radiance'.


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to have been picked up by some Oriental traveller, like the Sherleys themselves. On this direct reporting we may rely when even the enormous literature of Travels such as Purchas his Pügrims and HaMuyfs Voyages is silent. A parallel to the relation ZoriphZariph we have in the names Cohen (Kohn, Acohen, Cowan) and Cahen, Kahn. The form Kahn looks like a Teutonic(?) word for boat, but as a name it is specifically Jewish, not found in Förstemann's Germanic proper names.
Occasionally such genuine but rather mysterious names may be met with in the heart of London itself. Sir Sidney Lee discovered there 'Jeronimye Destroralib' a surgeon, in the foreign census of 1571, as next-door neighbour to Dr. Rodrigo Lopez. As to the name, I owe the following communication to Prof. Dr. J. L. Palache of Amsterdam: The latter half reminds one of fólib which is Arabic for conquering. There is a Persian word that passed into Arabic: destür which may mean: a (Parsee) priest. Destroralib might then possibly be Destür-ralib. There are, however, some phonetic difficulties. Sir Sidney believes this immigrant surgeon to have been a Maranno Jew, but it is as likely that he was a Morisco, i. e. a baptized Spanish or Portuguese Moor. They feil under the Inquisition, and though they had been systematically disarmed, they broke into rebellion between 1568 and 1570. Hunted out of their mountain fastnesses round Grenada they were almost exterminated, and it would seem that one of the Christianized Moors had found a refuge in the aliens' quarter of London, where he was noticed in the next foreign census.


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The two names Gerontus and Gernutus turn up in a discussion of the Merchant. To some critics they are twins like Balin and Balan, but this is a mistake. Gerontus is the good Jew in the Three Ladies of London, a morality by R. Wilson (1581). Wilson being a university man it was in the style of the morality to call this wise old Jewish merchant (in Turkey) by the Greek label of yepémiov or yhm. Compare the Géronte of the early French stage, originaUy not a credulous dotard, but simply a grave father. Pauly's Lexicon derives the classical names Gerontius and Gerontios from yépuv.
But Gernutus is quite another matter. In violent contrast to Gerontus he is the bloody-minded usurer of a pound of flesh ballad 'as Italian authors teil'. This unexplained ballad is always quoted in the discussion of the Merchant. Gernutus is, however, not a classical name, but a Teutonic one, found in Italy among the Lombards, Goths or other Teutons that settled there. ''Gunther und Gemor are heroes in the Nibelungen saga:
Hie stunden diese rechen Gunther und Gemot Si slogen in dem sturme vil manege helt tot. The etymology of that name seems discernible: ger is the Germanic name-root meaning a spear (in O. E. gdr). Förstemann's great Namenbuch gives a few thousand Teutonic names eontaining this widely distributed name-syllable: Aligar, Edgar, Gerhard, Notger (which is Gernot, Gernutus again). The second syllable not is explained as perhaps connected with Old-German hnóton, quassare, to brandish, to shake. Ger-nutus is therefore, horribile didu, Shake-speare.
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The same roots are met with again in Italian names as Gan-baldi (Bold-Lance) and Ali-ghieri the surname of Dante. If ali is connected with Germanic aljan, Latin alere, Ali-ghieri might mean the "big or strong lance". In Förstemann's onomasticon one can tracé the wandering of similar names from the German Ocean to the Adriatic. He also remarks that Geruntius is to be regarded as a classical, not a Teutonic name. But whatever may be thought of the suitability of the name Gerontus, we see that Gernutus is an inapt name for an Italian Jew; the un-Jewish name for the flesh-cutting usurer, may have been derived from a pound-of-flesh story that had originally no Jew in it.
In the play A Christian turn'd Turk by R. Daborne we find a few Jewish names: Reuben, Rabshake and Ben-Wash. They are Tunisian Jews ostensibly turned Moslemin, confederates of the Berber pirates with whom Jthe English came into incessant contact. One is loth to consider the name Ben-Wash a cheap piece of Daborne's self-made Hebrew. Daborne may have had a smattering of the Tongue, for he took orders in or before 1618 | He does not seem to have known that Hebrew words rarely begin in i (waw). The Concordance gives only 8 words and 7 proper names, mostly of Arabic origin. Nor are old Hebrew names beginning with Ben usual, though a few like Benjamin (Ben-oni) are well-known.» Ben-Wash then is possibly an Islamitic name assumed by the Jew on becoming a Moslem. Rabshake is a corruption of a grandiose
1 Chambers. EL St. 111. 270.
* Ben-Ru bi, Benfey, Benloew, Bendien?


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title Rabshakèh 0$SP), Isaiah c. 36, mentions the blustering and impious Rabshakëh, sent by the Assyrian king Sennacherib to capture Jerusalem. The word means: Grand-Cupbearer, and is too ludicrous for the menial servant of the despicable Ben-Wash; needless to say it is not in vogue among Jews.
Fletcher's play The Custom of the Country yields only one Jew name, Zabulon which already occurs in the source of that play, Cervantes' last novel of Persilas y Sigismunda. The name Jacuppus in the Florentine comedy of Macchiavellus (Latin M. S.) requires no comment.
Two names of minor characters which at first sight appear entirely unrelated, are yet best discussed together: Abraham in Greene's Selimus (1594?) and Hamon in The Raging Turk, the unreadable play by Thomas Goffe (1627). These two plays deal with the same subject, the death of Baiazeth II (1512) and the accession of his younger son Selim. The peculiar thing is that Abraham and Hamon are the same, really historical character. The parts played by these, the only Jewish physicians in the Elizabethan drama, deserve quoting in full, for the purpose of showing the utter insignificance of the Jewish-doctor theme in that world of drama, in which one would have expected the Jew as court physician to figure more largely. In the Middle Ages and early modern times most court-physicians were Jews, even those of some Popes. This was well-known in England. Nash's Unfortunate Traveller (1594) has a vigorous Jewish chapter, and among the "Albumazers, Rabisacks (Rabshake?),


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Gedions, Tebiths, Benhadads, Benrodans, Zedechiaes, Halies" there is a truly terrible picture of Doctor Zacherie in Rome. Equally horrible in intention, but painted with a sad Iack of power, are Dr. Abraham and Dr. Hamon.
Selimus, lines 1710 seq.
Enter Abraham the Jew. Selimus: Jew thou art welcome unto Selimus;
I have a piece of service for you, sir, But, on your life, be secret in the deed. Get a strong poison, whose envenom'd taste May take away the life of Bajazet, Before he pass forth from Byzantium. Abra. : I warrant you, my gracious sovereign,
He shall be quickly sent unto his grave; For I have potions of so strong a force, That whosoever touches them shall die.
[Speaks aside] (And would your Grace would once but
[taste of them, I could as willingly afford them you, As to your aged father Bajazet). My Lord, I am resolv'd to do the deed.
[Exit Abraham]. Abraham re-enters in the next scène, together with Baiazeth and Aga in müurning cloaks. The two old men suspect that they are to die by poison. Abraham has the cup ready. When Baiazeth declares: "Ah Aga, I have cursed my stomach dry", our Abraham presents the cooling draught:


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Abra. : I have a drink, my lords, of noble worth,
Which soon will calm your stormy passions, And glad your heart, if so you please to taste it.
Baiaz. : An who art thou that thus dost pity us?
Abra. : Your highness' humble servant Abraham.
Baiaz. : Abraham, sit down and drink to Bajazet.
Abra. : [Aside] Faith I am old as welll as Bajazet,
And have not many months to live on earth; I care not much to end my life with him. Here's to you, lordings, with a full carouse!
[He drinks],
Baiaz. : Here, Aga, woeful Bajazet drinks to thee: Abraham, hold the cup to him while he drinks. Abra. : Now know, old lords, that you have drank
[your last;
This was a potion which I did prepare To poison you, by Selimus' instigation, And now it is dispersed through my bones; And glad I am that such companions Shall go with me down to Proserpina. [He dies] Baiaz. : Ah wicked Jew! [dies].
A pendant of this is Hamon in Act. V. Sc. V of The Raging Turk:
Selimus: Here's one shall send him quick to Heil.
Hamon draw neere, most welcome my dear
[Hamon.
What guesse of your patiënt Bajazet;
Is he all healthful? Hamon: No my gracious prince. Selim I Then should I think him happier in his death,
Then in so hateful life and so weak breath.


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Hamon: And that's the readier way to cure his ill. Selim : (Has found me now). But Hamon can thy art
Reach to the cure? Hamon: With easy diligence. Selim : Then let it. Hamon: I am yours.
p
"Abraham reappears under the new name of Hamon" says Sir Sidney Lee. The new name is, however, the authentic and old one. It is Hebrew P0? (Hamón) which has the f igurative meaning of "Wealth" K The name Haman the enemy of the Jews in the days of Ahasuerus is a variant, but did not prevent Hamón from becoming a surname among Jews. The Hamons from Grenada became hereditary physicians to the Padishahs or Sultans, and they are frequently mentioned by contemporaries. Says Nicholas Nicholay (1585) "He which in the time when I was in the Levant had the first dignity and authority amongst the order of Physitions was of nation an Hebrew called Amon, of age about 60 years, a personage much esteemed as well for his goods, knowledge and renown, as for his honour and portliness. In this arte they do uncommonly exceede all other nations." This Amon or Hamon must have been a later generation than Selim's for Nicholay did not visit Turkey till sixty years after Baiazeth II. How is it that Greene missed the genuine name, whilst Goffe has it? They used different sources. Greene's was: Pauli Iovii Episcopi Nucerini, Turcicarum Rerum Commentarius (cf. H. Gilbert, diss. Kiel 1899), or more likely its English: A short treatise upon the
1 Gesenius, Hebrew Lexicon.


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Turkes Chronicles. Drawne out of the Italyan tong into Latyne, by F. Niger Bassianates, and translated into Englysh by P. Ashton (1546). Jovius there merely says the sultan'was poisoned per medicum quendam Judaeum; Greene filled in the name Abraham.
Towards the end of his life the Italian Bishop tells the story once again in his Historia sui Temporis, with a Praefatio ad Cosmum Medicem, 1541. This chapter was reprinted in Phil. Loniceri's Chronicon Turcicorum1 (1578), and the same version furnished part of the materials for the account in Richard Knolles' monumental General Historie of the Turks, 1603. — Septuagesimo sexto aetatis süae anno [Baiazetes] ab Hammone Iudaeo medico, qui iussu Selymi salutiferae potioni venenum miscuerat, necatur. — The fact of the poisoning does not seem to be established: Iovius himself says: Aliqui tarnen senio & longa valetudine & ad extremum pregravantibus curis attenuatum interiisse contendunt. Sed Antonius Utrius Ligur a cubiculo Baiazetis, qui de his rebus commentaria ad Leonem pontif icem conscripsit, referebat nobis, se in expirantis corpore nondubio veneni indicia deprehendisse. —Another Italian chronicler Andrea Cambini Fiorentino (Dell'origine dei Turchi, 1541) relates : Baiasith prese da lui licentia; partito da lui con la sua compagnia si avió verso Andrinopoli, e nel camino caduto amalato, ó di dispiacere, o piu tosto di veleno, secondo fu opinione de piü, impose fine alla vita, 1'anno di Salute Christiana 1512." Translations from the official Turkish do not mention the poisoning at all, for obvious reasons. The Russian formula: 'This Czar died suddenly'
» A copy is in the Provincial Ldbrary of Friesland, Leeuwarden.


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seems also to have belonged to the diplomatic halftruths of the Porte. In the Annales Sultanorum Othmanidarum a Turcis sua lingua scriptis, (1587) rendered into Latin by Magr. Ioannes Leunclavius, the arrangement of Selim taking over the reign is represented as amicable: — Baiasites LMmoticum abire cogitabat. Eum Sultanus Selimes extra portam Hadrinopolitanam, officii causa, quum deduceret: Baiasites e curru ciun filio colloquens, de multis eum rebus admonuit. Inde mutuo sibi pater atque filius valedixere. Sed Baiasites höc itinere delatus in vicum quendam, cui nomen Chapse, vitam cum morte commutavit. Revectus autem a suis Constantinopolim, in templo quod ipse construxerat, conditus fuit. — Pedro Mexia, author of Sylva de Varia Lecion, Sevilla 1543, believes in the poisoning, though he fails to give the name of his quondam countryman: "Selimus lo desterro de la cividad Costatinopla y al cabo lo mato có yervas en su destierro." One wonders how he got to know the secret of the poisonous drug. In the 1584 French translation (Tournon) of 'Pierre Messie', this becomes
unaccountably: le bannit de Constantinople et a
la fin estant encore en son exil le fit emprisonner (for empoisonner). The Treasury translated out of Pedro Mexia's Forest (Jaggard, 1613) has correctly: 'in exile procured him to be poisoned'; but does not give the name of Hamon.
But we are digressing, as the novelists used to say. Let us finish the discussion of the Jew of Malta and then get to the Merchant of Venice.


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The choice of the name Barabas throws a light on the mentaüty of Marlowe. So bold an artist acted upon some clear principle in choosing a name for his supernero. By what design or sentiment was this choice prompted? Jew-hatred, or else defiance of Christian conventions? The name is not typically Jewish, not O. T. Hebrew, but N. T. Aramaic. But though otherwise uriknown it bears the stigma of at least a passive share in that tragedy when a blinded faction liberated the robber and crucified the Prophet. To commentators generally it needs no argument that the name was a red rag to rouse the English Buil to Jew-madness. It is certainly a piece of advertisement for the play. Marlow never meant to be tender of the reputation of the Jews, but we might hold that he did them a service by selecting a name which was never representative of Jewry, certainly not since the Crucifixion. If he had scrupled to brand the old nation as a whole, he could have done no better. We owe the fiery young author thanks for not abusing a more worthy name as he might have done; in a Good-Griday mood he might from the same story have selected Caiaphas. But the Barabbas of the Gospels was a criminal, and similarly this demon of Malta was a Barabbas among the Jews of his own day, to be reckoned, though wealthy and clever, among the perversions of his own nation. "Shall we be tried by his transgression?" We shall deserve to be classed together if we take up the cudgels for him, but not the most clannish of Israelites can wish to do so.
The name Barabas then and the whole character of the play of the Jew of Malta, are samples of the


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stupendous Marlovian impudence, not especially towards the Jews, but to the world in general. Marlow was a heretic with the burning-stake awaiting him. A little before he came up to College, Thomas Kett another free-thinking Corpus Christi man, had died a martyr's death by fire at Cambridge. Marlow, like a Shelley or a Shaw, must always fly in the face of the world, charging full blast at the strongholds of sacred convention. Each of his plays contains a goddaring giant, his path a streak of ruin. In them Marlow gloried, though perforce he must send them to Heil. Tamburlaine the scourge of Christendom, Faustus the arch-heretic and Barabas the Golem, all these embody Marlo w's youthful ire which sent him threatening the world with high astounding terms and frightful deeds. He enlarges the impious heroes to a Gargantuan scale: execration of them shall be stifled in awe of their superb if brutal self-will. He was a master spirit, a fierce scoffer against orthodoxy in general, but he never sinks to lop-sided anti-Semitism. To let fly his anti-clerical shafts he had to use stalking-horses. Characters outside the pale of Christianity served this purpose best, for it was his delight to mortify Christians. His abhorrence of the divinity that could deduce the burning-pile from the Gospels1 was passionate; its murderous bigotry poisoned his choleric mind against "religion". "Religion, o, Diabole; it hides too many mischiefs from suspicion. I count it but a childish toy. Basest of sciences, adieu! Heli's a fable, a mere old wife's tale. There is no sin but ignorance."
In an old engraving to Doctor Faustus, Mephistophilis
1 St John XV. 6.


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is represented as shaven and shorn, with rosary, book and bell. Tamburlaine the Islamite is contemptuous of 'supersitious church-bells'. Machiavel under whose auspices the Jew is presented, uncloaks the prelates that read his books, 'and thereby attaine to Peter's Chayre: and when they cast me off, are poisoned by my climing followers'.
Marlow's first published play was The hloody Conquests of Mighty Tamburlaine, the Scythian shepherd. He becomes an Emperor, harnesses kings to his chariot and uses Bayazeth for his footstool. A few scènes in it deal with the struggle between the on-pressing Moslems and the Christians on the Danube: quite unnecessarily all the magnanimity is placed by Marlow on the side of the Crescent, all the meanness on that of the Cross. The Princes Frederick, Baldwin and Sigismund of Hungary, solemnly vow to keep a truce, but break their faith: 'for with such Infidels, in whom no faith nor true religion rests, we are not bound to such accomplishments'; and whilst they are thus forsworn the Saracens prove the nobler men:
Can there be such deceit in Christians Or treason in the fleshly heart of man Whose shape is figure of the highest God? Thou Christ, that art esteem'd omnipotent If thou wilt prove thyself a perfect God Be now revenged upon this traitors soule, And make the power I have left behind Sufficiënt to discomfit and confound The trustless force of those false Christians,
thus prays the Scythian and is victorious. The antidote


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to pride of race and faith is the strongest ever administered, and that at a time when the Turkish peril was still real. There is an unfair bias here, but it is not against the aliens.
It "is the same with Barabas. He is cynically robbed of his property, that the Knights of Malta (lately of Rhodes) may pay the tribute of cowardice to the Turk. He exclaims that he will not part with his hardgotten riehes, except to contribute equally with others. But no, he is told by the Governor that it is for his soui's good: 'Excesse of wealth is cause of covetousnesse, and covetousnesse, ah, 't is a monstrous sinne!' Such wanton hypocrisy makes retort too easy a luxury: 'Will you steal my goods? Is theft the ground of your religion? Bring you Scripture to confirm your wrongs? Preach me not out of my possessions! Take it to you i'the devil's name.' And they do; in fact, though the tribute is not paid, Barabas's money is never returned, and his house is converted into a nunnery.
If anti-Judaism (at long range) had been Marlowe's object, his cue would have been to idealize the Christians and debase his single Jew. But though Barabas, not to speak it profanely, has neither the accent, gait, nor soul of Jew, Christian or pagan, yet he is never negligible. On the contrary, he is a superman, buoyant and dauntless, and what a craftsman, what a strategist. If there had been a hundred thousand of the likes of Barabas there would have been a short-cut through the lingering tortures of the Ghetto; a grand smash-up with few survivors left either of Jews or Philistines would have mended or ended all. As long as Barabas is successful, electric in action, deadly in argument, he carries the


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public with him. He fights single-handed, till he perishes at the last, caught in his own toikt, but still defiant and unsubdued. Even if Marlow is himself an infidel, he never sneers at the Jewish religion; there is not a breath against the worthies; Barabas though properly versed in Moses and the Prophets is a layman. Far worse fare the Romish clerics, from friars to cardinals. The two caterpillars Jacomo and Bernardine betray the dying confession of fair young Abigal, and rush off to blackmail the old father Jew. Barabas plays upon the cupidity and rivalry of their respective orders, sets them brawling, outwits both, strangles the one and gets the other executed as the supposed murderer of his colleague. Then sings his paean:
This is the life we Jews are used to lead, And reason too, for Christians do the like. It is no sinne to deceive a Christian For they themselves hold it a principle Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks: But all are Hereticks that are not Jews, This follows well.
Thus Barrabas is made a mouthpiece for Marlow's thrusts at his fellow Christians. The more outrageous the invective and slashing the repartee trumpeted by the fierce Jew, the more is the author applauded for presenting with such lively power the incredible Jewish insolence. Thus is the medicine sugared over and swallowed: but it has to be digested somehow, and while the purge works, the patients must smüe rather wrily. Likewise Jews can afford to show a


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sense of humour, and appreciate a caricature not without redeeming traits. There is nothing grovelling in Barabas; he is vastly proud of being a Hebrew born; he will be no convertite; he had rather be envied and hated than pitied. Considering the general outrageousness of the Marlow plays, Israelites have at least no special reason to complain. Of course if we had it for the saying we should decline the honour of serving as a speaking-tube for impudence, or as a stalking horse for poisoned arrows. But then Barabas is not the Jewish nation, and we may as well remember that were there no Jews in England to feel the repercussion of the passion that Marlow set aswing.


CHAPTER VI
the name shylocke
Though Barabas may appear extraordinary enough as a Jewish figure, there is no mystery about his name: it has been said or sung millions of times in lesson, sermon, miracle-play and oratorio in every Easter-Week. But Shylocke? Even an assiduous church-goer will not hear him mentioned in a life-time of Sundays. So unknown was the name, that none would serve better to mark its bearer as sui gmeris. Though Shylocke sometimes cries out for aggrieved minorities, he can only be conceived as a perversion of his race, on the principle of corruptie- optimi pessima. He speaks of 'our sacred nation' but he puts himself beyond its pale.
Unlike the names dealt with in the preceding chapter, Shylocke's has engaged a good deal of the attention of Shakespeare scholars. It will be useful to review some of their theories, and to offer a new hypothesis in conclusion. The spelling to be adopted is Shylocke because that is the one used passim and with unusual consistency in the two Quartos (1600 and 1619)1 and in the First Folio, the only variations being: Shylock, twice (I. 8 : 53 and IV 1 : 271); Shylok, once (III. 8:5); and Shyloch, once in
1 The Roberte's quarto, also dated 1600, is now believed to be of 1619. See Chambers, Elizabethan Stage, Hl. 480.


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Q2 (1.3: 53). The current spelling Shylock is from the Actors' Names in Q. 8 (1637).
One of the earliest theories for which there is documentary evidence, is connected with "an old pamphlet, entitled Caléb Shillocke his prophecie or the Iewes Prediction". It was discussed by Dr. Farmer, Steevens, Malone, Staunton and the Clarendon editors, and accepted by them as having an important bearing on Shakespeare's choice of the name. To form an opinion we must look at the pamphlet %
Newes from Rome; of two mightie Armies, as well footemen as horsemen. The first of the great Sophy, the other of an Hebrew people, till this time not discovered, comming from the Mountaines of Caspij, who pretend their warre recover the Land of Promise, & expell the Turks out of Christendome. With their multitude of Souldiers & new invention of weapons.
Also certaine prophecies of a Jew serving to that Armie, called Caleb Shtlock prognosticating many strange accidents which shall happen the following yeere 1607.
Translated out of Italian in English by W. W. Printed by I. R. for Henry Gosson. To the renowned Lord, Don Mathias de Rensie of Venice.
Your Lordships to use,
Signior Valesco. [pseud.]. From Rome, the first day of June, 1606.
Your faithfull and trustie servant,
Signior Valesco.
A further glance at the contents will be required for our purpose:
"First of all a Jew of verie great stature, of a fleshlie colour, more red then otherwise, with broad eyes, called Zoroam, is captain generall of all the Armies. — There is a Duke of Palach called Obeth, who hath under his conduct xx thousand footemen, armed with a certain metall like yron, but it is light and
1 British Museum press-mark C. 32. d. 26.


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hard _ Of the Tribe of Simeon there is a Prince of Arsay, whose name is
not yet knowne, but they say he is a devil".
In the sub-title and in the appendix, though not in the body of the pamphlet itself, we find our Caleb Shilock, whose prophecy is reported thus:
Caleb Shilock his prophesie, for the yeere 1607. "Be it knowne unto all men, that in the yeere 1607 when as the Moone is in the watrie signe.the world is like to bee in great danger; for a learned Jew named Caleb Shtlock doth write, that in the foresaid yeere the Sun shall
be covered with the Dragon, and will appeare like fire Infidels and
Hereticks through great feare and dread will flie and gather together, and as much as in them hes, make war against Christian prinoes. The Turke with his God Mahomet shall bee in danger to lose his Septer. These punishments are prognosticated by this learned Jew".
"Caleb Shilock his prophesie, for the yeere 1607" is not a separate pamphlet, but it is a short appendix eking out the last page of the tract Newes from Rome. It may be remarked that news about mighty armies of the Sophi was current in England as well as in Rome. In fact about 1606 most of the information derived from the Sherleys and members of their party who wrote down their experiences in Persia, was already printed1. At the back of these new discoveries and
i See ante p. 144 and 145. The most circumstantial and amusing of the tracts about the Persian exploration is George Manwaring's. The unfaithfulness of the Play on the Brothers Sherley is apparent from such quotations as the following: "The Persians are very expert in their pieces or muskets, for although there are some which have written now of late, that they had not the use of pieces till our coming into their country, I did never see better barrels of muskets than I did see there" (p. 91). Other remarks either confirm or are borrowed from Marlow's sources: "The King's [Shah Abbas's] disposition is noted by his apparel which he wears that day; for that day which he weareth black, he is oommonly melancholy and oivil; if he wear white or green or yellow, or another bright colour, he is commonly merry; but when he weares red, then all the court is afraid of him, for he will be sure to kill somebody that day. I have oft-times noted it". Por this compare Perondinus, c. XVII, p. 50-51, De tentoriis quibus in
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oriental questions of the day, there were older tales of the struggles with the Turks and Saracens; behind these again lay tales of the earliest Crusades on a background of mediaeval traditions as to the Lost Tribes and other mysterious hordes of Asia. Some Alexander Romances deriving from Pseudo-Callisthenes contain a legend relating how Alexander on his return march from India enclosed impure nations behind a huge wall between the Caspian mountains of Gog and Magog. The legend as found in late Greek is, judging by its style, the work of a Jew; still later Christian clerics substituted Jews (Qxpt&Toi) for the impure tribes. The Jews then, in the Caspian gate, have multiplied until they are numerous enough to fill twenty-four kingdoms. When Antichrist comes they will break loose, as will likewise all the Jews of the Diaspora, for they will regard him as their promised Messiah. Overrunning all Western Asia in swarms so numerous that they will drink lake Tiberias dry on their route, they will re-conquer the Holy Land \ This
in oppugnandis urbibus [Tamerlanes] utebatur; and Marlow's Tamburlaine Part I, IV, 1. Among the retinne of the Sherleys there were a few Dutchmen, "Edward Vantheivier, a Dutchman" (win 't T-veerf) being mentioned by name in Manwaring's account (p. 76).
1 Pseudo-Callisthenes, primum editit C. Mullerus, Parisüs 1846: Julius Zoeker, Pseudocallisthenes, Halle 1867;Potó Meyer, Alexandrele Grand dans la littérature francaise du Moyen-Age; A. Morel Fotio, Libro de Alexandre, inRomania VI, 1875; H. Weissmann gives complete translations in German. There are references in the Koran, chapter 18 (in Yale's Koran, London 1807, II. 104) and in other Arabic literature; in Marco-Polo; in Mandeville; in the Pecorone of Ser Giovanni Fiorentino (XX, I); in the huge Speculum Hystoriale of Jacobus de Voragine (1473; pars I, foL 88; Liber V; cap. XLITI; a copy of this incunabulum is in Groningen, Netherlands) the passage in the Speculum Hystoriale is marked: ex historia scolastica, L e. Petrus Comestor's work. Much space in the small Bevelationes Methodii (Pseudo-Methodius, printed by Sebastian Brandt 1496) is given to Alexander and Gog and Magog; the chapter 'Quomodo Gog et Magog


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widespread late Medieval legend became mixed with semi-historical reports about the Ethiopian Falasha | These Abyssinians tracé their descent from Menelik the son of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. They practise Jewish rites and keep a copy of the Law of Moses in their mesjeeds. Their chief priest is the Abuna ( = Obeth?) They call themselves Falasha [Heb. Falash(im)] i. e. Exiles, from Jerusalem their lost home. During the earlier Crusades they dreamt of reconquering it, and while they played their military part, were regarded with some fear on account of their proficiency in forging metais, whence the reference here to the wonderful light metal. I therefore surmise that our Obeth, duke ofFalach, is the Abuna of the Falasha.2 An historical fact which helped to revive the memory of the Falasha was the mission to Europe of David
exeuntes de caspijs montibus obtinent terram Israël', mentions among the 24 tribes the Phariaei. German dissertations by O. Zwingerle, Breslau 1885; A. Ausfeld, Teubner, Leipzig 1907. In the E.EngLTexts. Soe., Skeat, ^eWars of Alexander, 1886; and the Prose-life of Alexander by Westlake, E.E.T.O. 1913- Henry Weber's Mentrical Bomanees, Edinburgh 1810, has vol. IKyng Ahsaunder, and vol. IH p. 321-327 an exceedingly valuable note, from which we learn among many other things that in Wolfram von Eschenbach s, Ttturel or the Guardians of the Graal, the peoples enclosed are called the Bed Jews. A Dutch dissertation and bibliography by S. S. Hoogstra, Leyden 1898. lo Dr P Enk, Rector Gymnasii of Leeuwarden I owe the translation of the passage from Mulle'r's C text, caput 29. The style of Alexander's prayer leaves little doubt that this section is the work of a Jew: «When Alexander saw that those mountains were fit to prevent their exit [viz. of the unclean Tribes], he stood and prayed in these words: God of Gods and Lord of the whole Creation, thou who hast made all by thy word, thou spakest and all was created, thou hast commanded and all arose; Thou only art the eternal, umbounded and invuuble God, and there is no God but Thou;" - ASyrUnChristian or Moslem would not have caused Alexander to pray standing vpright; the phraseology of Alexander s prayer is composed of the commonplaces of the Jewish prayer-books. Dr. Lnfc informs me that the Greek contains very late forms. i Article Falasha in Encycl. Brit. ■ Is Zoroam = Memphites Zoroas ?


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Reubini, whom rumour called a messenger from Prester John, and the Jews in India, to the Pope h
Now this gallimaufry has nothing to do with the Merchant of Venice, and yet there is the name Caleb Shilock, from which Shakespeare is supposed to have made Shylocke. This is possible only if the pamphlet is older than the Merchant of Venice. The date of the only issue actually in existence is 1606, but it cannot be summarily denied that there may have been earlier issues; later reprints there are none. Dr. Farmer was said by Steevens to have possessed an undated copy "entitled Caleb Shillocke his prophecie, or the Jews Prediction, London, printed for T. P. [Thomas Pavier]." Was that undated copy, which has since disappeared, older? I think that Steevens confused it with a Ballad, which is now the Pepys Ballad I. 38: "Calebbe Shillocke, his Prophesie, or the Jewes Prediction. To the tune of Bragandarie".2 There is no 'pamphlet' Calebbe Shillocke. Farmer's print as quoted by Furness has the same spelling of the proper name as the Pepys Ballad, different from the Caleb Shilock on the last page of the British Museum tract Newes from Borne. The Pepys Ballad dates itself 1607:
And first within this present yeere, Beeing sixteene hundreth seau'n, The Prince of Planets shall appeare, Like flaming Fire in heau'n.
That is the date of the Ballad from internal evidence,
1 Adler in Auto da Fè and Jew 1903, quotes this from the Calendar of StatePapers, Venetian 1520—6, p. 810 (for the year 1524).
* A Pepysian Garland (1595—1639) edited by Hyder E. Bollins. Ph. D. (New York); at the Cambridge Univ. Press, 1922.


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not from the publisher's imprint, so that Steevens glancing at the copy in his friend's possession tam no date The Ballad deals with the prophesie only, which it merely dilutes; its date is 1607; the Newes from Rome tract is dated "the first day of June 1606 . When we see that the Ballad is marked At London printed lor T. P., we may conclude that SteevensFarmer's 'pamphlet' was really the 1607 Ballad, and thus that there is no tracé of an earlier issue than the Museum copy of 1606. In the Ballad the Jewish prognosticator is repeatedly called 'Old Shillock, as in the Merchant (IV. t. 173), and 'learned Shillocke as in the Newes from Rome.
Now turning again to the Museum copy, can we find anything in it to confirm its ostensible date of 1606? I. R. is presumably Jamet Robertes, who also printed the two quartos of the Merchant of Venice. He had obtained from the Queen a patent for the exclusive printing of Almanackes and Pronottycacyont1. If the pronostycacyon at the end of the Newes from Rome really belongs to 1606, Robertes could furnish the name Shilock from a book of his own. There are the proper names Don Mathias de Rensie, and the twice repeated "Signior Valesco", probably nothing but a tissue of fictions. Nobody will therefore quarrel with the "Signior Valesco" being marked pseudonym in the B. M. copy. Yet here we gain a clue: It seems a corruption of the Spanish name Velasco (cf. Belasco and Velasquez). This name became known m England in 1603, when Juan de Velasco came as Spanish Ambasador to London to treat negotiations
1 Furness p. 271.


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of peace x. This is a hint in confirmation of the date 1606, as that of the first and only edition. But even if there were earlier issues they are unlikely to have contained Caleb Shilock. The prognostics are the sort of vaguely menacing stuff, that will beaf reprinting every dozen years or so. But as the prohecies are falsified by the actual events, common prudence would require the discredited prophet to be discarded and another name to be put in. But in that case such earlier issues as may possibly have existed, lose interest for us. We may also be sure that the prophecy such as it is, owes nothing to a Jewish mind: 'Heretick' is an un-Jewish notion; and to call Mahomet the 'god of the Turks' is as blasphemous to a Jew as to confound Moses with "very God". In that respect it is as well to assume that whatever part of it was not fabricated in England, was indeed 'Newes from Rome'. Caleb Shilock took his surname from the Merchant of Venice, and not vice-versa 2.
The English(?) name Richard Shylók
Mr. Mark Antony Lower was the author of two name-books: English Surnames, 1849 (2 vols.) and a later work, Patronymica Britannica, 1860. The same industrious pen contributed a paragraph to Notes & Queries I. p. 221 (1850) in the course of
1 Viaje de Juan Fernandez de Velasco a Inglaterra para tratar de las paces, 1603, is mentioned in the Bibliography to Chambers, Eliz. Stage I, p. XL. * For the pre-name Calib eompare the Chalybs a people who lived about Pontus, south of the Black Sea, and were so famous for their metal works that Chalybs became a synonym for steel. (Samson Agonistes, 1.133). The Hebrew Caleb is also the name of a priestly class; there is no denying that the name Caleb is very appropriate.


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which he remarks, "But after all, Shylock may have been a famüy-name familiar to the dramatist. In all my researches on the subject of English surnames, however I have but once met with it as a genenc distinction: In the Battel Abbey Deeds (penes Sir T. Phillip, Bart.) occurs a power of attorney from John Pesemershe. Esq. to Richard Shylok of Hoo, co. Sussex and others, to deliver seizin of all his lands in Sussex to certain persons therein named. The date of this document is Jury 4 th. 1435".
This raises a problem of Shylok or Shylock as an English family name1. It is not supposed that Shakespeare saw the Battel Abbey deed of 1435, as how should he, and what if he had? But the idea is that there were a family surnamed Shylok in Elizabethan England. Could any Shyloks since 1435 have been Jews? The question ought to be asked, because Shakespeare, would not give a to all appearances Christian and English name to an Italian Jew, when he had a choice of Hebrew and Italian names ready to his hand. Shall we suppose that they were descended from pre-expulsion Jewish converts and had preserved an unregenerated surname? That name has not been reported from the thoroughly searched annals of preexpulsion Jewry in England. It never was a Jewish name. It is not to be found in the Jewish Encyclopaedia, nor in all the tomes of the Talmuds: the recent translations of the Talmuds into French and German would have brought it to light2. It may therefore be
i Bardsley (Diot. of Surnames) finds two examples in Philadelphia, tj. S. a; also Sylock in county of Somerset, 1327.
* Aaron Hyman's Concordance (London 1910), and Wilhelm Bachers register to Tradition und Tradenten, do not contain it.


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European, though a demonstrable English etymology may prove difficult. The derivation of proper names is full of vagaries; when corrupted out of the original meaning, the owners would twist them back by slight but arbitrary changes, into any sense or nonsense. In R. Ferguson's rather bewildering The Teutonic Name System I come across the following London names, classed under Teutonic root-syllables: Enock, Esau, Cahen, Cain, Juda, Jordan, Hagar, Hagin, Herod, Leah, Levin, Raban, Rachel, Sala, Salamon, Sarah, Saul, Shadrak. They look like Hebrew, but are not, though their present spelling may owe something to Bible influence. The coalescence of names in different languages need not surprise us if we compare the huge vocabularies with the few dozen 'phonemes' out of which all words have to be built up. The number of possible combinations is no doubt enormous, mathematically, but in practice it is severely restricted by the requirements of fluent pronunciation. It is true that each language specially favours a few wordtypes, but the couple between which we are trying to distinguish here, the English (?) Shylok and the Hebrew(?) Shylocke belong to an almost universal though specially Hebrew model. The Hebrew proper names Pishon, Perez and Erich can be very nearly matched from native French, Spanish and German. Take the word Alabama: if you happen to think of the Hebrew Aholibama (Gen. 86.) meaning 'tent on the height', you think that Alabama was a Bible name given by Pilgrim pioneers to a place where they pitched
1 r. Ferguson, The Teutonic Name System, London 1864; compare also the huge Namenbuch by e. Förstemann, Bonn 1900.


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their camp; until you find (in Meyer's Lexicon) that the word is native Indian for 'here we rest'. A person more familiar with Hebrew than with Greek would suppose that toüp* is Heb. Cholè ra', "evil disease". Duke Alva (h) title and all is in Genesis (36.40) Meir and Meyer are independent names, the former Hebrew. Asher or Ascer are equally fine English and Hebrew, and men's names in both languages: jEsc-here is 'the warrior with the ash-spear', whilst Asher w*&i (Felix) son of Jacob. Messrs Tan, Lip, Lee, Bee, Boon, Poon, Goy, Sam, Long, Ham, Sin, Sun, Sing, Song, King and Bing, figure in the Singapore press as Chinese gentlemen, but they might all be English, Sin perhaps excepted. Coxinga was not a Frisian, but a Chinese pirate who took Formosa; Ledesma a hand-tennis champion, in the Olympic games Paris 1924, is a Basque, not a Frisian.
It is true that to me the English name Shylok defies analysis, but the majority of names are quite obscure. Teutonic names are mostly composed of two monosyllabic elements, which often do, but more often do not form an intelligible combination. Shylok might be split up as 1. Shy-lok; 2. Shyl-ok; 8. the whole word may be a simplex Shylk, with an intrusive vowel Shyl(o)k. Phonetically I take the word to be in all cases [sïbk] perhaps representing an older (sülak]. The cutting up into Shyl-ok seems least unsatisfactory, as it allows us to isolate the diminutive ending ok (ock, uck etc.) which plays a part in forming proper names. Shüll-ock is 'a small plaice' (a nick-name for a man with a wry mouth?) Shill-ock, Scill-ing and Schill-er are three noble Teutonic names differing


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in the ending only. Shyl-ock marks the bearer of that name as a small squinting or crooked individual (not a hint to actors!) The dialects supply ShiUock: 1. light grain blown aside in winnowing. 2. curdled milk (a soured Shylok) 3. to knit coarse woollens. Scüll, clod, yields a Shyl-ok who is own cousin to Tony Lumpkin \ A Teutonic interpretation of Shylock was revealed by Dr. William Bell of Nürnberg, who bemused himself into believing that Shakespeare's mind was steeped in German. Shylock or Shy-luck, is Scheu-glück, which according to Dr. Bell means Pechvogel2. This is not only witty in itself but also the cause that wit is in other men, for even in 1923 Gustav Landauer printed the following discovery: "Ueber den Namen dürfte man sich wohl mehr wundern als gewöhnlich geschieht: dieser Jude in Venedig tragt einen Namen der ohne Zweifel ein englischer ist: Shy heiszt Scheu, argwöhnisch, schlau, scharf; also lauter moralische Eigenschaften des Gedrückten; — hek das ist ein Verschluss, ein verschlossener Raum, eine Spelunke, eine Diebeshöhle; und wenn wir dem Juden für einen Augenblick den Namen Scheuloch geben, so haben wir eine ahnliche Empfindung wie der Englander". Could not some Germanist prove that Shylock is ScheusaU Edwin Bormann3 interpreted it as: der Scheuhlickende.
It seems time to stop this cobweb-spinning. I trust that the general argument will suff ice to make us grant
1 More hints may be obtained from Dr. Joseph Wright's Dialect Dictionary, and Stratmann—Bradley's Middle-English Dictionary.
2 Shakespeare's Puck and his Polks-lore, 1864 (3 vols.) h. 46.
* Neue Sh. Enthüllugen I, Leipzig 1895: "Der Kaufmannvon Venedig und die oharacteristische Deutung seiner Personennamen im Sinne der Bacon-Shakespeare Wissenschaft". The epidemie is still spreading.


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the point that the English name Shylok found once in MS, is independent of the oriental language from which the Jew of Venice was supplied with a name.
Shylocke to be found in the Hebrew
Thus far we'have been spending energies in a wildgoose chase, and though we may be the better for the sport we have not bagged any game. We must explore another avenue of approach. As a rule names travel in stories, but the Jew in the Pecorone-tale upon which the Merchant of Venice is unmistakably built, is nameless; likewise in Sylvain's Orator and in the Pound of Flesh stories collected by Douce over a hundred years ago (Hlustrations of Sh. 1807). Of Jewish names the storehouse is the Old Testament, and it had long been known that the names Tubal, Chus and Iscah (Iesca) are in Genesis X and XI. Now if a student is told that Shylocke is there too in both these chapters, several» times, he will turn to his Bible, and not find Shylocke, until he consults the Hebrew text. There among the mythical catalogues of pre-history, when the world was still of one speech and not yet divided into races and creeds, may be found, under the rubble of unremembered ages, a name that was never current among Jews, yet now the most famous Jew-name in literature. Transliterating the proper names correctly we read in Genesis X, 24: Arpacksad begat Shdlach, and Shèlach begat 'Eber. This simple discovery has defied a century of research, because apart from the Hebrew we do not find in Bibles the name Shylocke as we know it; and because we do not allow for the possibility that our


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present pronunciation of the name may be slightly different from the 16th century pronunciation. The Septuagint, the Vulgate and all the vernacular versions, which are often translations twice removed, conceal the proper name disguised. The polyglot Testaments yield no other forms than 2*a«, Sala(h) or Sela(h). It is strange that such Protestant Bibles as were translated direct from the Hebrew, gave the transliteration of the proper names according to the Greek. We must remember this fact that the rules of Greek phonology dominate the modern transcriptions of Bible names.1
Having made the discovery that Shylocke is to be found in the Hebrew text of the O. T. and not in any of the European Bibles, 2 what can we do with it? Very little, at first sight: Shakespeare nowhere betrays a knowledge of Hebrew. The word Hebrew occurs twice in the Merchant of Venice:
Tuball a wealthy Hebrew of my Tribe (1. 3. 58); and
This Hebrew will turn Christian, (1. 3. 188) ï once in Two Gentlemen II. 5. 48:
Go with me to the alehouse, if not, thou art an Hebrew; once in I. Henry IV, 2. 4. 198, Falstaff confirms a lie with: or I am a Jew else, an Ebrew Jew.
Four instances in all, every one of them taking Hebrew for a person, not the language. No man can divine the correct Hebrew form Shelach when he sees Selah, therefore as Shakespeare did not read Hebrew,
1 In Renaissance times humanistie scholars sometimes Hellenised their names: Erasmus, Melanchthon, Toxopeius, Oporinus, Perizonius, Opsopoeus etc.
2 I have looked at the verses that concern us in as many pre-Shakespearean Bibles as came my way at the British Museum and the University Libraries of Leyden and Groningen; the Jews' Bible in Spanish for Marannos published by S. Usque at Ferrara 1553, I have not been able to consult.


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somebody else must have selected and transcribed the name Shylocke. Granting that Shakespeare did not study Hebrew, it has been considered captious to suppose that he did not read Italian;1 we think lightly of the trouble that great men would have in acquiring foreign tongues. Now Shakespeare habitually lays the scènes of comedies and tragedies in Italy, yet his entire works contain only a dozen Italian words or phrases such as Via! Basta! and five or six sentences mangled by the printers, the longest of which is: Vemchie, Vencha, que non te unde, que non te perreche (L. L. L. IV. 2) which no doubt came correctly from his pen: Venegia, Venegia, chi non ti vede, non ti pregia2. Yet it is not likely that he ever saw Venice. There is twenty times as much French in King Henry V and the French is Shakespeare's 3 (in the Famous Victories the Princess Katherine speaks good English). If Shakespeare did not read Italian, he could not make use of thePECORONEtale which became the Merchant of Venice. William Painter had translated three of the fifty tales from Giovanni Fiorentino's Pecorone for the Palace of Pleasure before 15704 but the Bond-of-Flesh story Painter did not translate. Most probably it was not rendered into English till 1754.8
I will now regard these difficulties of Merchantcriticism in the light of the following hypothesis:
i Lee's Life 18-23.
1 See Dote to passage in Arden Shakespeare.
» Jahrbuoh 43. p. VIII. . .
« AVVius and Virginia, Galgano and Mad. Minoecia, and Bindano and Ricctardo An Appius and Virginia play possibly written by Richard Bower of the Chapel about 1575, might be based on Painter's translation. * M. Cooper's translation.


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In shaping the Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare had a predecessor who was a Hebraist and Greek scholar. That scholar was the author of the old play 'The Jew, shown at the Bull' mentioned by Gosson in 1579, which is the Proto-Merchant.
We cannot but be struck with the fact that all the Jew characters in the Merchant'. Shèlach, Iscah, Tubal and Cush are found together within the narrow compass of two consecutive chapters. Cush is not a speaking person but Jessica refers to Tubal and Cush in the same breath (II. 2. 302). Iscah or Iesca occurs nowhere else in the Bible, nor as far as I have been able to ascertain, in literature.1 Shèlach, Tubal and Cush are all in Genesis X; Shèlach and Iesca together in Genesis XI. Shèlach the chief person is therefore in both chapters; and the father and daughter in the Merchant are in the same Hebrew Bible chapter, though they are not father and daughter there. The finding together in close conjunction of these four names, the two principal ones excessively rare, is more than a coincidence. The quartet as such is not to be paralleled from any known book. Hence I conclude:
The four names Shèlach, Iesca, Tubal and Cush were taken collectively, at a sitting, from the Hebrew text of Genesis X and XI.
In recent literature it is beginning to erop up: Hesba Stretton, 'Jessica's First PVayer'. Which is the rarer Bible name: Hesba or Jessica ? This little Jessica is a Christian child, whose mother used to play Iessica at the theatre. a stranger case is that of the Constantinople Jewish girl, in Pierre Benoifs Le Puits de Jacob (1925), who begins by bearing the Ismaelitish name of Agar and then adopts the stage-name of Jessica; her surname is Mosès.


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The transliteration of the names Shèlach and Iesca will confirm the theory that an independent Hebrew and Greek scholar determined the renderings Shylocke and Iessica as we now have them. According to a rule in Hebrew phonology we find Shylocke's name in twin forms: nbe- Shèlach and r*g Shalach. As a common noun rbv means 1. telum, missile, 2. fons vel piscina. In the latter sense it is sometimes assimilated to Siloah, Siloam, Siloe (Vulgata). From a Hebrew point of view it may be held that the Standard form is Shèlach, Shalach occurring as a variation in pausa. Genesis X & XI has Shalach twice, Shèlach four times. The three-dotted vowel in rhv Shèlach is a half-long monophthongic t; the final consonant has the quality of Gr. x. The Septuagint has 2***, because Greek has no sh [s], and it does not render the final consonant, since a Greek word cannot end in % (or x). Our English scholar, too fastidious to be satisfied with can duly render * by sh; * by y; b by l; * by o (a fairly near approach to an English ear) and final n {%) becomes (c)fc, as in the pronunciation of Moloch, stomach, Loch (or Lock). But he adds a mute e, to avoid the barbarity of letting a word end in a forbidden final consonant. Mute e satisfied his scruples without spoiling the phonetic approximation to his original. Shakespeare left the word disyllabic: Anthonio and old Shylocke, both stand forth. Is your name Shylocke? Shylocke is my name. It is to be noted that the original pronunciation must have been Shylock, with the i vowel, not with the diphthong [ei] or ï as sounded in the modern pronunciation. Y was far more used in 16th century


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English to represent i than is usual nowadays. We still write Cyril, Sybil, Syria, Lycidas, Pyramus, Cyclades, Lydia etc. Those names would lose caste if deprived of the dignity of y. Proper names not derived from a classical tongue also affected the y; to take only a few examples where the syllable is open we have Lyly, Wyclif, Sydenham, Wykenham, Wycherley, Lymington Dymock etc. In the Folio text of The Merchant itself we have Lychas, Ryalto, Solyman, Phylosopher, Pythagoras, Nerryssa; etc. In fact nothing is more common than for y to be pronounced i in open syllables. The Hebrew vowel would not be rendered correctly by [ei], as in Nile, but a somewhat lengthened i as in bid would be adequate. We remember that the Pepys ballad spells ShiUock(e), which is a popular phonetic spelling, representing the pronunciation of about 1600. In the Clowne's banter of Jessica "Thus when I shun Scilla your father, I fall into Charibdis your mother," Scilla sounds like a pun on Shylocke. As this choice joke was possibly the Clowne's own contribution, it spells i where Gaultier de Lille's original has y:
Incidis in Scyllam, cupiens vitare Charybdim % The Quartos and Folio invariably spell Anthonio; the h also seems a concession to learned spelling. It thus appears we can account for the transliteration Shylocke as the work of a conscientious though somewhat pragmatical scholar. There seems to be a similar subtlety in the transcription of Iescah. Iessica has three syllables: But go we in, Ipray thee Iessica; dn one line Iesca in two syllables would fit better:
1 M. Philippi Oualtheri ab Insulis de Casteüione Albxandreis; recensuit F. a. Mueldener, Lipsiae 1863 (a copy in Maatsch. v. Letterk. Leyden).


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Did pretty Iessica (like a little shrow) (V. I.) The trisyllabic pronunciation is a departure from the Hebrew TOï (Iiscah). The case is roughly analogous to that of "ET. (Ribkah) which becomes Rebekah or Rebecca. The dagesh in the * of W5 converts the = (*) into a (k) and firmly closes the preceding syllable, as if the spirant a (%) was not only hardenedinto a plosive,but also doubled. Now the Septuagint has Tar**. nofiew* The X representing a without the doubling dagesh, might point to a pronunciation like W* where 9 would be a weak syllable, [së]. As a matter of fact Iiskah occurs only once, at the end of a verse, and therefore in punetuated texts it has the diacritic soph pasuk (,): m which has nothing to do with pronunciation, but with the traditional chaunting. The same (,) placed a little more to right would be a metheg which turns a Sh'wa quiescens into a Sh'wa mobile, giving Jiseca. It seems possible that some such slight confusion, together with the imperfect analogies of Bebecca and lesse produced the rather unaccountable Jessica k The main point is, however, that Iessica is again an independent transliteration, not found in any Bible.
We have remarked before that both Shylocke and Iessica especially in their untraditional English garb, were practically unknown names. It is permissible to conclude that the author purposely avoided the more representative names, partly trom a révérence for their associations, but possibly also to mark Shylocke and his kin as Jews indeed, but not representative of
» Compare also: Getioa, Attioa, Monioa, Erica etc, for the ending ica.
15


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Jewry in general. The public would take the names as un-typical and unimportant; but our scholar had a private meaning to be guessed only by the initiated. The same verse Genesis X 24 concludes: and salah begat Eber. C1?*). Now 'Eber means Hebrew consequently Shylocke is the father of the ancestor and heros eponymos of all the Hebrews. 2 This surmise is supported by a parallel with Iessica. Commentators from Rashi onward teil us that Iiskah was the early name of her who was afterwards Sarai and Sarah. 'Ipsa lescha fuit binomia, qui vocata fuit alio nomine Sarai', says de Lyra. Thus as Shylocke is an early 'Eber, Jessica is an earlier Sarah. The Rashi-gloss adds that the name Iiska may be referred to the (Aramaic) stem too: "to look" "since all men looked at her because of her beauty"; another glosses the name as: "she who had vision". Karl Elze imagined that the Iessica in the Merchant received the name of
1 Sebastian Munster, Biblia Sacra 1534 and 1546: Est disceptatio inter Hebraeos de nomine Hebraeus. Quidam enim putant ipsum derivari ab hoe viro Eber, ut Ibri (sic enim ipsi legunt) sit nomen gentile & huic opinioni subscribit David Kimchi, dicens quod Hebraeus sit *13y rtrtBtt'DO, hoe est, a cognatione Eber. Aliis vero placet Hebraeum dioi a praepositione eber, id est, trans vel ultra. Et hinc Abram primum dictus est Hebraeus, quasi traiector, quod Euphratem Dei iussu traiecit (1534). Ex nostris quidam subscribunt primae opinioni, dicentes quod Eber meruit, at autoritate sancti Patriarchae Sem, Ecclesia ab eo appellationem sumeret, & Ebraei dicerentur, qui doctrinam & fidem Eber sancti patris retinerent, ac mansit haec appellatio Ecclesiae usq'ad Christi tempus (1546). Munster transcribes into Latin: Scelah for both forms in 1534, and Selah and Scelah to render the Hebrew distinction in 1546. * Mr. S. Seeligmann of Amsterdam communicates to me the following remarkable illustration: Isaac son of the poet-exegete Abr. ibn Ezra (1092—1167) relates in a poem that he was suspected of having passed over to Islam,, using the trope fw Ü3 ]ÏP7j i <rudrlK: J wag supposed to have become estranged from the tongue of the son of Shèlach. (Anthologia Hebraica, Brody-Wiener, Insel Verlag, p. 200).


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*a looker-out', because 'she gazed into the public street.' If we go on adding subtlety to subtlety our scholar must have been a very sly person. Prof. Gollancz was struck with Elze's remark and suggested that the name Shylocke also concealed a word-play. "I am inclined to explain the use of the name as due to the — quite erroneous — association of tW (ShTch) with 1* (ShTch) the biblical Hebrew1 for 'cormorant'. In Elizabethan England cormorant2 was an expressive name for 'usurer'. The same mind that chose Iessica, 'she that looketh-out' knew the peculiar force of the words 'to bait fish withal' as Shylocke snarls." If such fancies are permissible one might as well suppose that the symbolist connected — erroneously again — with the next word in the dictionary Shallach(a); a skinner, a flayer. Indeed the Bond of Flesh stories frequently mention a strip of skin, instead of a pound of flesh. If these guesses are admitted it becomes doubtful whether Shylocke's words to Iessica are Shakespeare's or his learned predecessor's; and certain that the triumphant passage beginning with 'to bait fish withal' must be divided between Shakespeare and the Hebraist scholar, for it is out of the question that Shakespeare should have playfully etymologized in Hebrew. He did not often etymologize in other foreign tongues. Desdemona 'the unfortunate' is not a carefully preserved Avo-UI/tav, the only name borrowed from Cinthio's tale. Cordelia may be 'heart-lady' as Ruskin
1 Lev. 11.17.
* Gollancz quotes John Taylor: The Water-Cormorant his complaint against a brood of Land Cormorants, 1622. Compare also The Wandering Jew (1640?): "he is an insatiable cormorant, or rather corne-vorant, a merdilesse money monger, a filthy forty in the hundreth and unconscionable extortioner".


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explained % but it was probably taken from the Leirstory in the Faerie Queene (Bk II. c. 10) and thus the etymological play was Spenser's, whose names are designedly symbolic.
Before we proceed and see whither our hypothesis as to the Biblical and scholarly origin of the Jew names in the Merchant leads, we may as well take notice here of a few suggestions made elsewhere. Staunton in 1858 mentions a name Scialocca. "This may have been an Italian name Scialocca, the change of which into Shylock was natural. At all events it was a name current among Jews, for at the end of an extremely rare tract there is a piece entitled: 'Caleb Shilock his prophesie for the yeere 1607.' Although pretending to be a prophecy for the year 1607 this edition was a reprint of a much older copy, the date of the predicted event being altered to give interest to the prediction." Thus far Staunton. With the News from Rome pamphlet and its date we have already dealt. As to Scialocca it is unfortunate that Staunton does not say where he came across it; he is the only scholar who commits himself to the opinion that Scialocca or Shylocke was current among (Italian) Jews. An Italian man's name ending in a is peculiar 2, and suggests an oriental derivation, e. g. from the Aramaic Shallacha, sciallaca: aptator pellium,
coriarius (Buxtorf's lexicon), which may be a living trade name in the Oriënt, somehow known in lingua Franca. Or is it not possible that Staunton, who fails
1 Munera Pulveris p. 89. (Furness).
s Petmrcaisanintentional exception; he changed his original name of di Petracco into Petrarca, to give it a classic turn. Scialocca, if an Italian name must mean a spendthrift, from the verb scialoquare.


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to give a reference, just noticed it in some comparatively modern Italian work owing something and the name to the Merchant ? 1
Hunter gave another glimpse of the elusive name in the following note (New Hlustrations of Shakespeare, 1845): "We collect that Shylock was a Levantine Jew from the name Scialac, which is doubtless the same in a different orthography, being the name of a Maronite of Mt. Libanus, who was living in 1614. See account of the Mss. in the Library of France 1782, p. 23. For this reference I am indebted to some pencil notes on this play by the late Mr. T. G. Waldron." It therefore appears that the name Scialac, which was supposed by Hunter to be Hebrew in Italian spelling, was used in the Levant in the 17th century; not primarily as a Jewish name, for in this the only instance recorded, it beiongs to a Maronite, i. e. a Syrian (Arabic-speaking) Christian, of a sect who in the 12th century abandoned their distinctive opinions and united with the Church of Rome. (Webster's Dict.) If one has the curiosity to turn to Maclean's Dictionary of Vemacular Syriac (1901) one finds that in Syriac ShTq means 'to cook', so that our Maronite Scialac may have been just a "Cook." Other words Shalag in that lexicon mean 1. a whip; 2. a musk melon. As to 'melon' Prof. Böhl of Groningen kindly pointed out to me that as a man's name, it would be an analogue to the name Habakuk which also means a garden herb, possibly a melon. We may take it, however, that this Syrian Scialac had nothing
1 The Brit. Mus. Catalogue has a name Nicolas Sciüacio of Messina, professor at Pa via and author of "De Insulis nuper inventis', 16th century; I do not think the name is etymologically related to Shylocke or Scialocca.


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to do with usury or Flesh-Bonds; but there is something striking in Hunter's idea that the Libanon region not a hunderd miles north of Damascus, may have been the cradle of the Pound of Flesh episode, or rather as I think, anecdote. It does not confirm the notion that a Jew must usually have been a party to them as creditor. Of Levantine anecdotes on the theme Edmund Malone brought forward a Persian MS. of undetermined date,2 containing an apologue in which the parties, a Syrian Mussuiman and a Jew bring their dispute before the Cazi of Hems (Höms). This is Emesa, in the Libanon, among the Maronites. Another Oriental pound-of-flesh story is in a collection of powerfully argued declamations 'written in Frenche by Alexander Van den Busshe (Van den Bosch), alias Sylvaine'; the scène is again Levantine, in 'Turckie', the sphere of contact between the three religions during and after the Crusades. The two declamations, the Jewes speech, pro and the Christians answere con., confirm the impression that the germ of this story as of others in the collection is nothing but an interesting fictitious case, a theme for legal dialectics. A Solyman, a Harun, a Charlemagne or a Saladin would be arbiter.
Still, though the atmosphere of the name Scialac fits well, I can attach no importance to it in comparison with the whole quartet of names in Genesis X and XI, which we should have to give up for it. The same unsatisfactory circumstance, that the name occurs isolatedly, not combined with Iessica, Tubal and Cush, attachés to other suggestions made. Among them the most recent is that of Prof. Gollancz, in The
1 Graetz: Shylock in der Sage. 2 See p. 241, note 2.


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Shakespeare Book of Homage, 1916 & It is indeed a close approximation to the name Shylocke, in English print that came under the eye of Elizabethan readers: "About that time also it was signified to them of Jerusalem that the Askalonites had entered in friendship with theRomans. They senttherefore Neger the Edomite and Schiloch the Babylonian and Jehochanan with a power of the common people; these came to Askalon and besieged it a great space.... Witbin the town was a Roman captaine called Antonius [elsewhere Antonio] a valiant man and a good warrior." Next day Schiloch and Johochanan perished in the assault of Askalon, which is told in ten lines.
This quotation is from the "Compendious Historie of the latter Times of the Jewes Commune-Weale, written in Hebrue by Joseph ben Gorios," [sic for Gorion] and partly translated, ostensibly from the Hebrew, by Peter Morvyn of Magdalen College, Oxford. Morvyn translated with the help of Sebastian Münster's Historiae Josephi, a curtailed Latin translation of the Hebrew Josippon, beginning at the Gesta Machabeorum. The book was supposed to be an abridged Flavius Josephus and regarded as such in Elizabethan England *, though it is in reality a tenth-century Italian work enlarged from Spanish sources, not remarkable for accuracy, and in many parts fantastic, e. g. in its borrowings from Arabic Alexander romances. How eagerly it was read appears from the bibliography of the editions in English: 1558, _'6l_'67—75—'79—'93—'96—' 1602—'08—'15 etc. "This passage, we may take it — says Prof. Gollancz —
1 article Bits of Timber.
« Compare Cohn: The Iewes Tragedy, Bang's Materiahen 40. Louvain 1913.


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was read by Shakespeare, and it may well account for Shylock, and incidentally for Antonio." It is certainly a remarkable find, but personally I can not give up for it the theory based on Gen. X and XI. In purer Hebrew this word Schiloch would sound Shilóach pk?'], at any rate the consonants are those of the name in Genesis. But the sixth book of Josippon in Hebrew, which forms the bulk of Münster-Morvyn's Compendious Historie, has not rbv [ShTch] but ftfe* which is not the same. Shèlah is identical with the mysterious word in Gen. 49.10 Shiloh. Long ago (1850) it was suggested by Mr. M. A. Lower that this Messianic symbol (?) was used as a Jewish name, Shylock, and he was pained at the impiety. If this pain is still feit by our contemporaries we can assuage it. Jews employ neither Shèlach nor Shiloh as men's names; the somewhat similar Shêlah ["*?] the son of Juda, is not the same % The Dutch version of Gorionides 2 transliterates Silo. Münster-Morvyn are peculiar for their fidelity in transliterating the Hebrew names, using German values, e. g. Jehochanan, where n [h] and n [ch, x] are discriminated. It is therefore against their eustomary accuracy to transliterate rbv [Shiloh] by Schiloch, and I must suppose they used another Hebrew text than that to which I had access. 8
We may therefore with some show of reason set up our rest on the theory that the Jew names in the
1 Israelites do not claim to know the name of the Mashiach; they are not aware of any reason for avoiding Immanuel as a name; nor are R. Catholics. The family name Messias (Messia, Mexia etc) is a reMc of marannism, like Santa Croce or Santa Cruz. 'ml. van Ameringen, Amsterdam 1868.
* Venezia 1630, in the Provincial Library of Friesland, Leeuwarden, page p.


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Merchant were taken coUectively trom the Hebrew Bible. Collectively, at a sitting, by an expert, not without a certain subtlety in the choice, for two of them are extïemely rare, and peculiar in parallel ways. Think of the improbability of any of them, especially the name Iessica, being a later addition by another hand. Only the scholar who knew where and why to take Shylocke would select Iessica. Iessica then was in the original quartet: if she had been a later arrival, she would have been Rachel or Abigal, or Leah (as Shylocke's wife came to be named). The credit of adding the Iessica plot as a device to balance Shylocke's cruelty by sufferings and provocatiott, is therefore due to the author of the Proto-Merchant. Considering the meanness of that affair this is a cause for satisfaction, to think that it is not Shakespeare's doing. From the Merchant as we have it we miss Cush as a speaking character, though he is mentioned in the same breath with Tubal by Iessica as Shylocke's friends. As Cush is in the same chapter with Tubal and Shylocke (Gen. X), I presume that he was originally also a speaking character, eliminated by Shakespeare. Tubal and Cush were a pair, standing on either side of Shylocke in the Daughter-Ducat scène: one blowing hot, the other cold; between them Shylocke is swayed in a marnier that two messengere could bring about better than one.
The four inseparable names then were chosen for thepurposeofadramaora morality. In the earliest parables, anecdotes, tales (Dolopathos, Gesta Romanorum) we find a bloody-minded merchant who is not a Jew; in the Italian novel of the Pecorone, there is one Jew only, who is nameless. On the stage, however, nameless


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speaking characters are awkward: this is the point where name-giving becomes imperative: in the dramatization of the Italian novel in England after the middle of the 16th century. Stage Jews usually have one daughter granted to them (Abigal, Iessica, Recha) for the purpose of bringing about complications with lovers, sometimes entailing the conversion of the daughter.
But enough of theoretical details for the present; let us turnto The Merchant of Venice as a play and discuss a very few of its historical and literary aspects; and let us try if we can still recognize in it the hand of our supposed Hebrew-Greek scholar.


CHAPTER VII
THE SUBJECT MATTER OF THE MERCHANT OF VENICE ESPECIAIXY THE BOND-STORY
The "historicity" of the Flesh-Bond theme - Oriental or Western! - The Laws of the XII Tables - Gnmm, Simrock, Benfey
We will now turn aside to see where the subjectmatter of the Merchant of Venice came from. For a certain distance we can follow its evolution and thus gain the historical attitude of mind, reqmred if we are to deal faithfuUy with older literature. The question whether the story is purely « whether some of it happened "just so , is I think justifiable, since the majority of readers ask it and answer it. The general trend of opinion seems to be that, very little being invented under the sun, there must be a kernei of historie fact in the Flesh-Bond. With most people the numbers of parallel stories that have been met with, strengthen that convictwm I think this is a fallacy and that relations of fact have not so winged a flight as myth or fiction.
The problem as to the degree of reahsm in the Merchant is still an open one. Those who looked for Scialocca in the Venetian ghetto, or assigned to


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the News from Rome an important hearing on the Italian ongin of the name Shylocke, took the historicity of the theme for granted. Heinrich Heine, Karl Elze Georg Brandes went to the Rialto and to Shylocke's synagogue as hterary pilgrims, feeling the rush of Shakespeare's wings in the belief that the poet had not only been there before them, but had met Shylocke there. Even recently on the occasion of the Tercentenary of Shakespeare's death, pride of place was given to verdiets on the Merchant by A. Schroef of Cologne and W. Creizenach «; both of whom admonish the public to subdue sentiment about Shylocke, and to see him in the spirit in which he was conceived, as a monstrous reality. To Schroer's mind the Merchant belongs to the Histories, as witness the title-pages of the two Quartos: "The Excellent Historie of the Merchant of Venice", and the running titles in both Quartos: "The Comicall Historie of the Merchant of Venice". Shakespeare indeed, out of his generosity humanizes Shylocke to some extent, but we are warned 'it is a falsification of the undoubted sense of the drama' to sympathize Shylocke still further. Mr. Isr. Zangwill, on the principle that 'every age re-interprets the old masterpieces' would make him more plausible by a few eliminations, additions and readjustments3. Mr. William Poel while criticising Mr. Zangwül's proposal, "admits that The Merchant of Venice is ülogical and unsatisfactory as a work of art." Mr. Maurice Moscovitch is also troubled by
f Engl. Studies 50. Sh. GedSchtnis Heft.
* Jahrbuch 51.
* The Voiee of Jerusalem. 1920. p. 228 ff.


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contradictions in the play. He "gropes his way like a blind man from scène to scène, playing all the contradictions, it being the duty of an actor to be faithful to his author."
The tracing of the evolution of the story may allay some of these perplexities. With respect to minor works historie doubts are not supposed to trouble the reader, but in the case of great productions the artists themselves have often directed attention to the degree of historicity they desired to be assumed. In a foreword to Diana of the Crossways, Meredith decides that it is to be read as fiction. Ben Jonson on the other hand prays his audience to accept Every Man in his Humour 'as an image of the times', somewhat after Shakespeare's conception. Browning is at pains to impress upon the reader that The Ring and the Book is to be apprehended as fact, real summed-up circumstance:
Do you see this square old yellow Book .... Small quarto size, part print part manuscript; A book in shape, but really pure crude fact Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard, And brains, bigh-blooded, ticked two centuries since.
Similarly when Shelley recalled The Cenci to life, no suspicion crossed his mind that he was not dealing with "fanciless fact, the documents indeed." A Manuscript was communicated to him — says Shelley * — which was copied from the archives of the Cenci Palace at Rome, and contains an account of horrors
1 Preface to The Cenci (abridged).


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which ended in the extinction of a noble family during the Pontificate of Clement VII in the year 1599. An old man having spent his life in debauchery, conceived a hatred towards his children, which showed itself towards one daughter under the form of an incestuous passion, aggravated by cruelty and violence. This daughter after vain attempts to escape from a perpetual contamination, plotted with her mother-inlaw and brother to murder their tyrant. The deed was discovered and in spite of prayers to the Pope the perpetrators were put to death. All ranks of people knew these outlines, though Shelley found the communication of the MS. a matter of difficulty. But once in possession Shelley never doubted that every word in it was authentic, and he preserved that authenticity: 'I have endeavoured as nearly as possible to represent the characters as they were.' Then he proceeds to attune the reader's mind still more to the veracity of his drama, by describing the surviving monuments, the Cenci Palace and the portrait of Beatrice, of which he had a copy made. Romana Homicidia, Italian murder-cases, have as a rule found avid belief in Western Europe. The repugnance expressed against Shelley's drama in the 19th century was based on its supposed excess of realism, not on any idea that it was not true. If Webster or Ford had written The Cenci in the years that preceded the extinction of the Jacobean drama, it would have been acceptable to the taste of that age, and the probabüity is that Shakespeare's audience, also received the Merchant of Venice as fundamentally realistic, a picture of brilliant, naughty Italy, sprawled over


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by a clawing demon Jew. The Flesh-Bond found credence with Elizabethan audiences. And what about ourselves? If The Cenci happened in 1599, could not The Merchant have happened a while before? There are twentieth century jurists who would have us take Shylocke's Bond for granted, not by an act of artistic faith, but as a fact historically tenable, and based in recorded statute law.
As far as the literature accessible to me enables me to judge, Jacob Grimm was the first to put the discussion on a legal basis by his reference to the Laws of the Twelve Tables Ij of ancient Rome. These famous statutes take us back to 450 B. C. So great was their authority, that as late as the Empire they were still the fons omnis publici privatique iuris. They were not formaüy abolished till Justinian's pandects were composed in the 6th century of our era. It is assumed that by that time their sternest provisions had ceased to be literally applied. It would beinterestingto know by what specious interpretations and fictions the shrewd Roman lawyers succeeded in harmonizing the explicit wording of the text, with the sense of müder justice prevailing in later days. Aulus Gellius, a Roman author of about 150 p. C. n. is stated to have written the most adequate discussion of the fragment that bears on flesh penalties for debt, in the concluding chapter of his Noctes Atticae (XX. 1.) Under certain circumstances creditors were entitled to cut pieces out of a defaulting debtor's body: nam si plures forent [the creditors] quibus
• Deutsche Rechts AÜerthümer von Jacob Grimm. Göttingen 1828. p. 616-621.


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reus esset iudicatus, secare si vellent, atque partiri corpus addicti sibi hominis permiserunt [the laws]. Et quidem verba ipsa legis dicam ne existimes invidiam me istam forte formidare. Tertiis, inquit, Ntjndinis. Partis. Secanto. Si. Plus. Minus. Ve. Secuerunt. Se. Fraude. Esto. Nihil profecto immitius, nihil immanius: nisi, ut re ipsa apparet, eo consilio tanta immanitas poenae denuntiata est, ne ad eam unquam perveniretur. Gellius defends and admires the old law, because, as he says, its deterrent force was such that it need never be applied. Dissectum esse antiquitus neminem equidem neque legi, neque audivi. Quoniam saevitia ista poenae contemni non quita est.
It is somewhat difficult to share Gellius's optimism 1.
Grimm parallels this ancient Roman law with a mediaeval Norwegian one, which he declares to be independent of it: "Das norwegisehe Guledingsgesetz 2
1 I dare not assert that St. Matthew (24.51) The lord of that servant shall come .... and shall cut him asunder' (dixolo^qcei aviör) is to be taken literally as reflecting the state of the law or practice in regard to servants who had abused their master's property, in the Oriënt in the first century A. D. Was this Roman law ? About the time of Matthew, and before Gellius, the law was already condemned and declared obsolete by Quintilian (37—97 A. D.) .... sunt enim quaedam non laudabilia natura, sed iure concessa, ut in duodecim tabulis debitoris corpus inter creditores dividi licuit, quam leqem mos publicus repudiavü. (Inst. Oratoria. III. 6. 84). After Gellius we find the law referred to by the Christian Apologist Tertullian (d. 230 A. D.), who seems to imply that it was at first executed literally: Iudicatos in partes secari a creditoribus leges erant, consensu tarnen publico crudelitas postea erasa est, in pudoris notam capitis poena conversa est. (Apolog. 4). Unfortunately we are not told when 'this cruelty was afterwards erased by public consent, the punishment of death being converted into public disgrace'. 'Public disgrace' is wonderfully mild. (See Tertïdlian's Apology by Mayor and Souter, Cambridge 1917). * See Gtdapingsbók in Johannes Hoops, Reallexikon der Germ. Altertumskunde; and Karl von Amira, in Paul's Grundriss 1913"; the "Redaktion d?' was composed about 1200 A. D.; the earliest MS. version is ascribed to about 1100 A. D. The Frostapingslasg is similar (edition Kayser und Münch, 1846, II, p. 512).


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enthalt im leysingsbalken, cap. 15, nachstehende vorschrift: erweist sich ein schuldner muthwillig gegen seinen glaubiger und will er nicht für ihn arbeiten, so darf dieser ihn vor gericht führen und seinen freunden entbieten, ihn von der schuld zu lösen. wollen ihn die freunde nicht lösen, so habe der, welcher den schuldner bei sich hat macht, von ihm zu hauen was er will, óben oder unteri". (p. 617).
Dr. Joseph Kohier1 maintains that the validity of Shylocke's bond is to be regarded in the light of the jurisprudence of that period when debtors could be forced to pay with their flesh: Qui non habet in aere, luat in cute. By a review of comparative jurisprudence he proceeds to prove that the law of the Twelve Tables had received from the earliest times a realistic interpretation. "Hence we see that the holding of the body of the debtor as security for debt is an institution of universal application, and where by chance it is modified and assumes a milder type, we are not to ascribe it to superior culture, but to an inferior estimate of the rights of property." I beg Dr. Kohler's leave to see in the mildness of the Mosaic Law as compared with the Roman and the Norwegian an element of superior culture: the insolvent debtor became a bondman, but like any bondman he was free the moment his master mutilated him, even if he only smote out his; manservant's tooth (Ex. 21. 27). Orientalists who favour the view that the Shylocke story is of Asiatic origin 2 have not yet brought forward any Oriental laws prescribing the cutting of flesh
1 Shakespeare vor dem Forum der Jurisprudens, Würzburg 1883. 1 A. Vambéry in KeUti Szemle Revue Oriëntale, 1901, p. 18—29.
16


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for debt. The West seems to hold that unenviable distinction. This is one of Grimm's reasons for thinking that the Shylocke story is of Western-European origin. Eventually, however, he hesitates to connect the stories with the laws referred to: "Offenbar ist hier alles grund-verschieden von dem röm. gesetz, das die sectio corporis ohne vorhergegangene stipulation nur für den fall mehrerer glaubiger gestattet und das mehr oder minder hauen für unstraflich erklart."
The clause: Si plus minusve secuerunt, se [= sine] fraude esto, is indeed puzzling. It is true that when the debtor's body is to be entirely cut up, if some cut more than their share, others necessarily receive less. But how is it that the tag to the main law came to exonerate the cutting less? Is it necessary expressly to attow creditors to cut less, to profeet those who cut less ? Was not omne ma jus in se continet minus an accepted principle in ancient law? I am inclined to conjecture that this seemingly illogical clause was a later addition.1 Suppose the practice had been (pace Aulus Gellius) for the creditors to cut pieces roughly proportionate to their share of the debt, and that in one case a plea was put in by counsel for the defence, claiming an impossible precision in the apportioning: each creditor was to cut neither more nor less than exactly his due. This plea, if successful, would invalidate the law, under pretence of carrying it out with the greatest scrupulosity. We may imagine that the Bench on whom this surprise was sprung, may have been obliged to give judgment for the defendant, and that
1 We do not possess the original fragment of the Table. Compare C. Bruns, 1893', and the Additamentum.


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subsequently the law had to be amended to meet the exception. In that case the peculiar form of the exonerating clause would not be such bad law, as it would be if the clause were coeval with the mam law. Generally speaking we may assume that safeguarding supplements are not invented until a case shows the necessity for them. Meanwhile the sensational successful case would be perpetuated as a story, in spite of the alteration of the law, to become legendary when the whole system to which the ancient law belonged, feil into desuetude and was forgotten. If the plea when made was immediately disallowed, even this would not prevent the legend from taking root, by way of protest, heartily supported by all potential debtors. In the end the "neither more nor less" plea, quibble though it was, won the day in literature. To all appearances it is the most usual and the oldest solution of the Bond of Flesh case in stories. As such it either occurs as sufficiënt by itself, or it is combined with the "no jot of blood" exception, thus producing a doublé bar to the creditor's claim. The cases where the only bar is "no jot of blood", are, as far as I am aware, confined to the Gesta Romanorum versions, and two English stories.
When the flesh-cutting laws had fallen into disuse the legend had to undergo an important alteration: a Bond became necessary. This created improbabilities that no form of the tale can be said to have surmounted. I find it hard to fully accept the validity of Flesh-Bonds in Mediaeval Europe, as Prof. Th. Niemeyer of Kiel requires us to do1: —
i Der Rechtssprucb. gegen Shylock, 1912; p. 22.


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"Similar agreements occurred in the 13th, 14th "and 15th centuries in Germany, Scandinavia and '^Italy, and were recognized as valid. I will communicate "three examples from preserved documents:
"1. In the State-Archives of Genoa there is a "contract drawn up in 1279 in the presence of the "Genoese notary Pietro Bargone, by which the Sicilian "woman Cerasia enters into the obligation towards "a certain Jacobus, to be at his disposal and command, "in consideration of maintenance and a remuneration "in money. In case she fails of the duties undertaken, ''Jacobus is to be entitled to cut off her nose, a hand "or a foot, without liability to be held' in any way
"accountable by any Court of Law.
"2. In a Cologne charter of 1263 drawn up before "a Justice and Jury (Richter und Schöffen a debtor "promises to allow himself to be beheaded in case he "breaks his obligation. —
"3. In a Silesian document of 1250 Konrad Blind, "before the Bailiff, declares himself guilty of death "if he commits certain transgressions against the "Church; the Bailiff and the Parish are in that case "to pronounce the forfeiting of his life. —
"The real earnest and frequency of such contracts "is furthermore attested by the fact that in a series "of mediaeval sources there are prohibitions of what "Tacitus records of the Teutons, viz. that they gamble "away an eye, nose, ear, hand or foot. In a word, "Shylock's pact was possible and valid according to "the law of those days." —
1 Grimm pp. 785 and 956, explains Schöffen as Oeschworenen, with a reference to Old English law.


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However, if such contracts were frequent and valid, there should be some record of judgments given when a case was brought into a court of law. Until that is produeed full weight cannot be attached to Prof. Niemeyer's instances. Itis a pity that these contracts are given abridged and without any apparatus; the only one where a money-debt is in question (no. 2) is all too bare of details. In the Italian example, Cerasia seems to be an ignorant woman held in subjection by Jacobus. The monstrous contract would be a standing menace, never to be carried into effect, though Jacobus may occasionally have whetted the razor at Cerasia. From what motives Konrad Blind assented to his bond we do not know. He may have acted under ecclesiastical pressure, or he may in religious exaltation have made an extraordinary vow.
The Flesh-Bond in the Bamberg Ballad
In tales and ballads, however, Flesh-Bonds are frequent. It attracted Simrock's \ attention that in a German ballad the Flesh-Bond is one of a string of legal anecdotes, partly ludicrous, yet also showing how formal right, too fiercely claimed, may be humorously defeated in the interests of equity. The ballad in question was printed as a flying quarto leaf in Bamberg 1493. The substance, not the text of it, was communicated by B. J. Docen2, in 1811:
1 Karl Simrock, Sie Quetten des Shakespeare, 1831; 1871». English translation Sh. Soc. 1850.
• Museum fur Altdeutsche Literatur und Kunst. vol. II, 1811, pp. 279—283. (I abridge a good deal).


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— A prosperous merchant left his whole property to his son, which the young man squandered within a year. He then borrows a thousand guilders from a wealthy Jew to try his fortune abroad. To the usurer he pawns "ein Pfund Schmer's aus seinem Leibe" if he does not repay in time. Returning with three to four thousand guilders, he does not find the creditor at home, and so overstays the term by three days, when at last he finds the lender in an other town. The Jew claims the forfeit, and the two resolve to travel to the Emperor Charles "whose name is known far and wide and who deals equal justice to rich and poor". [probably Charlemagne]. On the road the merchant falls asleep on his horse, thus running over and killing a child who was in the way. The child's father wants to be instantly revenged on the murderer, but the Jew persuades him to follow after and make good his accusation in the Emperor's court. Here the young merchant is taken into custody, but by a new misfortune falls out of a window, thereby killing an old knight who was sitting on a bench below. The Kriight's son would have stabbed the young merchant, if the Jew had not interposed, contending that he had a prior claim against the young man, which must be satisfied first. The Emperor now has three cases to decide. The young merchant pleads that he had been on the spot to tender payment in due time, but was only prevented from doing so because he did not find "the dog" at home. The Emperor pronounces the penalty forfeit: the Jew himself must cut the flesh, but neither more nor less than a pound, for if the difference either way was


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only a grain, the Jew's life was forfeit. The Jew gives up his claim to the flesh, makes the young man a present of the thousand guilders borrowed, to which he adds another two hundred. The claim as to the child the Emperor settles peculiarly: Let him beget thee another. He advises the son of the Knight to go up into the chamber, have the young merchant placed upon the bench, and the Knight's son may then drop upon and kffl him. Both waive their claims. In conclusion the judges that "with mercy season justice"
are praised: 5J "Und die das thun, der' Ehre will Gott starken. — The substance of the Bamberg ballad may be very much older than 1493 \
Theodor Benfey 2 recognized in this German ballad an offspring of Buddhist literature. He cites parallels containing the same adventures, with one notable exception, from the Tibetan Dsanglun, edited and translated in 1843; also from a Russian tale first printed in 1808. These are rather late dates. Of course the place and time where legends first appear in writing is no clue as to the country of origin. It is conceivable that an apologue may have lived in the Oriënt for a thousand years, without being couched in writing; it may meanwhile have travelled to Europe and been fixed in writing there. Yet the Oriënt has
i Compare also the articles in Keleti Szemle, 1901, p. 18 -24 (Vambéry) and 182-186 (Basset); they prove the wide spread of the whole etnng of anecdotes (with and without a Jew) in Persian- Arabic literature, from at least the XlVth century onward. The titie «L'Origine oriëntale de Shylock" seems, however, to
implv too much. ^ , . T . .
» Pantschatantra I. p. 393, ff. I «msulted the First Edit»on, Brockhaus, Lexpag 1859, being unable to procure the edition of 1891.


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possessed the art of writing longer than the Teutonic or Celtic Occident, and it is therefore contrary to expectation that there is no Oriental written version of the Flesh-Bond demonstrably as old as the earliest Occidental one, viz. Dolopathos, which will be presently discussed. If the destruction of MSS is mvoked, that argument cannot be pressed very far The fact of the matter is that the Tibetan and the Kussian tales contain no Flesh-Bond. In the Dsanglun the starting mishap is that a poor Brahman borrows a cow, which is not duly returned; the claim is for another cow. The Russian tale of the Judgments of oHEMJAKA opens similarly with a horse borrowed by a poor man from his rich brother; the horse being returned tailless, another horse is demanded It almost appears as if, whatever the German ballad may owe to Oriental fable, the Flesh-Bond was a European, perhaps a specifically German contribution Now it may be said that the law-question of the Fjesh-Bond is in such excellent keeping with the rest of the mcidents as to render the theory of a substitution unhkely. True, but if it belonged to the tale originally how is the disappearance from the Russian and thê Mongol versions to be explained? We shall presently see that the Shylocke-bond in Dolopathos also crops up m Europe in the Oriental setting of a Seven Sages romance but no such Oriental romance contains the Shylock story. Again this oldest Shylocke-bond m Dolopathos emerges in Lorraine, whilst if it had come to the West from the Oriënt it would have appeared first in Spain or Italy, the natural bridges between the sphere of Islam and the West


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The same combination of law anecdotes as found in the Bamberg ballad, and this time with the FleshBond was noticed by Benfey in the 'quite recently published' work of the Mohammedan Indian Lutfullah. (1857)1. Benfey gives no indication of the century when Lutfullah is supposed to have lived, nor as to the character of his work. The Arabic author himself dates his tale 'in the third century of the hegira'; the locality is Cairo, and the name of the judge is given as Mansm b. Mussa. The judge decides against the Jew "in the well-known manner."(?)
It seems impossible to determine from written records whether the original home of the Flesh-Bond story was in the East2 or in the West, and to disentangle the interrelations. Benfey in asserting that it is of Oriental origin, with a. Jew as creditor, certainly claims too much. The theme of Flesh-cutting he has proved to be very widespread in Buddhist literature, but only in cases of voluntary sacrifice for ideal purposes. Benfey starts his disquisition from the story in Panchatantra III. 7, of the Fowler and the Doves: — A fowler snares a female dove and puts her in a cage. Being surprised by a thunderstorm, he seeks shelter in the abode of a male pigeon, the mate of his captive. The religious duty of hospitality demands that the host should feed his guest, but the pigeon has nothing to offer, and therefore sacrifices himself as food for his guest, by walking into the fire. The repentant
» Published by Bernhard Tauchnitz, Leipzig 1857. The book is unobtainable in Holland. The story is not noted by Vambéry-Basset.
• "The Story has been found in Buddhist legends "says G. Brandes (p. 157); similarly Niemeyer and others. This unproved assertion arises from a misreading of Benfey.


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fowler frees the female dove, who joins her mate in the flames: both are transfigured. — Benfey adduces numerous old Buddhist legends concerning such voluntary sacrifices (I. p. 388—391) as a type of which may be taken that of King Ucinara, to test whom the god Indra changes himself into a falcon, pursuing a dove which takes refuge in the bosom of the King. The falcon demands the dove as his rightful and natural food. The King offers an equal weight of his own flesh, but the dove proves miraculously heavy, and the King has to yield all the flesh of his body. Then Indra resumés his divine shape and blesses the King.
These metaphysical legends are in an entirely different sphere from law-questions arising from Flesh Bonds for debt, and it is vexatious to hear Benfey pursue as follows: —
"Bei der ungeheuren Verbreitung des Buddhismus mussten diese Legenden, die zu ihren heiligsten geboren, über einen grossen Kreis der Erde bekannt werden. Allein, für alle nicht-Buddhisten, die nicht in diese absurde Leidensreligion und dieses Aufopferungsrafjinement verrant waren, mussten diese Geschichten
von Fleisch-abschneiden, Fleischwagen etwas
Ekelerregendes, Abschreckendes haben; infolge jenes Abscheus gewannen sie keine Verbreitung in ihrer ursprünglichen Gestalt, sondern gingen in eine Form über, in welcher sich jener [scil. der Abscheu] hinlanglich aussprach: die Sage vom Fleischabschneiden für den Tinerbittlichen Glaubiger". —
Indeed. Could the Occident feel nothing but horror at the sacrifice of flesh and blood for ideal ends?


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Then how did it receive Christianity? If the theme of voluntary sacrifice in the Buddhistic spirit was abhorrent to the West, there was no obligation to adopt itat all. Moreover, the change of the idealistic sacrifice theme, into that of claiming flesh for debt, is altogether unexplained.
The Leti-Story
Speculations on the ultimate origins may seem vague and remote, and many readers have welcomed the following anecdote purporting to be historical, as an immediate and concrete confirmation of the Merchant of Venice. As evidence in being must be preferred to speculations, so on the strength of "the Leti story to which a few moments must now be devoted, it is considered proved that a Shylocke versus Anthc-nio case was possible and did in fact come to trial in Shakespeare's day, and in Italy.
The Life of Pope Sixtus V [1585—1590] was published in Italian by Cardinal Gregorio Leti, who wrote m the time of Charles the Second; this 'entertaming farrago of improbable gossip', says Furness (p. 279) was translated into English by the Rev. Mr. Farneworth (1779). The post-Shakespearean book contains a remarkable passage to the following effect1: —
It was reported in Rome that Drake had plundered St Domingo in Hispaniola [Island of Tahiti] and carried off an immense booty (1585). This account came in a private letter to Paul Secchi a considerable
• Percy's Reliques, Gernutus; a longer extract in Furness p. 295; discussions in Graetz, Niemeyer and elsewhere.


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merchant in the city, who had insured concerns in those parts with Samson Ceneda, a Jew. Ceneda, whose interest it was to have such a report thought false, worked himself up into such a passion, that he said: "I'll lay you a pound of my flesh it is a lie." Such sort of wagers are often proposed by people of strong passions. Secchi, who was of a fiery temper, replied, "I'll lay you a thousand crowns against a pound of your flesh, that it is true." The Jew accepted the wager, and articles were immediately executed betwixt them. Unfortunately for the Jew, the truth of the account was confirmed; and Ceneda was distracted when informed that Secchi had sworn "he would compel him to the exact performance of his contract, and was determined to cut a pound of flesh from that part of his body which it is not necessary to mention". A report of this transaction was brought to the Pope, who sent for the parties, and said, "When contracts are made, it is just they should be fulfilled, as we intend this shall. Take a knife therefore Secchi, and cut a pound of flesh from any part you please oftheJew's body. We would advise you, however, to be careful; for if you cut but a scruple or a grain more or less than your due, you shall certainly be hanged. Go and bring hither a knife and a pair of scales, and let it be done in our presence." The merchant at these words protested, "It was far from his thoughts to insist upon the performance of the contract", and begged that the articles might be torn in pieces, in which Ceneda concurred. "But we are not content" pursued Sixtus, and instructed the Governor to pass sentertce of death on both; Secchi, because he was


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guilty of downright murder, and Ceneda, because having sold his life, he had practically committed suicide. The sentence was afterwards commuted to the galleys, and eventually that was bought off too. — The value of this anecdote is that it offers a psychological explanation of how a Flesh Bond might arise from a wager, made by two hotheads infuriated over money matters. The division of the röles between the Jew and the Christian is, comparatively speaking, more natural, as regards the cutting of flesh, than in the Merchant of Venice. Yet it seems safest to regard the story as apocryphal: a lesson taught by the Pope in the form of a parable, which Leti or a later editor chose to mistake for an actual incident, and dressed up. According to Graetz it is not in the early editions of Leti's book1. Shakespeare never read it. If he had, we might have had an inverted Merchant of Venice. As a warning to those who think themselves bound to give priority to contemporary "facts" over legendary tradition in the creation of Shakespeare's Jew, I will quote Prof. Niemeyer's comment: "Bedenkt man, dass Shakespeare in den Jahren 1585—1590 aus England verschwunden war und so gut wie sicher in dieser Zeit auch in Italien gewesen ist, so kann man sich der Vermutung nicht verschliessen dass Shakespeare diesen Vorgang gekannt hat." Did Shakespeare know of this "incident", and then invert the parts of the Christian and the Jew? Literary history will teil us quite another tale.
1 Graetz found it in the 1693 ed. II. 2; p. 135 ff.


CHAPTER VIII
THE "SHYLOCKE" STORY IN EUROPE
To proceed more soberly than was possible in the previous chapter we must furnish the student with a brief survey of versions of the Shylocke stories anterior to Shakespeare, and in as nearly as can be determined their chronological order. The chief points to be marked are:
a. the MS. or printed source, dated where possible.
b. the occasion of the loan.
c. the parties concerned in the Bond.
d. the stipulations of the Bond.
e. by whom a legal exception is adduced, and the nature of the exception(s).
/. the retaliation on the defeated creditor, if any.
I. — Johannis de Alta Silva Dolopathos, sive De Rege et Septem Sapientibus K
a. MS. Municipal Library Luxemburg; No. 810; parchment, end of XHIth century. Date of original composition shortly before 1200.
b. Money required to win a bride.
c. Debtor: Iuvenis nobilis quidam;
Creditor: Quidam servus dives, cui quondam iuvenis iratus pedem absciderat.
1 Editions, Oesterley (Trübner London 1873); and Alfons J?iZfca(Heidelberg 1913).


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d. Amount of loan: centum argenti marcas. Stipulations: si infra annum pecuniam non restitueret creditor de carne et ossibus iuvenis ad centum marcarum pondus auferret.
e. The bride disguised by magie. Si plus aut minus iusto pondere ad quantitatem cuspidis accus inde tuleris, vel si una sanguinis gutta infecerit linteum, scias te continuo mille mortibus perimendum.
/. The creditor desists, 'mille ei marcas pro reconciliatione superaddens'. — No retaliation.
Ioc. _ Li Romans de Dolopathos1; author Herberz.
a. MS. Bibl. Nat. Paris no. 7535; MS. Sorbonne no, 1422. XlIIth century poem (composed c. 1210).
b. Money needed to win a bride: .C. mars dargent.
c. Debtor: Uns damoisiax de grant savoir
Mais n'avoit pas grant richeteit. Creditor: 'Li eschaciers' (a serf, now rich, whose foot the young nobleman had cut off).
d. H li prestoit par tel covent, Que dedans .1. an li rendroit, Jai n'en falroit vaillant. 1. pois, Del sanc et de la char celui.
e. The bride disguised by magie:
Et bien praigne garde a ses mains Qu'il n'en praigne ne plus ne mains Que tant com li vallés li doit Car si li sans el' drap paroit
> Edition: Brunet-Montaiglon, Paris 1856. The French Romance is a translation m verse of the Latin prose original of Iohannes de Alta Silva. Note how the translater misses the critical point of the distinction between sanc and char. The mistake is repeated in the verdict at line 7345.


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Ne tant com une goute monte, Li malx, et li duelz, et la honte Sor 1'eschacier repaireroit. /. The creditor desists and makes a present of .M. marcs to the young knight, and of .C. livres to the intercessor. — No retaliation.
II. — Cursor Mundi written in a Northern dialect of English, about 1290K
a. MS. Cotton Vespas. A111, British Mus. folio, vellum. first half of XlVth Century;
b. —; 'a sume of mone'
c. Debtor: A cristen man was gode goldsmith.
(Constantinople) Creditor: 'a iuu'.
d. He suld 3eild him for his dett pat ilke weght pat par war less, He suld 3eild of his aun f less.
e. 'Romans brought from Rome: Benciras and Ansieris'.
Take pan pe fless, pat grantes he, Swa pat pe blod may saved be; A drope of blod if pat he tine We give ur dome, pe wrang is pine. /. The iuu was dempt swa pat pe quene Suld have his catel all bidene In hir merci his tung to take.
1 Edition, Dr. Morris, E. E. T. S., original series, 99 and 101.


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HL — Latin Story Harl. MS. 7322 [Thomas Wright] c. 1320 k
b. to provide for guests. •
c. Debtor and Creditor are an elder and a younger brother in "Dacia".
d. Vende mihi ad latitudinem manus meae de carne tua in quibus et in quadruplum, ubicunque voluero recipere.
e. filiüs regis [to whom the younger brother 'gives his blood'] Modo cape ubicunque volueris carnem tuam; sed si sanguis meus est, si ex eo minimam guttam effunderis morieris.
IV. — Gesta Romanorum 1342.
a. University Library Innsbruck. Cod. lat. 3102.
b. to win a bride, daughter of the Emperor Lucius in Rome; C marcas florenorum.
c. Debtor: quidam miles in curia. Creditor: 'unus mercator'.
d. Volo ut cartam de proprio sanguine michi facias sub tuo sigillo, quod, si unum diem inter nos frangas, sine contradictione potestatem habeam tantum de carnibus tuis scindere ac a corpore evellere ubicumque michi placeat in tuo corpore, ita tarnen, quod carnes pecuniam meam ponderent.'
e. the bride disguised in men's clothes.
1 Quoted by Halliwdl-Svmrock p. 62—63. (Shaksp. Soc. 1850); Furness Variorum p. 314; G. Friedlander gives a translation, p. 63. » Edited as Erlanger Beitrage. E. Ph. VII, Wilhelm Dick; 22 later MS. containing the same story are traeeable in Oesterley p. 29, 67, 72, 93, 118, 120, 121, 123, 145, 147, 155, 162, 162, 174, 174, 175, 181, 187, 212, 213, 229, 236.
17


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Lex dixit quod quicumque sanguinem alicuius effuderit sanguis eius pro eo effundatur: Miles iste tantum convencionem fecerat de carnibus abscidendis, non de effusione sanguinis: videas ne sanguinem eius effundas quia si hoe feceris, beneficium legis receperis.
/. mercator ad domum suam confusus abiit. — No retaliation.
IVa. — Anglo Latin Gesta Romanorum c. 1400.
a. MS. Harl. 2270. London. Br. Mus. (no. XLVIII).
b. to win a bride: Celestinus in civitate Romana regnavit prudens valde qui habebat filiam pulchram.
c. Debtor: Quidam miles qui in amorem puellae erat
accensus.
Creditor: Mercator dives (in a distant country, where also lived Virgilius philosophus).
d. centum marcas de florenis. Convencio talis erit, quod michi cartam unam de sanguine tuo facias, quod si diem inter nos non tenueris assignatam, libertatem habeam sine contradictione omnes carnes tui corporis evellere eum gladio acuto. Cartam de proprio sanguine fecit et sigillavit.
e. puella amasia [induta] vestimentis preciosis in formam viri.
.... de sanguinis effusione nunquam erat verbum praelocutum. Si vero poterit [mercator] carnes scindere sine sanguinis effusione, statim mittat manum in eum; si vero sanguinem effuserit, rex contra eum actionem habetit. /. Mercator vero videns se confusum, recessit; et sic vita militis salvata est et nullum denarium dedit. — No retaliation on the creditor.


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IVp. English Gesta Romanorum c. 1450.
a. MS. Harl. 7338. British Museum, (n. XL). 6. Selestinus reignid a wyse Emperoure in Rome and he had a faire dowter.
c. Debtor: a kny3te that lovid this dowter. Creditor: A merchante in fer countree, (where
also lived 'Virgile the philesofere').
d. an C. marke of florens: Make to me a charter of thin owne blood, in conducion, that yf thowe kepe not pi day of payment, hit shall be lefulle to me for to draw awey alle the flesh of thi body froo the bone, with a sharp swerde.
e. pe damysell his love, cladde in precious clothing like to a man.
There was no covenaunt made of sheding of blode; pereof was nothing I-spoke. And perefor late him set hond on him anoon; and yf he shede ony bloode with the shavinge of the fleshe, for sope then shalle the Kynge have goode lawe upon him. /. The marchaunt yede awey confus, and so was the knijtes lyf sauid, & no penye I-paide. — No further retaliation.
V. B Pecorone, di Ser Giovanni Fiorentino.
a. The 3 MSS: 'Magliabechi, Laurenzi, Trivulzi' K The Introduzione states: Cominciai questo negh anni di Cristo MCCCLXXVIII. {1378 < > 1400).
b. to win a bride: la donna del Belmonte
c. Debtor: Messere Ansaldo, in favour of Giannetto. Creditor: un Giudeo a Mestri;
• Introductie* to German Edition, Munchen 1921 (Georg Muller).


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d. Dieci mila ducati; S'egli [Ansaldo) non glie 1'avesse renduti dal detto di a San Giovanni di giugno prossimo a venire, ch'il Giudeo gli potesse levare una libbra di came d'adosso di qualunque luogo e'volesse.
e. The bride, "vestita a modo di giudice."
Guarde come tu fai: peró che se tu ne leverai piü o meno che una libra, io ti faro levare la testa. E anco io ti dico piü, che se n'uscira pure una gocciola di sangue, io ti faro morire. /. The, Jew receives none of the money, "e ciascuno si faceva beffe di questo Giudeo, dicendo: tale si crede uccellare, che'è uccellato." [Appeared in print: Milan 1558. According to Halliwell-Simrock p. 46, 'a copy dated 1554 is in the Douce Collection, Bodleian, Oxford).
VI. — The Bamberger Ballad, Kaiser Karls Recht 1493.
a. Museum für Altdeutsche Literatur und Kunst; vol. II, p. 280—283. Berlin 1811. Author possibly Hans Folz.
b. [Die Absicht] sein Glück ausser Landes zu versuchen.
c. Debtor: Ein reicher Jude.
Creditor: Ein Jung, war frisch und wohlgemut.
d. Amount of loan: Tausend Gulden. Stipulation: Er setzt dem Wucherer ein Pfund Schmer's aus seinem Leibe zu Pfande.
e. Kaiser Karl: Der gute Mann müsste die Strafe leiden; der Jude selbst solle aus seiner Seite das verpfandete Pfund heraus schneiden, aber weder minder noch mehr.
/. A money compensation, consisting of the debt


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forgiven and two hundred guilders. — No further retaliation.
VII. — A new Song, shewing the crueltie of Gernutus a lewe.
a. Black-letter copy in the Pepys Collection; and 'Mus. Ashmol. Oxon. cod. impress. A-Wood'. post 1550. (ante 1579!)
b. there is no lady.
c. Debtor: A marchant of great fame distressed
|ÉM in his need in Venice towne. Creditor: Gernutus a cruel Jew of Venice.
d. an hundred crownes.
No penny for the loane of it
For one year you shall pay You may doe me as good a turne,
Before my dying day.
But we will have a merry jeast
For to be talked long: You shall make me a bond, quoth he,
That shall be large and strong:
And this shall be the forfeyture: Of your owne fleshe a pound.
e. The Judge
Sith needs thou wilt thy forfeit have,
Which is of flesh a pound: See that thou shed no drop of bloud,
Nor yet the man confound.
For if thou doe, like murderer, Thou here shalt hanged be:


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Likewise of flesh see that thou cut No more than longs to thee:
For if thou take either more or lesse
To the value of a mite, Thou shalt be hanged presently. /. And so with griping grieved mind
He biddeth them farewell. [No further retaliation; the bond cancelled].
VIII. — "The Jew showne at the Buil
representing the greedinesse of wordly chusers and bloody mindes of Usurers". (1579).
a. Referred to in The Schele of Abuse, by Stephan Gosson, Stud. Oxon.
6. —; c. Debtor: (conjecturally) A worldly chuser. Creditor: A bloody-minded (Italian) Jew.
IX. — Tyron, Recueil de plusieurs plaisantes nouvelles &c. Anvers. [see Douce I. 278] 1590.
b. —; c. Debtor: A Christian.
Creditor: A Jew at Constantinople.
d. 500 ducats, on condition of paying two ounces of flesh for usury.
e. The Emperor Solyman;
Orders a razor to be brought and admonishes the Jew not to cut off more or less than the two ounces, on pain of death.
X. — The Orator: Handling a hundred severall Discourses, in forme of Declamations. — Written in French by Alexander Silvayn [van den Bushe]


263
Englished by L. P. [Lazarus Piot, a nom de guerre of Anthony Munday's] London, Adam Islip, 1596. Declamation 95 1.
b. — There is no lady.
c. Debtor: A Christian Merchant. Creditor: A Jew in Turckie.
d. nine hundred crownes; tearme of three months, and if he paied it not, he was bound to give him a pound of the flesh of his bodie.
e. the ordinary Judge of that place ordered him to cut a just pound of the Christians flesh, and if he cut either more or lesse, then his owne head should be smitten off.
[The Jew appealed from this sentence, unto the chief judge]. There is no further decision. This Discourse in the original French may have influenced Shakespeare's predecessor; or in English it may have influenced Shakespeare during revision of M. of V].
XI. — Some Oriental Flesh-Bonds of uncertain date. No lady either as bride or as judge. See Introduction to M. of V. Arden Shakespeare p. XXXIII; Furness p. 307—308; Lutfullah in Benfey, Pantschatantra I. p. 401; compare Bamberg Ballad, ante.
XII. — No information seems available as to the age of a Popular Tale of the Highlands, in Gaelic, which Campbell communicates: — A king's son paid £ 100.— for a wife; half of the price he borrowed for a year and a day. In default of payment he was to lose a strip of skin from the top of his head to the
1 Printed in Furness p. 310—312.


264
sole of his foot. When the penalty was about to be inflicted, bis wife, dressed as a man, sent for a web of linen for him to stand on, and said to the creditor, "If a drop of a blood comes out of him, another strip of skin shall come off thee." —
It would be interesting to tracé the connection between this Gaelic tale and the Dolopathos story". 1
GENEALO GY OF THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
The object of the above catalogue is to guide us in distinguishing the ancestors of the Merchant of Venice from the more remote cognates. This we can do by selecting those pre-Shakespearean versions which combine several of the essential elements of which the drama consists. Let the main points in the Merchant of Venice be enumerated thus: a. The Flesh-Bond. 6. Jessica's elopement.
c. The winning of the Bride.
d. The defeating of the Bond in a Court of Law, by the Bride in disguise.
e. The Br ide's humorous explanation of her intervention.
No literary productions anterior to the Merchant are extant combining all the five points [the exception is 6].
1 J. F. Campbell, Popular Tales of the West Highlands, orally collected. Edinburgh 1860. Vol. II. p. 1—8 in English and 8-15 in Gaelic.
The tale is closely parallel to The Northern Lord or The Cruel Jew, a Garland in Four Parts, Huil (1785?). Here the Bride is sold for her weight in gold; the Jew is called bloody-minded in HL 1.; the bride dressed as a Knight in Green warns the Jew: Then see no drop of Blood you shed.
Dr. Marcus Landau. Die Quellen des Decameron (1884) p. 343, notices more correspondences between Dolopathos and Campbell's Gaelic tales.


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I. a, c, d and e, are found combined in the Italian novella IV. 1. of "II Pecorone" (3 MSS. 1378  1400 *) c. is of a different character; the other elements are identical with those in the Merchant (Scène: Venice).
II. a, c and d, are found combined in the (Continental) Latin Gesta Romanorum (one MS. ante 1342; 21 other MSS. Continental and English have the same tale). c. is the same as in II Pecorone; as to a the lover pawns his own flesh; e. is present, but is not managed by rings. (Scène: Rome).
III. a, c and d, are combined in the Latin Prose Romance Dolopathos, sive de Rege et Septem Sapientibus. (1179 < > 1212); there is a great general resemblance to the Gesta tale.
(Scène: Sicily).
IV. The Jew, 1579.
For the position of this English play in the genealogy of the Merchant, see this chapter passim.
Dolopathos, Gesta and Pecorone are distinguished from the other materials in having among their leading characters a Bride, for whose sake the loan is concluded, and who personally, though in disguise, defeats the claim. The creditor is a Jew in the latest of these three stories only. In Dolopathos and II Pecorone the interpretation that defeats the bond and saves the debtor, is a doublé one: "neither more nor less"
The symbol < > meaning: composed between the dates printed before and after, has been proposed by E. K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage, 1923; vol. I, p. XIV.


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and "no jot of blood". The Gesta stories differ in the important respect of presenting a single solution: "no jot of blood" (which is elsewhere found by itself, Cursor Mundi (II), WrigkCs Latin story (III) and Campbett's Gaelic tale (XII). If the Gesta tale in the Continental Latin MS. of 1342 should be of English origin, as is arguable, this would make it a characteristic of all the early English tales to have the "no blood" solution only.
The question now to be discussed is, in how far Dolopathos, Gesta, II Pecorone, The Jew 1579 and the Merchant of Venice form a literary family, in the sense that each time the older production is an ancestor to the next one in the series. Between Dolopathos (ante 1200) and Gesta (c. 1300) there is an interval of a century; between Gesta and II Pecorone there is rather less; from the printing of II Pecorone (1558) to The Jew, (ante 1579), there are hardly twenty years. Dolopathos is undoubtedly the oldest of the three; II Pecorone is as certainly a descendant of Dolopathos; but whether Gesta is among the intermediate stages will have to be argued further down; provisionally we may establish the fact that this is chronologically possible.


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johannis de alta silva dolopathos, sp7e de re ge et septem sapientibus
Dolopathos is not only the oldest known ancestor of the Merchant of Venice, but also, as far as we know, the earliest recorded story of a Flesh-Bond. It is altogether a remarkable work and deserves to be well known to students of the Merchant of Venice. There is not a word about it in Furness' Variorum edition (12th impression, Philadelphia 1916). In the excellent Arden-Shakespeare (Charles Knox Pooler, 1905) a summary of it is given after the Pecorone and the Gesta, but in the absence of any dates or references to MSS., there is no sign of a consistently retrograde arrangement having been intended. Miss L. Toulmin Smith in the methodical Note read before the New Shakspere Society on April 9th 1875 (Series I, Transactions 1875—6, Part I) denies that Dolopathos "may be considered as having furnished to the English tragedian the terrible catastrophe of his drama." It would appear from this that she had not read the complete tale as published by Oesterley in 1873. Gaston Paris in his review of Oesterley's reprint (Romania II. Oct. 1873) has : "Ce récit célèbre, qui est, comme on sait, le sujet du Marchand de Venise apparait peut-être pour la première fois dans le Dolopathos, mais comme les autres versions, orientales et occidentales, ne dérivent pas de celle de Jean, elles doivent avoir une source commune." This implies that neither the Gesta-tsle, nor the Pecorone were derived from Dolopathos; as for Oriental tales, none containing the Flesh-Bond and the Bride, have ever come to light.


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As Dolopathos is therefore not given the place of honour which it deserves, it will be discussed here, and in spite of considerations of space the Creditor Tale reprinted in extenso as a venerable original.
Dolopathos then, is a member of the important legend-cycle of the "Seven Sages". The "Oriental" branch is represented by the still extant versions in Greek, Syriac, Old-Spanish, Persian, Arabic, Hebrew and Latin. Arabic versions are both old and numerous. The "Occidental" branch comprises one or more versions in "Latin, French, Italian, Catalan, Spanish, English, Gaelic, German, Dutch, Icelandic, Swedish, Danish, Polish, Russian, Hungarian and Armenian", according to Gaston Paris1. The relations between these two branches have not yet been clearly defined; a common Indian ancestor has not been found. How several of the stories travelled from the East to the West, and through what media, is but partly known.
The frame into which a varying number of tales are fitted is of the decidedly Indian type known as roman è tiroirs of which several of the early Italian novella-collections and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales afford examples. The frame-story, in general terms, is briefly as follows: — A King's wife dies, leaving him an only son. The boy is confided to a wise preceptor who is to educate him away from court, and to send the prince home again when his education is completed. The father marries again, and at the request of the young step-mother calls his son home. The master
1 Deux Rédaetiona du Roman des Sept Sages de Rome. Soc. des Anc. Textes francais. 1876. Full Bibliographical details in Victor Chauvin's Bibliographie des ouvrages arabes, VIII and IX, Liège, Leipzig; 1904, 1905.


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and pupil have read in the stars, even before the arrival of the King's messengers, that the worst will befall, unless the boy remains mute for seven days. In the endeavour to make the dumb youth speak, the stepmother falls in love with him, attempts to seduce him, but on being repulsed, accuses the adolescent of having violently assaulted her honour. The King orders his son to be executed, but seven sages succeed one after another in getting the execution deferred, by telling stories illustrating the deceitfulness of women, and the peril of precipitancy. Against them the stepmother pits her parables of the crimes of men, especially courtiers and sages. Thus she holds the balance even and staves off defeat, until at the end of seven days the Master comes, the youth speaks, and the step-mother, convicted of guilt, is punished.— Thus much the true versions of the Septem Sapientes have in common. The main differences between the Oriental and the Occidental branch are two. First, in the Oriental tales there is only one Master: Syntipas, Sindban, Sindabad, Sendabar. Benfey (Pantch. I. § 5. p. 23) conjectures a common Sanskrit origin from Siddhapati, "Meister der Zauberer oder Weisen". In the Western branch there are seven masters whose names have not yet been critically investigated. 1 The second point of difference is that in the Western versions the Masters each teil one tale, whilst in the extant Eastern versions the Vizirs or Sapientes teil
1 As found in two French prose versions they are: Bencilas, Lentulus, Cathon, Mauquidas, Gessé, Aussire, Meros. (or Cleophas, Joachim). Two of these names Bencilas and Aussire recall the Sir Benciras and Ansiers, the messengers from King Constantine to his mother Queen Eline in the Cursor Mundi, and are possibly Hebrew, Ben-Shirach and Asher.


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two stories each K There is a theory that originaüy the Oriental books also assigned one tale to each sage, the number having been afterwards doubled, to afford scope for more parables. In that respect then the Western versions would seem to have kept closer to the primitive source.
The position of Dolopathos in this doublé cycle is unique. Alone among Western versions it has only one Master, Virgil, corresponding though with an altogether different name, to Sindabad. Furthermore it is sui generis in both the Oriental and the Occidental cycles in that the Queen tells no parables at all. Consequently whereas the number of tales in Oriental versions is always over twenty, and in the Western versions fifteen or sixteen, Dolopathos has only eight tales, seven falling to the Sages and one to the Master Virgil. The tale of the sixth Sage is, however, triple. Five out of the small number of eight tales do not belong to any known version of the Seven Sages, either Oriental or Occidental. These five have consequently been pronounced original, i. e. of local growth where Dolopathos was composed, viz. in the country of Lorraine. This theory of Oesterley's (Preface to his 1873 reprint) is plausible with regard to the
1 Most of the general remarks I am obliged to report at second hand. The Standard books, not available in the Netherlands are the works of Loiseleur Deslongchamps, (Essai sur les Fables indiennes, Paris 1838) Comparetti (Ricerche intorno al libro d% Sindibdd, Milano 1869) Killis Campbell (Seven Sages, Baltimore 1898; and The Seven Sages of Rome, Boston, 1907); W. A. Clouston (The Book of Sindibdd, privately printed, Glasgow 1884). The general, Bibliography up to 1885 is in Victor Chauvin, Bïbliographie des Ouvrages Arabes Vin and IX. Liège 1904, 1905. Comparetti's book was translated by Coote as vol. IX of the Polk-Lore Society's Publications, 1883.


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legend of The Swans (Godfrey of Bulloign) h Of three others the sources are partly classical, but there remains one as to the origin of which nothing whatever is known: the story of the Fourth Sage: Creditor, which is The Flesh-Bond and the Bride, or in other words The Merchant of Venice. Here in Dolopathos* written in the borderland between Germany and France, in the Xllth century, it suddenly emerges, complete in essentials. Nobody at present knows where it comes from. A prodigious birth it is, fraught with grave consequences for the world's literature. Let no student of Shakespeare omit reading it, in the very form in which it sprang into existence2.
[Historia quarti sapientis: Creditor.]
Fuit quondam nobilis uir et potens, castellum munitisbimum aliasque multas possessiones habens. Huio filia sola ex uxore relicta fuerat. Quam ipse, eum nullum alium haberet heredem, libetalibus artibus decrevit imbuendam, quatinus ex artium diseiplina philosophorumque libris sapientiam que melior estfortitudine mutuaret, per quam paternam sciret hereditatem tueri, quod posse armis aut viribus ei muliebris infirmitas denegarat. Nee fefellit eum in hoe spes sua. Tantam siquidem illa scientiam subtilitatemque ex artibus comparavit, ut magicam quoque artem nullo se docente magistro perciperet. Contigit autem. post hec patrem eius f ebre acuta correptum in lectum decidere. Qui infirmitatem se evadere non posse intelligens, filiam ex testamento omnium bonorum designavit heredem sicque ordinatis rebus suis defunotus est. Puella vero hereditate patris potita firmavit in animo nullum se ducturam virum, nisi quem sibi et sapientia et generis nobihtas adequaret. Veniebant autem ad eam quam plurimi nobilium filii, seueius pulchritudine seu faoultatibus captL SoUicitabant eam de coniugio, pulsabant precibus, muneribus attrahebant, offerentes quidem plurima et multa promittentes. At illa, ut erat prudentis animi, nullum spernens nullique se denegans precantium cuivis sui contubernium offerebat, sub tali dumtaxat conditione ut prima nocte centum argenti marcas solvens ea prout vellet eiusque amplexibus frueretur, ac deinde mane facta , si alter alteri complaceret, tune sollemniores coram amicis nuptiaB celebrarent.
i Romania ii, p. 490; Preface to Li Romans de Dolopathos ed. de Montaiglon. • i quote from Hilka's critical text, Heidelberg 1913; Oesterley's is less reliabku


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Hac igitur conditione audita, veniebant multi iuvenes, provectioris quoque aetatis viri, numeram et pondus marcarum viginti offerentes, sed vacui tam ab eius amplexibus quam a pecunia recedebant. Incantaverat etenim illa magica «ua arte nocturne strigis pennam. Quam cum capiti secum iacentis supposuisset, statim ille somno gravatus usque ad diei sequentis auroram vel quousque illa pennam tolleret immobilis permanebat. Sicque illa muitos spolians pecuniis infinitum sibi congregavit thesaurum et aliorum dampnis lucrum suum .augmentavit.
Inter eos autem qui ad hoe puteal suas pecunias offerebant, iuvenis nobilis quidam satis, sed minus facultatibus pollens centum marcas super possessione sua mutuatas virgini sub illa conditione obtulit. Quibus illa susceptis, die illa cum iuvene multum cibi et vini sibi indulget, seroque in lectum molliter stratum nudi ambo pariter se collocant, penna illa strigis prius iuvenis supposita cervieali. Necdum autem ille membra lecto et cervieali caput aptaverat, cum ipse obdormiens usque ad horam diei primam virginis secum dormientis oblitus est. Tune enim illa surgens pennam abstulit illumque evigilatum confusum mittit ad propiia. Verum iuvenis se esse delusum dolens a quodam servo divite, ■cui quondam ipse iratus pedem absciderat, centum argenti marcas sibi mutuari rogat, volens eas iterum aut perdere aut virginitatis nomine virginem spoliare. •Cui servus accepte quondam iniuriae non immemor pecuniam sub hoe pacto concessit, ut si infra annum ipsam non restitueret, ipse de came et ossibus iuvenis ad centum marcarum pondus auferret. Quod iuvenis parum curans -concessit insuperque ei cyrographum suo munitum sigillo tradidit. Accepta •ergo ille pecunia redit ad virginem, offert argentum: accipit iua diemque letum ad vesperum usque perducunt. Sero autem cum paratum esset cubiculum pennaque ex more pulvillo subposita, illa iuvenem subsecutura premittit. Qui iuvenis ad lectum preterite noctis veniens, delusionem sibi ex lecti mollicie contigisse putans, cervical ülud molle revoluit et removit, cum quo et strigis fortuito casu excussit pennam. Quo facto membra demittit lecto, suspendit fiursum palpebras et somno totis viribus reluotatur. At illa iuvenem suis iterum magicis artibus obdormisse putans, secura et nuda iuxta ipsum se collocat. Ule vero postquam aliquantulum graviter se dormire simulasset, virginem ad se trahit, requirit debitum. Confusa illa repletaque stupore vehementi, pactum nequaquam negare potuit. Quid plura? Nox illa usque ad diem leta deducta est. Mane autem inter se voto et assensu pari concordantes coram amicis et propinquis,non tarnen sineadmiratione invidiaque multorum,nuptias celebrarunt.
Porro iuvenis prosperis succedentibus, creditoris sui oblitus, pecuniam infra terminum constitutum non reddidit. Unde loripes ille, ulciscende iniurie oportunitatem se invenisse gavisus, regem qui tune temporis regnum tenebat adit, movet de iuvene querelam, testem pacti cyrographum profert in medium, iustitiam sibi super hoe fieri rogans.Eex autem ut equissimus, crudele quamquam horresceret pactum, iuvenem tarnen ad se venire precepit accusatoris sui responsurum querelis. Tune tandem iuvenis debiti reminiscens, regis auctoritate perterritus, cum amicorum turba maximaque auri et argenti copia venit ad curiam. Profert adversarium cirographum, recognosoit ille iussuque regis


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dant sententiam principes licere scilicet loripedi agere quod cirographum testabatur, aut quantum voluerit pro redemptione iuvenis pecuniam accipere. Rogabat ergo rex loripedem quatinus iuveni parcens duplicem reciperet pecuniam. Quod cum illo negante diebus multis efficere conaretur, ecce uxor iUius virili sumpto habitu vultuque et voce magica sua artemutatis, ante regis palatium equo descendit regemque adit reverenterque salutat. Inquisita autem que esset aut unde, militem se esse respondit de ultimis mundi partibus oriundum, iuris legumque peritum fore ac iudiciorum subtilem investigatorem. Gavisus rex iubet ülam quam putabat militem consedere sibi causamque inter loripedem et iuvenem versatam illi committit terminandam. At illis vocatis utrimque partibus: Tibi, inquit, o loripes, secundum regis principumque sententiam neet de carne iuvenis centum marcarum pondus auferre. Sed in hoe quid lucraberis nisi mortem forsitan, si iuvenem interficias? Melius est ut pro eo septuplum pecunie aut decuplum accipias. Ule autem deoem etiam marcarum milia se accepturum negabat. Rla autem linteum candidissimum iubet afferri iuvenemque nudatum veste manibusque ac pedibus ligatum extendi desuper. Quo facto: Abscide, ait loripedi, quocumque volueris ferramento marcarum tuarum pondus. Verum si plus aut minus iusto pondere ad quantitatem cuspidis accus inde tuleris vel si una sanguinis gutta infeoerit linteum, cum sanguis substantia sit iuvenis, scias te continuo mille mortibus perimendum discerptumque in mille frusta fore escam bestiarum et avium, totumque genus tuum simili sententie subiacebit resque tue publicabuntur. Hanc ille horribilem expavescens sententiam: Quoniain, inquit, nullus est hominum excepto deo qui ita manum modificare possit, quin plus minusue auferat, huic incerto me submittere nolens iuvenem absolvo dimittoque debitum, mille ei marcas pro reoonciliatione superaddens. Sic ergo iuvenis uxoris prudentia liberatus letus ad propria remeavit. —
A full-fledged novel such as this Dolopathos tale cannot but have a long evolution behind it, and whether some or all of it came from India or from Europe, is an engrossing problem of folk-lore, but its solution is not indispensable to the student of Shakespeare. To those who are competent to cultivate the wider field the Dolopathos of the 12th century is a terminus ad quem, to us who tend the smaller plot it must take rank as the terminus a quo. This nowise implies that the story is to be taken as possible or realistic in the 12th century. The time to which Johannes de Alta Süva assigns the whole novel is pre-
/ 18


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Christian. Just before its conclusion occurs the death of Virgil the Master (19 b. C); Dolopathos the father, King of Sicily, also dies a pagan. Lucinius, the prince and hero of the tale, is the first to hear of Christ: lam autem eo tempore veritas de terra orta fuerat.... iamque apostoli per totius mundi partes evangelium predicabant. He is baptized and dies in Jerusalem. Johannes knew that he was writing ancient history, though he may not have known how ancient were the tales he repeated; nor for that matter do we of the twentieth century. As a literary artist Johannes expects his readers to take the moral tales cum grano salis, and has no wish to enforce belief in their literal bistoricity: — Hic ergo narrationi mee f inem imponens lectorem rogo .... ne me iudicet reprehensibilem .... quia non ut visa sed ut audita ad delectationem et utilitatem legentium, si qua forte ibi sint, a me scripta sunt; quamquam etiam etsi facta non sint, fieri tarnen potuisse credendum (p. 107) . — To claim no more than for his readers to believe that the adventures might have happened, is quite elegant for a 12th century moralist. A moralist Johannes is of course, and he is proud to have so famous a 'philosopher' as Virgil for his mouthpiece (p. 87). O scelus, o nequicia,
0 malicia mulieris! In support of his condemnation of woman, Virgil' tells the clever story "Puteus", which is now best known as George Dandin1. The whole trend of the Seven Sages cycle is to warn man
1 It appears to be borrowed from the 12th tale of the Disciplina Gtericalis, the oldest Medieval story book, by that shrewd moralist Rabbi Moses Sefard de Huesca (1062—1110), alias Petrus Alfonsus, since at baptism he became the godson of King Alfonsus VI. The oldest MS. in existence dates from 1138. For the importance of this book see Chauvin IX. (1905).


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of the wiles of women. However our Flesh-Bond and Bride story will not bear such a moral and therefore fits badly into the romance. At first indeed the behaviour of the young lady is reprehensible, but she retrieves her character splendidly. From her ensample Johannes does not know how to extract a moral adverse to the stepmother, not even that women who are so clever are more than a match for any husband. He only tacks on to it the advice to search the Roman laws and find reasons for saving his son's life. The tale would have suited the Queen better, and was possibly told to Johannes as a Queen's example, but his Queen has no stories. It seems as if, failing to remember the requisite number of apologues, the author sought to arrange his novel so as to require only the eight or ten he recollected; and if some of these were originally Queen's stories, he had to choose between sacrificing them or fitting them in anyhow. He did the latter, trusting that the tale would be none the less benef icial, and that the moral would take care of itself. Whatever his thoughts were, here we have the tale and from hence it begins a new life. When next we come across it, more than a century later, it figures among the three hundred stories of the Gesta Romanorum.
THE FLESH-BOND AND BRIDE STORY IN THE GESTA ROMANORUM 1
The origin and growth of the famous medieval fable-book known by the name of the Gesta Romanorum
» Editions: Latin Standard text by H. Oesterky 1873; English by 8. H. Herrtage (E. E. T. S. 1879); The oldest Innsbrücker Handschrift vom Jahre 1342 by W. Dick, Erlanger Beitrage VH. 1890. Le Violier des Histoires Bomaines by M. O. Brunei, 1858.


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is obscure. The time and manner of its composition, the country where it was begun, are not definitely known. There is no generally accepted hypothesis, as to the authorship of the whole, or part of the collection: all of the 166 MSS. are anonymous1. There is a great diversity in the tales included, and still more in their arrangement. The oldest MS. that has hitherto become known contains 220 capita varying in length from a few lines to quite long stories of a dozen (printed) pages. Among the longer ones is that of the Flesh-Bond (168, De Lucii filia et milite). Numerous printed editions exist from the incunables of Ketélaer and de Leenvpt, Utrecht c. 1470, onward. Brunet's introduction (xxin) notices twelve printed editions up to 1500, and sixteen more between 1506 and 1558, published at Paris, Venice (1516), Lyons (1540) 2. This series takes us up to the publication of the Pecorone novels. But in truth we must leave all 'printed editions of the Gesta severely alone, for two reasons èach decisive in itself: 1°. The Pecorone, a necessary link in our chain, was undoubtedly completed before 1400; and 2°. none of the printed editions except the German one, Augsburg 1489, contain the Flesh-Bond. In the MSS. on the other hand our story is of comparatively frequent occurrence.
1 The names of scribes or of owners are occasionally marked, see Herrtage p. XIX, note 2.
* The Royal Library at The Hague possesses several editions: c. 1470 (Utrecht), 1470 (Cologne) c. 1473 (Cologne), 1480 (Gouda) 1481 (Hasselt) 1483 (Delft, Dutch), 1484 (Zwolle, Dutch) 1484 (Louvain) 1512 (Antwerp) 1540 (Lyons). Ebert (Alg. Bibl. Lex.) cites an edtition Venice 1516 by G. de Rusconibus. Qrasze in his appendix A. gives bibliographical details. Oeslerley notices only the three earliest editions from which he derived his Vulgar-text.


1. Diok p. XII. Innsbrtiok Univ. Libr. 310 Anno: 1342 220 cap. no. 168.
2. Oesterley p. 29. VI Marburg Ood. 20 XVth Cent. 92 „ „11
3. „ p. 57 XIV Ratisbon „ 47 XVth „ 94 „ „1
4. „ p. 72 XVHI Tübingen „ 10 „ 1459 82 „ „ 57
5. „ p. 93 XXV Stuttgart „ 184 „ 1425 91 „ „ 58
6. „ p. 118 XXXTV Fulda „ 12 „ 1460 82 „ „ 50
7. „ p. 120 XXXV Wallerst „ 66 „ o. 1427 * 113 „ „ ?
8. „ p. 121 XXXVII „ „ II. 8 XVth „ 90 „ ?
9. „ p. 123 XXXVni „ „ II. 23 „ 1455 94 „ „ 36
10. „ p. 145 XLVIII Munioh „ 447 „ 1450 91 „ „ ?
11. „ p. 147 LII „ „ 3861 „ 1448 94 (110) „ ?
12. „ p. 155 LUI „ (Diok p. XV) „ 4691 „ 1457 220 „ „ 168
13. „ p. 162 LVII „ (Diok p. XV) „ 7759 XVth „ 220 „ „ (168?)
14. „ p. 162 LVDJ „ (Dick p. XV) „ 7841 XVth „ 223 „ „ (168?)
15. „ p. 174 LXVI „ (Diek p. XIV) „ 18786 „ 1419(?) ? „ ?
16. „ p. 174 LXVII „ „ 8484 XVth „ 88 „ „ ?
17. „ p. 175 LXXI Colmar-Issenheim Cod. 10 XlVth Cent. 103 oap. „ 12
18. „ p. 181 LXXII Prague „ l.a.37 „ 1418 100 „ „ ?
19. „ p. 187 8LXXXVI London Br. Mus. Harl. 2270 XVth Cent. >) 102 „ „ 48
20. „ p. 212 CXIV Turio. „ 113 XVth (Germ.) 124 „ „ 109
21. „ p. 213 CXV London Br. Mus. add. 10291 „ 1420 (Germ.) 124 „ „ (109?)
22. „ p. 229 CXXV Berlin Grimm „ 1469 63 „ „ 41
23. „ p. 236 CXXXI Munioh „ 696 XVth „ 11 „ „ 124
24. „ p. 237 CXXXVI London Br. Mus. Harl. 7333 (Engl.) XVth „ (1440) 70 „ no. 40
1 Sir Frederic Madden estimatcs the date of MS. Harl. 2270 at possibly about 1390'. It is marked by the archaic v for ti » The order in which Oesterley has arranged his huge material is capable of re-arrangement; however, comparative study of Gesta MSS. being based on Oesterley's almost exhaustive catalogue, it seemed best to follow his book from page to page. Of several MSS. the titles to the separate tales are not given, so that there may be more containing the Flesh-Bond, espeoially among the English MSS. (see Herrtage's list p. XXVII of his Introduction). Some of Oesterley's MSS. have been included in the above tentative hst although, the titles not being specified in his book, the number assigned in the MSS. to the FleshBond tale cannot be stated. As regards XXXV, XXXVII, XLVIII and LXXII, Oesterley considers them practically identical with XIV, in which the Flesh-Bond occupies the conspicuous position of being the opening tak. LH appears to be identical
with J5.AAV111. Tnere is a closely relateü group ot Mumcn MSS. juni, JjVii, iivm and JjAVI, wnicn were louna Dy w. Dick to correspond with the Innsbrück MS. Oesterley's LVXH is nearly identical with XXV. In all these cases there is a probability that the Flesh-Bond occurs in the MS, though its exact number is not discoverable without special inquiry,


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The list on p. 277 of Gesta MSS. containing the Flesh-Bond has been compiled from Oesterley's very complete prolegomena, and Dick's reprint of the Innsbrück and Munich group.
From this survey it appears that the Flesh-Bond and Bride story occurs frequently in Continental Latin Gesta Manuscripts, as well as in the Latin MSS. of England (MS. Harl. 2270) and in the English language (MS. Harl. 7338). As regards Gesta MSS., France and Italy are practically unrepresented l. The relations between the Anglo-Latin and the Continental Latin families are still awaiting thoroügh investigation. The completest English collections contain 102 capita 2; the completest and oldest Continental ones have 220—223. The English MSS. do not appear to contain traces of having been copied from German models. Contrarily the oldest Continental MS. known at present, Innsbrück 810, anno 1342, has English quotations, which occur also in the Anglo-Latin MS. Harl. 2270, as well as in the English Harl. 7333 and in the English Addit. 9066 3. From the later Continental MSS. they gradually disappear. In spite therefore of the slight priority in date of the earliest Continental version of the Flesh-Bond and Bride story in the Gesta, no conclusion can be drawn as to the first appearance of the tale in the Gesta cycle. Both branches might have borrowed independently from Dolopathos. The probability is however in favour of the Continental
1 According to Oesterley.
* Bit. Mus. Addit MS 10291, anno 1420, which contains 124 capita, is a German MS.
* See Madden-Herrtage's note to no. XLV, p. 480, W. Diok's Introduction p. XXTT—XXIV, and Oesterley p. 262 ff.


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Gesta having borrowed from Dolopathos first, for all the six Latin Dolopathos MSS. belong to the continent, especially Austria: Luxemburg, Prague (2 MSS.), Vienna and Innsbrück. The only London Dolopathos MS., (Brit. Mus. Addit. 18922) is of Continental origin and contains several pieces derived from Bohemia and Silesia1. It may be no more than a coincidence that Innsbrück in the Tyrol possesses both the oldest Gesta MS. with the Flesh-Bond and Bride story in it, and also one of the not very numerous Dolopathos MSS., though a late one (1471). There seems to be sometbing like a concentration of the versions in Southern Germany and the Tyrol (Ratisbon, Tubingen, Munich, Wallenstein, Stuttgart, and Innsbrück). Geographically too, Innsbrück is the natural bridge between Southern Germany and Eastern Lombardy, which is the scène of the Pecorone romance, and through which lay the way to Rome. Italy having no Gesta MSS (the only two now in Rome were brought there by Christina of Sweden) travelling monks may have rewarded the hospitality extended to them at Ferrara, Bologna or Forli by telling a thrilling tale, well-known in their Tyrolese monasteries, but new there. We shall hear of Forli again when we cometo discuss the Pecorone.
The Flesh-Bond and Bride story then, as found in the Innsbrück MS. of 1342, the only one chronologically anterior to the Pecorone, is briefly as follows:
1 Hilka's ed. p. X.


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cap. 168 (folio 87 v.) [de lucti fllia et miltte] 1
The daughter of the Emperor Lucius allowed a lovesick knight to attempt the conquest of her virginity in the same marnier as in the Dolopathos tale, at the price of .C. marcas florenorum on each occasion. Twice he feil asleep and was dismissed. The third hundred marks he borrowed from a Merchant, covenanting by a bond written and signed in his own blood, to yield as much of his flesh as would equal in weight the sum due, if he did not keep his day. From a philosopher he learnt that the cause of his previous failures was a soporific letter hidden under the pillow. De hoe sum expertus — says the philosopher — quia cartam ordinavi. The knight returns to the Emperor's daughter, secretly removes the letter, feigns sleep, and masters the damsel. She then cleaves to him, and they live together. But a fortnight had meanwhile elapsed since the bond had fallen due. The merchant, without any cause stated, demanded the literal fulfilment of the bond: Lex tune erat, quod, sicut homo volontarie se obligaret, ita eciam iudicium reciperet. The lady dressed as a knight "de partibus marinis", appeared in court, offered the merchant unlimited gold, which he refuses, repeating his demand to cut the flesh in pectore, ubi cor jacet. The disguised lady hereupon points out that: "Lex dicit, quod, quicumque sanguinem alicujus effuderit, sanguis eius pro eo effundatur. Miles iste tantum convencionem
1 Practically identical with Oesterley's No. 195, which he relegated to his appendix for no better reason than that it does not occur in the printed editions. The printed editions, however, are clearly selections from various and fuller collections.


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fecerat de carnibus abscidendis, non de effusionesanguinis". The merchant then asked for the amount lent, but was refused: "Coram omnibus tibi optuli, et rennuisti." The judgment is: "Vita est salvata militis,. quia nunquam caro evelli potest sine sanguinis effusione, de quo mencionem non fecit in convencione. Et quia mercator rennuit, quod suum erat, transeat ergosine solucione." The balked merchant leaves the court. The lady returns home secretly, before her lover'sarrival and after reproaching him for not being more grateful to the unknown rescuer, appears again in her former disguise, thus solving the puzzle of her intervention. The young people are married and "in pace dies suos finiebant."
There can be no doubt that this Gesta story descends from Dolopathos. A common ancestor of both would be vastly interesting, but has not been discovered. The name Lucius might possibly be a reminiscence of the Lucinius in Dolopathos. The new character in the Gesta tale, the 'phylosophus' is Vergilius in the Anglo-Latin Gesta; this looks like another link with Dolopathos where Virgil is the pivotal character and the counsellor of the young hero. On the whole the Gesta story is more argumentative, the AngloLatin as we have it still more so than the Continental. The lover communes with himself: "Michi non est dubium quin imperator filiam suam nunquam michi dabit in uxorem quod ad hoe non sum dignus". VirgiL reads the young fellow a fairly long lecture: Stultam
convencionem cum mercatore fecisti, etc The
girl plays propriety in a way that cruder versions wot


not of: Incassum laboras! credis tu quod me decipies per verba tua blanda et deceptoria; non fiet ita in anima mea! The Gesta also introducés for the first time the graceful final comedy when the Bride explains the manner of her disguised intervention, after slightly teasing her lover.
In two respects all the Gesta versions differ from Dolopathos. For one thing the Dolopathos creditor was a slave whose one foot the lover had cut off1: a loripes.
.1. moult riche home ot el'païs
Et cil estait ces serf naïs.
Au damoisel avoit tanciet;
Ne sai de coi Pot correciet,
Mais li damoisiax s'en venjait
Si bien c'uns des piez li tranchait,
Or aloit cil a une eschace [= une échasse].
This slave had as much cause of hatred as Shylocke, whilst the Merchant in the Gesta is fiendish without any provocation. Observe also the truly Mephistophelian manner of writing out the bond: Volo, ut cartam de proprio sanguine michi facias sub tuo sigillo. Blood plays a more important part in the Gesta than in Dolopathos. In the older tale the doublé exception invalidating the bond is:
1°. si plus aut minus iusto pondere tuier is;
2°. vel si una sanguinis gutta infecerit linteum; but the slave desists, not for fear of shedding blood,
* For cutting off the foot of a alave compare Dick's Gesta 219, and Oesterley under Fusz ab.
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but only "quoniam nullus est hominum excepto Deo qui ita manum modificare possit, quin plus minusve auferat." The exception raised against bloodshedding belongs exclusively to Western and Christian Flesh-Bond stories, and is apparently a novelty in Dolopathos, added as an enrichment of an earlier form of the tale, but not yet completely fused with it.
THE MOBALIZATION S IN THE GESTA ROMANORUM
The alteration of the character of the Merchant and the preponderating róle played by blood in the Gesta will appear in a clearer light when we pay attention to an important feature of the Gesta and other 13th and 14th century literature: the Moralizations with which all the fictitious narratives, compiled from Oriental apologues, monkish legends, classical stories, tales of chroniclers, popular traditions etc., are furnished. From the moralizations we learn how the story is to be spiritually apprehended: the Emperors, regularly mentioned in the opening sentence of each tale, are usually God or Jesus Christ; the beautiful daughter is the Soul; the Knight is the Flesh; the philosopher is Worldly Vanity; the Merchant is Diabolus; the Judge is a Confessor. The Devil cannot claim blood because that was redeemed by the blood of Christ and belongs to Him; a small penitence will cause judgment to be given against Diabolum.
Oesterley's studies of the Gesta and similar edifying literature of an age when Ovid and the Roman de la Rose were moralized1, establish the conclusion that
1 Ch. Brunet, Li Romans de Dolopathos, Paris 1856, p. XXI.
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the essence and object of the whole work was the Reductie- to each tale, introduced by the words: Mystice, spiritualiter designata, declaracio; moralisation sur le propos, etc. At first parables were adopted which readily lent themselves to a spiritual interpretation; subsequently pieces were incorporated after being recast so as to accord with a moral; and eventually stories were invented with more or less ingenuity for the sake of their spiritual significance, and with but scant regard to their wordly probability or even propriety. The stories which are not moralized, occur sporadically and "betray themselves by this very fact as extraneous elements" *. Mr. Herrtage also explains that the stories, collected for the sake of the moralizations to be extracted from them, were themselves of secondary importance, the object of the compilers being to provide texts for their expositions. Often only the first few words of some well-known apologue are given, followed immediately by the Morality. Our story, occurring as it does in the most authentic Gesta MSS., has moreover the hall-mark of a circumstantial morality. Whether the story or the moralization was the more keenly appreciated would depend upon the hearers. To the profane the moral may appear to be an excuse to cover a piquant tale. Among crowds listening at the market-crosses there may have been a preference for the unvarnished tale, without the corollary of "a slight penitence". O n the other hand as monks and friars in the refectory consumed their meal in demure silence, whilst listening to the Lector, who seasoned the viands spiritually,
1 Oesterley p. 257.


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the pure symbohc aroma was needed to ilavour the coarser worldly taste. Even if we hesitate to accept the morality as primary and the tale as secondary, it remains that there is a strong mutuality and interaction between the outer shell of story and the inner sense. Yet the sparing references to the Gesta in criticism of the Merchant of Venice persistently neglect the Moralities. Even in critical editions of the Gesta the moralities are frequently omitted. "weil denselben ein litterarhistorischer Wert nicht innewohnt" (Dick.) Grasze feels justified, in view of the "pure morals displayed in all these stories" in leaving out the moralisations. In the present instance the pure morals of the leading characters would shine none the less brightly for a few words of elucidation, and as such nothing will serve so well as the Reduccio belonging to the tale1.
Kabissemi, iste imperator est dominus noster Iheaus Cristus (Xpe) *, et filia tam pulehra est anima ad dei similitudinem creata. Miles est earo anime convincta, que die ac nocte quantum potest ad peccatum incitat, apostolus: Caro concupiscet adversus spiritum etc. Quid est ergo faciendum? Anima debet reeipere dona, h. e. bonas virtutes et secum custodire, et sio caro non vigilabit, i. e. non excitabitur ad peccatum faciendum donec anima eam excitaverit ut in bonis operibus vigilet, juxta illud: Vigilate et oraie ne in etc. Post hoe miles exposuit que Bua erant, ut pecuniam mutuaret ut puelle solveret etc. Sic homo omnia que habet vendat, ut sequatur Cristum, et hoe est, puelle i.e. anime placere. Sed sepe misera caro quando voluntatem suam non potest obtinere ut anima ei in peccato consenciat; pergit ad civitatem, i. e. ad mundum illum in quo invenit mercatorem, sc. dyabolum paratum ei satisfacere. Solvit ei quid petit sc. cordis delectacionem tali condicione: primo ut f acias ei cartam
1 I quote it from Oesterley, several attempts to obtain a fac-simile from Innsbrück having failed. The story itself is almost literally the same in Oesterley and in Dick, so that there is a probability that the Reducciones would not differ much. Oesterley's Reduccio certainly fits Dicks' story accurately. • The English Moralitee has pe Fadir of hevin, our lord Ihesu Griste. Was X p c (= Xqs) mistaken for Chr. pater cdestisl


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de proprio sanguine etc. Carta illa est cogitacio precedens sicut carta in qua nichil primo scribitur, deinde scriptura apponitur sicut post cogitaciones consensus sequentur, deinde sigülum i.e. actus peccati tune peccatum consummavit, et hoe cum proprio sanguine i.e. propria voluntate. Homo sic allegatus potest bene dolere. Sed post hoe pergit ad philosophum. i.e. mundi vanitatem per quo homo amovet [litteras] a lecto cordis et tune anima tam misera ei consentit ut homo tantum in peccato delectatur quod periculum in quo est, non animadvertit. Tune mercator i.e. dyabolus, in cujus potestate est, peccatorem ligari facit. Sed tu cum ductus fueris ad judicem i.e. discretum conf essorem, penam e vadere non potes, quia quam diu in peccato manes dyabolus contra te judicium petit ut abscidatur caro circa cor, i.e. ut omnis voluntas consensus ac opera tua ei dantur ad voluntatem tuam ut ei ministres et non deo. Quid ergo est faciendum? Certe, ut puella abscidet crines, i.e. anima amoveat malas cogitationes per contricionem. Post hoe induetur virtutibus et ascendet equum ad modo viri, i.e. quod sit totus vir contra dyabolum et eius sequaces, et ascendat equum i.e. suam conscienciam et pergat ad iudicium i. e. ad confessionem cum corpore. In conspectu confessorio debes allegare quod dyabolus nichil lucretur quia in omni peccato quod commisisti mencionem non fecisti dyabolo de effusione sanguinis Cristi. Quare ergo audacter petus sc. dyabolus posset te habere excludendo Christi passione, per quam salvati sumus, quia nullo modo potest hoe facere, et per consequens nee animam habere si parve penitentie te subjicis. Et si sic feceris, iudex, i.e. discretus confessor iudicium contra dyabolum dabit per viam penitencie, ut se de ceteris tecum non occupet. Studeamus ergo.
This morality is in some respects the key to the story. Tale and morality are interwoven in a manner not always to the advantage of the story. We marvel how an emperor [Dominus noster] should tolerate such meretricious conduct in his daughter, though we are expected to be reconciled on learning that she is a strictly symbolical figure of the Soul (after the Fall). The bluntness of the Knight's wooing is offensive; so it is some reliëf to understand that he is meant to personify the blind instinct that flesh is heir to. Whatsoever strokes of human characterization these puppets display, are ornamental traits which must not interfere with their primary function of symbols, illustrating the theory of the relations


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between the Soul and the Flesh. To Anima moralizers are more than kind. In Dolopathos already her conduct is approved because it combines acquisitiveness on a large scale with the preservation of her maidenhood. In the Gesta, so far from being a despicable harpy, Anima earns credit for acquiring gifts: "Anima debet recipere dona, hoe est, bonos virtutes et secum custodire." Her notions of the faithful completion of contracts could not be expressed more clearly than in her own words: "Per salutem patris mei, amice, non facio tibi iniuriam; nonne mecum convenisti ut mecum una nocte iaceres, et sic factum est. Tu vero per unam noctem totaliter dormivisti et nullum solacium michi obtulisti; imputes igitur tibi ipsi et non michi." (MS. Harl. 2270). "Hoe fideliter implevi", she says elsewhere. We can teil beforehand from this specimen of what subtlety in quibbling she is capable, and we recognize exactly the same turn of mind in her combat of literalism with Mercator. The loss of her virginity is due to. a traitor philosopher, that very dubious character, Virgil. He is the author of the magie letter, an instrument of virtue: "quamdiu iacet litera in lecto, i.e. virtutes quas anima in baptismo recepit, non potest [caro] animam polluere." Afterwards, however, he undoes his earlier work in protection of chastity, perhaps because it was abused for mercenary purposes, or because our miles seemed to him the right Joseph; so Virgil betrays the secret of the »girl's protective talisman. In the Reduccio, however, this betrayal is inadvertently charged upon the Devil: "Dyabolus solvit ei quod petit, scil. cordis dilectationem." This Mercator-Dyabolus is "Shylocke". On the


other figures the allegory may not sit with perfect ease, but there needs no mystic interpretation to reveal that Mercator is the Devil's natural and familiar self. He makes no pretence at being other than the Devil. In Gesta cap. 180l, he ingenuously introducés himself: "Domine, ego sum dyabolus in specie hominis. Noli timere." He was frequently disappointed in his bargains. Having expended much of his ingenuity on former occasions, he found himself growing slow at varying his tactics, and increasingly out-manoeuvred by man. He was finding that they are sheep and calves which seek out assurance in parchment, and now Tesorted to the additional precaution of having his Bonds signed in his clients' own blood. Accordingly the Mephistophelian style of drawing and sealing the articles is carefully marked. The malignity of the crippled slave in Dolopathos is sufficiently motived: he was scheming for a weight of the Knight's flesh and bone, in revenge for his lopped-off foot. In the case of the Devil any motivation would Jbe absurd. On the other hand Dyabolus is not vituperated; it was his nature. But of course he was fair game for any who knew how to trick him by the clerical expediënt of reservatio mentalis: "debes allegare quod dyabolus nichil lucretur quia in omni peccato quod commisisti mencionen non fecisti dyabolo de effusione sanguinis Christi."
At a later date the moralizations were less appreciated
1 De equo scabioso et duabus ovibus, he performs a kind action in composing certain difficult verses for Prince Celestinus. The name Celestinus occurs but once in the Continental Gesta of 1342, in the Anglo-Latin and English Celestinus corresponds to the Continental Lucius, the emperor in the FleshBond and Bride story.
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An early adverse critic was the great Erasmus: Hic mihi [doctores subtilissimi] stultam aliquam & indoctam fabulam ex Speculo (opinor) historiali, aut Gestis Romanorum in medium adferunt, & eandeminterpretant allegorice, tropologice et anagogice."1 If, however, a Gesta story feil into the hands of an Italian writer of profane novellas, the return from the symbolic to the real world could not be effected by simply dropping the moralization. In whatever ways the stories are secularized, developed, rationaliaed and refined, the taint of heredity is in sóme respects ineradicable. The Knight and the Lady can be made to behave less symbolically, but there is no anthropomorphizing the Devil. Even though he gives up contracting for souls, a pound of flesh nearest the heart is the least he can demand, or else it would cease to be a matter of life and death, and nothing very wonderful remains of the story. Even thus reduced it is difficult to find a human being who, in comparatively modern times, can f itby step into his shoes. Little is gained by turning the Devil into a Jew: granted the will to harm the Christian merchant, there remains the question of power. To enable the Devil to carry his case into Court, the German Gesta author had to invent the rule that: Lex [hujus regni*] tune erat quod, sicut homo voluntarie se obligaret, ita eciam iudicium reciperet. The time and country in question was Rome in Virgil's day, [exactly as it was in Dolopathos] when formal justice may as yet have afforded little power of dismissing a monstrous contractual claim.
1 Moriae Encomium, Gerardi Listrii commentarius illustratum, 1527 (p. 251). * Oesterley's version No. 195.
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290
In 14th century Germany this unsatisfactory state of the law, making justice dependent upon subtlety of quibbling was apparently unfamiliar. It is to be noted that the Anglo-TisAin and the English Gesta uphold the rule of strict interpretation without reference to an other time and country: "Constat omnibus imperii quod lex est posita quod siquis sicut libera voluntate se obligat, sic recipietur". "Sirs, ye know welle it is the law of the Emperour that yf onye man bynde him by his own free wille, he shall Resseyve as he servithe". Prof. Paul Huvelin1 explains that this literal execution of even immoral contracts was Common Law in England, as distinct from Equity, until the 18th century. "Les Courts of Common Law jugent at law, en droit strict, en s'asservissant a la lettre de la loi et des contrats .... Les contrats formels sont des contrats de droit strict, d'interprétation rigoureuse. Le juge a qui ils sont soumis doit les interpréter a la lettre, sans pouvoir en rien retrancher, sans pouvoir y rien ajouter, pas même ce que le bons sens ou 1'équité devraient y impliquer. La bonne foi n'est pas sousentendue dans les contrats de droit strict." By Prof. Huvelin's exposition, the Trial-scene in the Merchant of Venice gains enormously from the Elizabethan English point of view. In the Italian novella it is also assumed that there was no overriding "Shylocke's" bond in Venice.2
1 Le Procés de Shylock, in the Bulletin de la Société des Amis de rUniversité de Lyon 1902.
* Prof. Huvelin overlooks that exactly the same points are made by the LadyIntercessor in H Pecorone. I do not see how he can be correct in saying: "Malgré les allusions répétées au droit de Venise, le eonflit qui nous intéresse ne correspond a rien de ce que nous savons de ce droit."


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IS THE GESTA A LINK BETWEEN DOLOPATHOS AND IL PECOBONE?
We have now seen where and how the Flesh-Bond and Bride story was known in 13th and 14th century literature in England, France and especially Germany. Before we can pass on to the Pecorone we must make up our minds on the question whether the Gesta-tale was a connecting link between Dolopathos and II Pecorone.
Neither the Decamerone (c. 1350) nor the Pecorone (c. 1380) are believed to have borrowed any tales from the Gesta1. They may both have derived a few stories from the Septem Sapientes, but in that forest of legends the Flesh-Bond and Bride tale occurs nowhere2, except in Dolopathos. Direct Italian borrowings from Dolopathos are unknown to Landau (Dekameron) and to Floerke (Pecorone). This negative result leaves the appearance of the tale in the Pecorone entirely unexplained. The area of the Dolopathos tale is less wide than that of the corresponding Gesta story, which is also found in England. The Gesta has over twenty MSS. containing the Flesh-Bond and Bride; Dolopathos has six Latin MSS, three French ones and a German one 3. If the Gesta has an advantage
1 As to the Decamerone see Landau, Quellen des Dekameron 1884*, p. 274— 280; for the Pecorone see the notes in vol. II of the Munich edition 1921, by Hanns Floerke.
* See o.a. Landau's table B. (p. 340). Even the various Italian Sette Savj have not yielded our tale. Landau gives a tabulation of the occurrence of 54 tales in twenty versions of the Septem Sapientes, but the Flesh Bond and Bride tale is not among them.
* "Bibliothèque Impériale, no. 27 dn fonds de Cangé, qui porte maintenant le no. 7636•." (Brunet).


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in numbers, only one, the Innsbrück MS. 1842, is certainly anterior to the date of the Pecorone; whereas Dolopathos has two very ancient MSS: the Luxemburg one (XlIIth cent., Latin); and the French one(XIIIth cent., Paris 1. Geographically the old Gesta MS of Innsbrück is most favourably situated for the possible transmission of the story by a famous route across the Alps into northern Italy, which was then part of the Holy Roman Empire. On the other hand French jongleurs and minstrels circulated French fabliaux and chivalrous tales both in Northern Italy and in Naples at the half-French court of the Anjous8. Both Boccaccio and Ser Giovanni may have learned a few stories through that channel. External evidence is therefore indecisive.
As to internal evidence: 1°. In Dolopathos the lover succeeds at the second attempt. In Gesta and Pecorone he succeeds at the third attempt. 2°. In Dolopathos the obstacle (the night-owTs feather) is removed by the lover accidentally, without anybody's advice. In Gesta and Pecorone the secret of the impediment is given away by some intermediate person to the lover, who has then no difficulty in avoiding the charm. 8°. In Dolopathos the creditor when frustrated, absolves the debtor of his own accord, adding reconciliation
1 Oesterley, Dolopathos p. XVII, mentions a Leipsie codex containing a translation into German of Dolopathos stories, among them no IV, our tale; printed by M. Haupt in Altdeutsche Blatter I, p. 119—156. * Landau p. 120.


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money of his own free will. In the Gesta and the Pecorone the creditor obstinately stands out for money when the forfeiture is barred. Gesta: — Da michi pecuniam meam.
— Nullum denarium ab eo obtinebis: Coram onmibus tibi optuli et rennuisti.
Pecorone: — Fatemi dare quei cento mila ducati.
— Io non ti darei un danaio; avessigli tolti quando io te gli volli far dare.
4°. Dolopathos ends abruptly after the trial.
Gesta and Pecorone have a playful scène of recognition.
Gesta: — "Ergo ingratus fuisti (says the Bride) quod militem ad prandium non invitasti." — "Subito intravit et subito exivit." — Ait puella:
— "Si eum iam videres, haberes noticiam eius?"
— "Eciam optime". — Statim puella cameram intravit, et induit se sicut prius. Que induta foras exivit. Miles cum ipsam vidisset per omnia noticiam eius habebat. Statim super collum suum cecidit et prae gaudio lacrimatus est: Benedicatur hora in qua tecum conveni. —
The device of the rings in the Pecorone may be more brilliant, perhaps, but the behaviour and language of the bride in connection with it are far from delicate. Still it seems as if the recognition scène was not an entirely new addition, but rather a more highly wrought substitute for an episode already there, in the Gesta, but not in Dolopathos.
5°. In Dolopathos the creditor has a personal grudge against the borrowing youth, which is motived.


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In Gesta and Pecorone there is no motived, personal grudge.
Against the balance in favour of the Gesta being a link, there is one offset:
The Gesta has the single exception to the Bond: "no jot of blood"; whereas both Dolopathos and the Pecorone have the doublé one: "neither more nor less than the due weight", and "no jot of blood."
The point appears grave. We indeed expect the more elaborate Pecorone to contain more details and episodes than its predecessors. Fairly obvious additions which the Gesta and the Pecorone have in common need not necessarily have reached the Pecorone via the Gesta. The disappearance of the cut-off foot was necessary in the Gesta, where the creditor is the Devil, its non-appearance in the Pecorone is not a proof that the Italian novelist did not know the Dolopathos tale: he may have had his own reasons for suppressing it, independently of the Gesta 1. Now the doublé solution contains a superfluous clause, since each of the demurrers is in itself sufficiënt to defeat the bond. Would Sir Giovanni have added the "neither more nor less" of his own accord, and thus have reverted accidentally to Dolopathos? This, I think, must be rejected. Neither would I speculate on the possibility of unprinted Gesta versions containing the doublé
1 The French rhymed version uses the word "eschacier" ("eripple") a score of times to the exclusion of any other indication of the creditor, so much so that the reader at first thinks that "eschacier" means "money-lender" [scaccarius ?). The French is rather more insistent on the cutting-off of the ex-slave's foot than the Latin which only has "loripes" six times.


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demurrer; it would not suit the allegory of the Gesta1.
I reluctantly conclude that for the present the known Gesta versions should be eliminated from a critical genealogy of the Pecorone, and hence of the Merchant of Venice. As regards the Flesh-Bond the Gesta tale must probably be regarded as an independent side-shoot. However, when the Pecorone novel had travelled to England and was about to be dramatized there for the first time in the last quarter of the 15th century, it was from the English Gesta, meanwhile printed, that the play borrowed the device of the Three Caskets. It is strange to reflect that the whole of the Merchant of Venice might have been written in England from English sources, viz. from different parts of the Gesta Romanorum. Chance ordained that the main part of the drama was to come to England in an Italian garb.
1 There is another peeuliarity about the "neither more nor less. clause.
Shakespeare has: "if thou tak'st more | Or lesse then a iustpound thou
diest." The expression o iust pound has been thought unidiomatio (C. K. Pooler). It is not derived from H Pecorone, which has: "Se tu ne leverai pin o meno che una libra, ió ti faro levare la testa". Dolopathos, however, reads: "Si plus minusve iusto pondere tuleris ".Is Shakespeare's iust pound a direct translation (mistranslation) of the words iusto pondere in Dolopathos? No. The explanation is that iust pound occurs in Sylvain's Orator: "What matter were it then — says the Jew in Declamation 95 — if I should cut off his [head], supposing that the same should weigh a iust pound; he which delivereth the same is to make waight, and he which reoeiveth, taketh heed that it be iust." Sylvain probably wrote "le poids juste". Shakespeare also uses: 'a just sevennight' (Ado. II. 1. 375) in the sense of exact, precise. Nor is it unknown outside Shakespeare in Elizabethan English: Auth. Version, Lev. XIX, 36, "Just
balances just weights shall ye have". There need be no direct connection
between Sylvain's expression and Dolopathos. Sylvain's interesting Declamation does not mention the *no jot of blood' argument.


CHAPTER IX
Ser giovanni Fiorentino's "Pecorone" — the Play of the Jew 1579 — the Merchant of venice
Scareely a generation after Giovanni Boccaccio (1313—1375) there lived at Florence another Giovanni, whose surname was possibly 'del Pecorone'. On the model of his illustrious townsman he wrote apentameron ©f novellas, loosely framed in what purports to be the true romance of Auretto (i.e. Autore, the author). Unto ward circumstances, it says in the Introduzione drove him from his native city, to cross the Apennines into the Romagna. The little town of Forli near Ravenna became to him the garden of romance, for at a convent there, occupied by a Prioress and sisters "who were all holy and perfect in their lives", he saw a nun Saturnina, giovane, costumata, savia e bella. She was to be bis Fiammetta. In order to approach her, Auretto resolved to don the cowl, and succeeded in becoming chaplain to the convent of the adored. In the Parlatorium they met every week and clothed their loving confidences and aspirations in tales of lovers happier than themselves, who were bound by vows. Then with a tender embrace
1 Tve frame story is given in the Introduzione; the introduotory sonnet, found at the end of the MSS. and at the beginning of the 16th century reprints, is spurious. The book was not completed till about 1390. The edition Milano 1804 has a portrait of Ser Giovanni Fiorentiono! For further details see h. Floerke's introduction to the reprint by Georg Muller, Munioh 1921.


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they would separate. A while their romance lasted, then Saturnina was called to join her sisters Beatrice and Laura in bliss. Auretto withdrew from the convent. In the neighbouring village of Dovadola he began in 1878 to compose a monument to the memöry of his Blessed Damosel, in the shape of a collection of fifty novellas interspersed with poems. The fifty stories are supposed to occupy twenty-five days.
The first novel of the fourth day is told by the lady Saturnina, and it is announced as the gem of the collection. "When on the fourth day the two lovers had met together in the accustomed parlour, they saluted one another with great joy; when they had taken their seats, Saturnina began as follows: — I will teil you a story which will be Queen among all the stories we have told each other."
— Bindo's youngest son Giannetto, after his father's death, is adopted by his godfather Ansaldo, the wealthiest merchant of Venice. Desirous to see the world he sails in Messere Ansaldo's ship bound for Alexandria. He risks vessel and cargo for the widow lady of Belmonte. Having been drugged with a sleeping draught, he fails in the test of manhood stated in Dolopathos and the Gesta stories. He returns home despoiled but cannot forget the Syren. A second ship and cargo are ventured and lost in the same manner, but Giannetto's failure only inflames his desire the more. To justify a third expedition Giannetto, who had explained his first two mis-adventures as caused by shipwreck, declares to the well-nigh ruined Ansaldo: "I shall not be content until I have won back all that I have lost." To grant the boy's consuming desire


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Messere Ansaldo determined to sell all that he possessed, and fitted out a most beautiful barque and precious cargo. Being ten thousand ducats short, he went "to a Jew at Mestri, who lent him the sum on condition that if Messere Ansaldo did not repay the money by the next St. John's day in June, the Jew should be entitled to take away a pound of his flesh in whatever part of the body he pleased, and Messere Ansaldo was content it should be so."
When the young widow of Belmonte saw Giannetto's third ship put into port "she stood at the window of her castle, made the sign of the holy cross and said: — 'This is a great adventure, it is the same man who has brought riches to our country twice before'." That evening one of the chambermaids whispered to Giannetto: "Pretend to drink to-night, but do not drink". Giannetto put the proffered wine to his lips, but poured it down his bosom, unperceived. The lady who believed he had drunk, said within herself: "You shall bring us another ship, for this one you have lost." The crisis had better be told in Saturnina's own words. — "Giannetto se n'andó nel letto, e sentissi tutto chiaro e di buona volonta, e parevagli mille anni che la donna ne venisse a letto .... E perchè la donna venisse piü tosto nel letto, commincia a far vista di russare e dormire. Per che la donna disse: sta bene; e subito si spogliö en andó a lato a Giannetto, il quale non aspettó punto, ma comunque la donna fu entrata sotto, cosi si volse a lei, e abbraciolla e disse: ora ho quel ch'io ho tanto desiderato, e con questo le donó la pace del santissimo matrimonio, e in tutta notte non gli usci di braccio; di che la donna


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fu piü che contenta." Giannetto, now lord of the country forgets Ansaldo's bond to the Jew, until the very day when the money falls due; he arrivés in Venice after the fatal hour. Ansaldo's friends collected a large sum of money to satisfy the creditor, but he declined all tenders "for he desired Ansaldo's death, só that he could pride himself on having caused the ruin of the greatest Christian merchant." Giannetto's wife dressed as a Knight followed her husband to Venice, accompanied by two squires. She took up her quarters at a hostelry and engaged the host in conversation. "Messire, they make too much of justice here", commented the host in telling her of the case. "Venice being the seat of Law and Justice, and the Jew having strict law on his side, no man dare challenge his claim." "And yet the question is easy to settle" said the pretended Doctor of laws. The Jew having consented to appear before the court with the Doctor as Arbiter, and having refused a hundred thousand ducats, judgment was given for him to take his pound of flesh. But as the Jew was about to execute it the Arbiter warned him: "Be careful what you do; for if you take a grain too much or too little, I will have you beheaded. And another thing : if you shed so much as a drop of blood, your life is forfeit, for your bonds make no mention of the shedding of blood; they clearly state that you are to take a pound of his flesh, neither less nor more. As you are so shrewd, you will know how to manage this." Then seeing he was outwitted, the Jew was for accepting the hundred thousand ducats, but was met with the refusal: "I will allow you no money; you should have taken it when it was


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offered you." He came down to fifty thousand, but that also was denied. "Give me at least my ten thousand ducats; cursed be the air you breathe, and the city you live in." In a rage he tore up his bonds. "All those present made great joy at this course of events, mocked at the Jew, saying: He has fallen into the pit he dug for another." Then the supposed Doctor withdrew, declining any remuneration. The tale concludes at Belmonte with the episodes of the rings. When everything had been cleared up "Messere Giannetto called for the chambermaid who had warned him to avoid the sleeping-potion. and gave her in marriage to Messere Ansaldo, and thus they lived happily together while their lives lasted." —
Whence the Florentine derived this story, which remained unique in Italian literature, has not been cleared up. We must be content with recognizing the organic identity of Dolopathos [Gesta] and Pecorone. The noveüa is at least five times as long as its prototype, yet in essentials there are few alterations. It is not even modernized as much as might have been expected. The long introduction explaining how Bindo left all his property to his two elder sons, though he loved his youngest best, and how popular Giannetto became at Venice, is a mere prelude, and brings us only one cardinal new fact: the character of the godfather now first put into the story. "Messere Ansaldo" does not occur in Dolopathos, nor in the Gesta. If he had figured in the Gesta, the vicarious sufferer, who gives his own flesh in pawn for his friend, would certainly have been a valuable asset in a mystic


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tale, and might have been expounded in the Reductio as Christx. To a non-symbolic worldly novella he is less valuable. His function is to conclude the FleshBond, in favour of Giannetto. Thus the forgetting of the fatal term by the young man becomes slightly more believable, but at what cost to the character of the young lover! In Dolopathos the youth exasperated by frustrated passion, cares little what he risks, but the flesh that he pawns is his own body. His life is saved by the wife for whose sake he hazarded it. In the Pecorone Giannetto tells his kind godfather lies as to how he lost the ships to pay for which the excellent old man strips himself. Worst of all, he suffers the kind man to jeopardize his poor old body: — "When it was time for them to sail, Messere Ansaldo said to Giannetto: "My son, you are going away, and you know what obligation I have entered into for your sake. One thing I beg of you: even though you should fare UI, return to me, that I may see you once more before my death, and then I shall depart in peace." Messere Giannetto replied: — "Messere Ansaldo, I wiU do whatever you desire." Thereupon he goes and forgets all about the godfather who had put his life in peril for him. On his return to Venice, to avert the consequences of his neglect, he can only offer his wife's money to satisfy the creditor. He is not gentleman enough to stab the monstrous flesh'cutter, and take the consequences. If the introduction
* Compare the Reductio to Gesta 58 (Oesterley): Carissimi, rex iste est pater celestis; filius tam sapiens est dominus noster Ihesus Cristus; sponsa tam pulchra est anima ad Dei similitudinem creata; quattuor sorores justicia, veritas, misericordia et pax. Anima cum servo domini, Le. cum diabolo adulterata est.


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of the character of Ansaldo belongs originally to the Pecorone, Ser Giovanni has burdened the tale with an irretrievably despicabïe "Bassanio".
As to the Bride her character is more gross than in the older tales. In Dolopathos and Gesta the initiative to the wooing is with the man; in the Pecorone the lady compels all male visitors to the trial óf virility. The defrauding of the troublesome wooers in the Latin tales is less egregiously treacherous than the fleecing of the unsuspecting visitors to Belmonte. Is that why the Sphinx (or minx) of Belmonte was a widow and not a demi-vierge? The Pecorone author feit no necessity to modernize the primitive method of courting, or being caught. The Lady perhaps originally devoured her prey. It is rather disconcerting to find this Lorelei1 making the sign of the holy cross when she is about to despoil the same victim a third time.
As regards remoteness from actual life amenable to moral standards, the Bride-winning and the FleshBond are about on a par. Both are utterly heathen and barbarian and could not be f itted into any Christian or Jewish scheme of life. There is only one piece of modernization as compared with Dolopathos and Gesta; the wooers are not paralyzed by a magie feather or a sleeping letter, but by the more obvious device of a potion. Otherwise it is not a great stride from the old tales to the Pecorone. We must resolutely put away any notion of having to deal with events
1 The Lorelei myth though modern in literary shape, belongs to the home of the Dolopathos story: the banks of the river Rhine.


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approximately possible in 14th century Italy 1.
An attempt to bring events down to that age seems to be implied in the transformation of the vengeancewreaking crippled slave [or his second incarnation, Dyabolus-] into a Jew. I cannot see that this was in every respect a happy stroke of art. No doubt Jews weré frequently money lenders in 14th century Italy; they were not prevented from charging interest, and may have had something like a monopoly in supplying credit. In the Pecorone, however, usury or interest is not mentioned; the whole money-transaction,important though it is, is sketched even more meagrely than in Dolopathos and Gesta. The position of Venetian Jews was never such as to bring an attempt at judicial murder like "Shylocke's" within the bounds of possibility. But doubtless the artistic gain in the clash of different types of humanity, the introduction of
1 Huvelin, Le Procés de Shylock: "Le fond du motif est fort ancien. Pour rétablir 1'anecdote dans son cadre originaire, imaginons done un groupement humain primitif, un de ces clans, ou une de ces tribus sauvages oü la familie sort a peine de la promiscuité première; oü la société faible encore n'a pas les moyens de faire prévaloir 1'idée d'une justice publique. Dans toute civilisation plus avancée la base juridique du motif tomberait. En réalité, nous devons alternativement nous placer a deux points de vue différents, selon qu'il s'agit du fond même du motif juridique, on des formes dans lesquelles il est présenté. En nous placant successivement a ces points de vue assez différents, nous pourrons sérier les difficultés et nous ne serons pas arrêtés par le disparate implicite qui existe entre le milieu oü se déroule la pièee (Venise au XVle siècle), le milieu oü est née 1'anecdote (une civüisation germaniqueC.) primilive) et le milieu dont sont issues les formes du billet signé par Antonio et la procédure du débat engagé (VAngleterre a la fin du XVIe siècle)." The case is even more complicated than Prof. Huvelin here expresses; and the necessity for the reader to place himself alternately at different standpoints to correct the disparate effects produced by the mixing of periods and civilizations ,does not seem to trouble our learned professor of law to anything like the extent that it must perturb the literary reader.


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racial hatred as a motive, shortly after the Black Death, outweighed with Ser Giovanni the increased improbabilities which his innovations implied. Thus a comparatively modern Jew was compelled to assume a crude and antiquated part (slave or devil) for which he was peculiarly unfitted by political status, tradition and race. We cannot be expected to study bis character from the psychological, racial or social points of view; there are no data for such a scrutiny. The criminal or devil was an indispensable spring in the mechanism of the tale, but important only dynamically. Thus burdened with a still more demoralized chief lady, a lowered Bassanio and an impossible Jew, but with a deceptive air of having been modernized, the story travelled to England, and gravitated towards the stage, which is apt to bring out flaws more acutely than the novella form. Accordingly it underwent some alterations and improvements before it became "The Jew, showne at the Bidl" in 1579.
The Bond-Story in England
The Pecorone written before 1400 and extant in but a few MSS., was yet sufficiently well-known to be deemed worthy the honour of print in 1558. The editio princeps, Milano, Gio. Antonio degli Antonij,was followed by a second edition, Venice 1560 (or 1565). A copy of one of these early printed Pecorones must have fallen into the hands of William Painter, who translated three tales from it, though not the novella we have just been studying. Yet there is a probability that no later than 1579 a dramatist, working upon


the untranslated Italian original (perhaps Painter's very copy of the book), adapted the novella to the stage by at least one cardinal alteration, viz. the substitution of the Caskets for the unpresentable Dolopathos, Gesta and Pecorone method of bride- winning. He also invented the names.
If the earliest English Shylocke-dramatist was not Shakespeare, who was he? It is now a conclusion of fifty years' standing that the Merchant was founded on the lost play mentioned with signal respect by 'Stephan' Gosson in 1579, "The Jew". Stephen Gosson, Stud. Oxon., about twenty-five years old, had even
Ithen been already a writer of plays and also an actor, but was now an Oxford student and a serious-minded young man. The disorder in playhouses offended him and called forth his "Schole of Abuse, containing an invective against Plaiers and such like Caterpillars of a Commonwelth",'dedicated to Sir Philip Sidney, who was not pleased with the book. Gosson lashes the theatrical Poets that 'wounde the conscience', and still more the Players that poison the world with 'the beame of their sighte, as with the breath of their mouth'. He, however, emphatically excepts a very few plays that he pronounces to be 'without rebuke': 'The twoo prose Bookes plaied at the Belsavage, where you shall finde never a woorde without wit, never a line without pith', and "The Jew and Ptolome, showne at the Buil, the one representing the greedinesse of worldly chusers, and bloody mindes of Usurers: the other very lively discrybing howe seditious states .... are overthrowne; neither with Amorous gesture wounding the eye, nor with slovenly talke hurting
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the eares of chast hearers." Stephen Gosson's theatrical career was an intermezzo in his college life and the Schole of Abuse marks his return to respectability. His singular respect and prepossession in favour of these four plays only, excepted singly and individually from a general anathema, would be due to their authors being University wits, like the best-known dramatists of the twilight-period between 1570 and 1590. It is a pleasing conjecture that John Lyly, M. A., (1554—1606) was the author of the two euphuistic prose books played at the Belsavage1 and praised by his fellow-euphuist Gosson. There seems no great risk in supposing that Ptolomy and The Jew were the work of others of Gosson's elder university-friends, or of some member of the Leicester-House cénacle, since Gosson's effort was dedicated to Sidney himself.
Now, is The Jew the first draft of The Merchant of Venice! There is nothing against the surmise and a good deal in favour of it. The earliest mention of the Merchant in the Stationers' Register is the following entry:
XIP Iulii /1598 Anno 40mo Reg. Eliz./ James Robertes. Entred for his copie under the handes of bothe the wardens, a booke of the Marchaunt of Venyce or otherwise called the Jewe of Venyce. Provided that yt bee not prynted by the said James Robertes or anye other whatsoever without lycence first had from the Right honorable the Lord Chamberlen, vj d.
» Chambers. El. St. HL 412.
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The Merchant was therefore "otherwise called The Jewe of Venyce". That Gosson's Jew was an Italian we know from an unpublished letter of Edmund Spenser to Gabriel Harvey, wherein he signs himself, 'He that is fast bownde unto thee in more obligations then any marchant in Italy to any Jewe there'. Edward Scott (Athenaeum, 2 July 1881) to whom this discovery is due, adds: This letter was a reply to one from Harvey, dated 1579, and it enclosed a whimsical bond between the two friends in, allusion to the bond of "The Jew" .... It is evident I think that Spenser and Harvey had lately together paid a visit to the Buil, had enjoyed the representation of this piece, and that it had made such an impression on their minds that their correspondence at this time is full of allusions to it".1 Gosson's faculty for le mot propre makes his ten-word summary significant.: 'the bloody mindes of Usurers' applies peculiarly to Shylocke, rather than to usurers at large; and though we should never have guessed what to make of worldly chusers2, we know now that they were the choosers of the caskets. Thus we find that The Jew contained Shylocke, a Bond and the Caskets. That being so we may as well grant the rest.
We do not know what company played "The Jew". The Merchant of Venice belonged to the Lord Chamberlain's men, the L. Ch. referred to in the above entry
1 It is to be regretted that this correspondence together with the whimsical bond have not become accessibie. The no doubt very few copies of the Pecorone in Italian language do not seem to have been studied with a view to obtaming clues as to their original owners: this might lead to a discovery of the author of The Jew. I may have a chance of pursuing this investigation at some time. * In Merry Wives IV, VI, 11, Shakespeare uses chooser in the sense of a lover choosing a partner.


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in the Register being the second Lord Hunsdon to whom the post was given on March 17th, 1597.1 The great company of the Lord Chamberlain's men, including Will. Shakespear, Ric. Burbage, Will. Kempe, John Hemings, Hen. Condel, and a few of lesser note, was afterwards made famous by Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Massinger and Shirley; it continued until the closing of the theatres in 1642. As Shakespeare and Burbage's company they emerged in 1594, just after the plague-years 1592—1594. They "started business with something of a repertory derived by inheritance or purchase from antecedent companies" a. There were plenty of opportunities for them to acquire copies of. plays from one or more of the troupes that had gone under in the plague-years: Pembroke's, the Queen's (who also played at The Buil) or Sussex's. There exists a probability that The Jew was among those acquisitions; that Shakespeare new-wrote this piece in 1595 or '96, the MS. of the older play being practically his only source, which he at first interpolated with additions, subsequently making it his own by one or two thorough recasts between 1596, 1598 and 1600. In the latter year the Heyes quarto was printed, in which process, it must be supposed, Shakespeare's MS. was used up. The MS. of the old play had been used as the rough draft by Shakespeare and then discarded; to our deep regret, although we got the Merchant in exchange for it. If we had only had both!
1 Chambers, El. Stage II. 195.
2 Ibid. II. 199-200.
1 The Robertes Quarto also dated 1600 is now believed to be of 1619. See Chambers III 480.


The Flesh-Bond in The Jew and in The Merchant of Venice
This then was the first Elizabethan Jew-play, being somewhat earlier than Wilson's Three Ladies of London (1581, printed 1584), and ten years older than Marlow's Jew of Malta (1589). We have Gosson's word for its impeccability of pbrase and purity of action. Before Gosson would concede so much, the thought-content would have to be academica!, the spirit very proper if not moralizing. We may figure it as a soberer play than The Merchant, with perhaps fewer characters, but with practically the same plot as far as the Jews are concerned. To the nameless author is due the distinction of having substituted the Casket-plot for the crude bride-forcing story in the Pecorone, a proof of remarkable dramatic talent. The hints for it were taken from the Gesta Romanorum, an English edition of which, containing the Caskets, but not the Bond of Flesh, had just been republished after a long interval in 1577. The 37th story of Robinson's reprint, (number 66 in Herrtage's editionx) about the Three Caskets and the King's daughter of Jerusalem, is the nearest approach to the Casket-scenes in the Merchant of Venice. The nature of this substitution tallies with our theory that the author of 1579 was a cleric:the Gesta Romanorum is a cleric's book. The Bond story in the Pecorone would interest a casuist. Besides the Jewish subject, the use of the Gesta Romanorum, and the curious names, there is in the Merchant as we now possess it another tracé of a clerical predecessor: the
1 See Herrtage number LXVI, p. 294, and notes on p. 490.
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remarkable if fragmentary discussion on the nature of usury in the famous Act I. Sc. III, a subject involving a bowuig acquaintance with Canon Law. We have all pondered the question at issue between Anthonio and Shylocke, or rather between the Church and the world. Strange to say, though Shylocke is made to quote the Old Testament, the question is not debated on Biblical principles; both Anthonio and Bassanio deprecate the adduction of Holy Writ: 'The Devil can cite Scripture for his purpose' says Anthonio. 'In religion any damned error can be blessed and approved with a text' says Bassanio. However, texts of obvious relevancy are not wanting in the Testaments: "If thou lend money to any of my people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury (Ex. 22). If thy brother be waxen poor and fallen in decay with thee thou shalt relieve him, yea though he be a stranger or a sojourner; that he may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase (Lev. 25)." Shylocke's defence would have been that the probibition was against taking usury from poor people and particularly poor Israelites: "Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother, usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of anything that is lent upon usury; Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury, but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury (Deut. 23)." Shylocke I suppose observed that distinction; we may take for granted that those who at times made moan to Anthonio to be delivered from Shylocke's forfeitures, were not Jews. Thomas of Aquino condemned the
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discrimination against 'a stranger', ruling that 'God did not approve, but would not punish that sin\ Likewise Anthonio could have appealed to Nu. 15: "One ordinance shall be both for you of the congregation and also for the stranger that sojourneth with you." Shylocke would counter with the criticism that he was a stranger in their gate, not they in his; that he would welcome the general application of legal equality, but that a conjonction fraternette could not be partial. The time to reproach him for taking usury would not come till Christians, especially the court of Rome, had given up the practise. Anthonio: "Lord, who
shall abide in thy Tabernacle? he that putteth
not out his money to usury (Ps. 14—15); he that hath not given forth upon usury, nor hath taken any increase. (Ez. 18); he that by usury and unjust gain incrèaseth his substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor. (Prov. 28. Will this justify the despoiling of usurers by the charitable?). Anthonio could have ended his exhortation with: "Lend, hoping for nothing again." Shylocke: "What, not barely my principal?" Anthonio: "If ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners to receive as much again." (Luke VI) Shylocke: "As much again as they have lent out? Do you mean centum per cento? Where can a man get that? We are only allowed a legal rate of twelve per cent a year." No doubt Anthonio need not have stinted there for Iack of matter.
Instead of some such argument, the dramatic capacities and propriety of which it is not for me to judge, we have the grand scène, throbbing with
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life, and which yet puzzles thoughtful readers. The attitude to usury which is at the back of that scène is indeed neither the Biblical, nor the practise of Protestant England, but it rests upon the ethics of interest according to the Canon Law, which again differed from actual practise.
The underlying ideas do not stand out clearly.
The Church forbade the taking of interest for money on Biblical, ethical, social and metaphysical grounds. She fulfilled a mission in keeping usury under control; she still does so. If the Fathers do not all agree as to the interpretation of the texts, the Councils and Popes up to the 19th century made the prohibition absolute, first to clerics and then to laymen, with certain reservations. It was till recently the central principle of Catholic social economy. Alexander IV's Buil Quod super nonnullis (1258) brands the taking of interest as heresy to be visited by the Inquisition, ■ whilst all secular laws which permitted the enforcing of bonds with interest, must be removed from the Statute booksOnly the Jews were exempt, not without exciting the virtuous or envious indignation of Christian merchants. It is not to be supposed that as time went on the Church abated the rigour of her principle. Constant edicts went forth to put down infringement. The encyclical Vix pervenit of Benedict XTV in 1745 speaks to this effect: — The species- of sin named usury consists in a person's desiring to be paid back more than had been received [by theborrower], by virtue of the loan itself, which from its nature demands that only as much be rendered as has been
* Bolland. XXe Eeuw 1902. article Christendom en Rente.
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received K It makes no difference whether that prof it be not extravagant but reasonable, nor whether the person from whom the profit is demanded in virtue of the loan, be not poor, but rich. — Not till 1830 did the Church relax: The faithful need not be disquieted if they lend their money at a moderate interest, provided they are prepared to submit to the final decision of the Holy See. The final decision was published in the
new Codex Iuris Canonici of 1918, canon 1543:
non est per se ülicitum de lucro legali pacisci2.... The Church therefore has since the Great War officiaily sanctioned interest. Protestant countries like Holland and England, emancipated themselves from the prohibition of usury, whether founded upon Divine, Canonical or Secular Law, on the initiative and the authority of Calvin, one of whose Consilia of 1549 is the Protestant Charter of Interest: "Ie concludz maintenant quil faut iuger des usures non point selon quelque certaine et particuliere sentence de Dieu mais seullement selon la rigle dequite".3 It is possible that the letter containing this Consilium of Calvin's was in reply to one from Utenhove who collected debts owing to Calvin in London, where Utenhove resided4. More elaborately than in his Consilia (they were frequently repeated in similar words) Calvin attacks the dogma prohibiting interest in his commentaries and sermons. Among the arguments that he disdainfully brushes aside is arguta illa ratio Aristotelis:
1 Aengenent, Sociologie 530. Cathrein, Maalphilosophie II, 355. 1 van Blom, in De Economist, 15 June 1924. 3 Diepenhorst, Calvijn en de Economie, p. 133. , * Diepenhorst, p. 140.
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joenus esse praeter naturam, quia pecunia sterilis est, nee pecuniam parit. "La raison de sainct Ambroyse1 laquelle aussi pretend Chrysostome est trop frivolle a mon iugement: ascavoir que largent nengendre point largent. La mer, quoy ? la terre, quoy ? Ie recois pension du louage de maison. Est ce pource que largent y croist? L'argent nest il pas plus fructueux es marchandises, que aulcunes possessions quon pourroit dire? Certes ie confesse ce que les enfans voyent, ascavoir que si vous enfermes largent au coffre il sera sterile. Et aussy nul nempronte de nous a ceste condition affin quil supprime largent oyseux et sans le faire proffiter. Parquoy le fruict nest pas de largent mais du revenu. II fault done conclurre que telles subtilites de prime face esmeuvent, mais si on les considere de plus pres elles esvanouissent delles mesmes, car elles nont rien de solide au dedans."
Though Calvin thought little of the argument: pecunia pecuniam parere nequit, nummus nummum non parit, this was taken as seriously by the Canonists as the Biblical precepts themselves. To Scholastic philosophers these dicta represented sound reason, a proof of the partial grace accordedtopagan philosophers,
1 Ac primum nullo testimonio Scripturae mihi constat usuras omnino dam-
natas esse Ratio Ambrosii quam etiam affert Chrysostomus, non est
magno momenti: Pecunia non parit pecuniam. Quid mare T quid domus ex cuius locatione pensionem percipio, an ex tectis et parietibus argentum proprie nascitur? Quis dubitat pecuniam vacuam inutilem omnino esse? neque qui a me mutuam rogat vacuam apud se habere a me acceptam cogitat: non ergo ex pecunia illa lucrum accedit, sed ex proventu. Illae igitur rationes subtiles quidem sunt et speciem quandam habent, sed ubi proprius expenduntur reipsa concidunt. Nunc igitur concludo iudicandum de usuris esse, non ex particulari aliquo Scripturae loco, sed tantum ex equitatis regula. /Responsa. p. 365 ed. 1576/.
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315
for the idea is Aristotle's. Readers of the Merchant of Venice are referred to the following extract from Aristotle's Politeia (Bk. I. c. 10. 4, and c. 11. 1):
"The useful parts of money-making are first, the "knowledge of live stock; which are most profitable, "as for example, what sort of horses or sheep or oxen "or any other animals are most likely to give a return; "secondly, husbandry, either tillage or planting. These "are the divisions of the true or proper art of money-
"making, and come first Wherefore the art of
"making money out of fruits and animals is always "natural. Of the other, which consists in exchange, "the first and most important division is. commerce, "the second is usury ,the third service for hire. The "most hated sort, and with the greatest reason, is "usury, which makes money out of money itself "(ó S« toko? yhsTxi vófiia-fix vofilo-fictrog) and not from the "natural use of it. For money was intended to be "used in exchange, but not to increase at interest. "And this term (tókos) which means the birth of "money from money, is applied to the breeding of
"money, because the offspring resembles the parent
" Wherefore of all modes of making money this
"is the most unnatural" *.
Such was Aristotle's authority that this halfunderstood conceit became a law of thought to Europe; the Middle-Ages were thoroughly impressed by it. Francis Meres (1565—1647) an early admirer of the Merchant of Venice, puts the whole neatly in one sentence: 'Usurie and encrease by gold and silver is unlawful, because against nature: nature hath made
1 I have slightly re-arranged Jowett's translation, Oxf. 1885.


them stenll and barren, usurie makes them procreative.'1 It reads like a Divinity student's lecture note, and no doubt the author van The Jew 1579 had imbibed the idea at the same source. Calvin's sudden and contemptuous attacks had made it a burning controversy, also in England and thus I think this amalgam of Greek and Church metaphysics came into the Merchant of Venice 2. In the Pecorone story there is not a hint of an argument on usury, nor is it needed for the intrigue. Hence the whole of the scène leading up to the Bond-of-Flesh is ascribed to Shakespeare, and it is praised as a feat of his magie But the 1579 play very likely contained something similar. It was in the spirit and style of a scholarly morality. Let us put ourselves in the place of the first dramatiser of the Pecorone tale: —
Giannetto (Bassanio) ruins his godfather Ansaldo by twice losing a ship to the Circe of Belmonte. 'Do not grieve my dear son', says the good man, 'the sea enriches some men, others it ruins'. Poor Giannetto's head was day and night full of the thoughts of his bad success. When Ansaldo inquired what was the matter, he confessed the could never be contented
1 It is to be noted that Meres uses 'against nature' in a more dogmatic sense than the ancient philosopher, as if he meant to explain that as natural procreation is of God, unnatural increase is possible only through a pact with the Devil, and therefore deadly sin. Dante branded interest as a sin against nature. (Inferno, Cant. 11).
* Compare Thomas Wilsons Discourse uppon Usurye(1572): In oure time that godlye prince Kynge Edwarde the sixt, yea godly may I well call hym, dyd make an acte of Parlyament that noe man might put oute hys mony for any gaine at all, neither dyrectlye nor indirectlye, and appoynted paynes against theoffendours in that behalfe. (The act of 1552, modified in 1571, when a distinction was drawn between usury over and under 10 per cent.)
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till he should be in a condition to regain all that he had lost. Ansaldo finding him resolved, began to sell everything he had to furnish this other fine ship with merchandise; but as he wanted still ten thousand ducats, he applied to a Jew at Mestri (near Venice) and borrowed them on condition that if they were not paid on the feast of St.-John in the next month of June, the Jew might take a pound of flesh from any part of his body. Ansaldo agreed, and the Jew had an obligation drawn and witnessed. When it was time to depart, Ansaldo entreated Giannetto, that since het knew well of the obligation to the Jew, if any misfortune happened he would return to Venice, that he might see him before the died; and then he could leave the world with satisfaction. —
This is the first stage; an act has to be made out of it. A more suitable story is found to replace the one of Giannetto's old-world ad venture in wooing; in connection with the raised tone of all that part of the drama to be written, Portia and Bassanio are both modernized. Old Ansaldo is already as good as possible, though rather shadowy. But what is to be made of that Flesh-Bond? It can not possibly be omitted; and yet, how did it arise? It must have been a strange world where such things could happen. Ansaldo had lost his last penny, and therefore had no security to offer; he tried the money-lenders, who all refused. The last and worst was [Shylocke] who stipulated the impossible forfeiture. Granted the case, the story supplies an ingenious way out. There are the makings of a sensational drama in it. The novella writer had an easy job, he just let the thing happen in six lines
817


But the task of the dramatist is more difficult; hehas to show the Bond in the act of being negotiated; he must contrive the agreement before our eyes. Fortunately he need not bring on the notary and actually seal the document ! Our dramatist ponders trying to work his way back from the given and indispensable fact of the bond, to the circumstances and arguments that led up to it. The bond is of course a trap; the Jew is a wolf in sheep's clotbing. But how can a great merchant in possession of normal faculties be induced to seal to such a bond? In the Gernutus ballad it was represented as a joke. If there is no other way, we must make that do. Meanwhile here they are, face to face, and they must talk. About the terms, the security and the interest .... the usurer to win conf idence by waiving interest, pretending to be converted to what is after all the decent attitude; thus he gets round Anthonio; and the thing is done. Important subject that of Usury, to be fought out between the Jew and the Christian. If the arguments can be effectively introduced, the debate may be as useful to public morals as a sheaf of Discourses. Aristotle will serve best; he puts the whole question in a nutshell, and he is irrefutable. It is hardly beseeming to bring the Bible and the Fathers into a stage-dispute; besides, they are more difficult to understand.
Here let us pause to see whither we are going. If our scholar gave Shylocke his Aristotle methodically, he could do it in two portions: beginning at the sheep, then passing on to the contrast of the barren metais. But in the Merchant we find a puzzling thing: It is Shylocke who leads off with the ewe and ram story,
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and he gives it in such pungent Old Testament phrase, that as we watch the play with receptive minds, we feel that no speech could be more appropriately his. Not till we reflect critically do we perceive that it is a strange way for Shylocke to open a defence of usury. In fact it is courting defeat. Anthonio's rejoinder is perfectly just: Jacob's way to tbrive had nothing to do with usury, and it was not inserted in the Bible to make interest good. Indeed it was never meant as an example of honest conduct. How ever did Shylocke come to start from Laban's sheep? Did he see bis way to a justification of usury from an analogy to Jacob's sheep farming? There is a puzzle here, but we have a due to it. There are three persons to reckon with: Shylocke, Anthonio and — the author of The Jew. How many of these know the Aristotelian and Canonical argument? The author of The Jew for one; Anthonio for another. Shylocke? If he did, he would know better than to mention sheep. If he did not, what put Laban's ring-straked and spotted kids into his mind thus opportunely for his adversaryt Only to a person versed in Aristotle is there any connexion of ideas between sheep and usury; and that is an association by contrast. Yet here is Shylocke discussing sheep. The clerical author is so good an Aristotelian, that even while intending to assume Shylocke's ignorance of the iron jaws of the Aristotle trap, he is himself so thoroughly imbued with the theory, that to him anyone who sets out to defend usury, must necessarily start from the principle of productivity, procreation, and attempt to build up his argument on that. Shylocke would therefore open his case with cattle, not Aristotle's
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sheep, but being a Jew, with Laban's. And then he was caught.
But here our pious scholar had reckoned without Shakespeare! That inspired barbarian at the age of tbirty-two was not a hidebound theologian. He may not have quite realized the weight of authority behind Anthonio's argument, especially as it was now cut up between the two disputants; and he may have been pleased to upset it. Is not 'the silver with its maiden hue' the female to gold: the Danaë to Jove? In Alchemy the metais certainly have sex. What was this talk about breeding or barrenness to Shakespeare? If the Greeks (as he gathered from this clerical don of a morality writer) called interest 'breed' that only shows they knew how to make money breed. Why should not they? Shakespeare betrayed Anthonio to Shylocke by making the merchant ask:
Is your gold and silver, ewes and ramst
The chiasmic parallel is so tempting that Shylocke cannot help scoring easily:
I cannot teil; I make it breed as fast.
For bis private satisfaction Shakespeare permitted Shylocke this sally, which Anthonio fails to parry. It saved Shylocke out of an impasse; how could be have continued his demonstration? But Shakespeare got into a difficulty by yielding to that arch impulse. Is was too good to line it out, but in this way the two will never agree about a pleasant confidential bond. Wittingly or unwittingly Shylocke has turned into ridicule the sacrosanct doctrine of the Church; and it is no wonder that in face of such profanity Anthonio relieves himself in Bassanio's bosom with some com-
320


plaints about 'evil souls citmg Scripture, vülains with smiling cheeks, like goodly apples rotten at the core'. Meanwhile he misses the obvious retort that such breeding was Satanic, for Shakespeare is not alert in handling that weapon of canonical metaphysics. But how can Anthonio, after unpacking his heart with words, continue submissively: 'Well Shylocke, shall we be beholding to you?' Beholden to the smiling villain? Shylocke is any thing but smiling as he passes from debate to remonstrance: "-f '
Signor Anthonio, many a time and oft
In the Ryalto you have rated me
About my monies and my usances:
Still have I borne it with a patiënt shrug,
(For sufferance is the badge of all our Tribe).
You call me misbeleever, cut throate-dog,
And spet upon my Jewish gaberdine,
And all for use of that which is mine owne ....
Then he turns sarcastic, and threatens that he may refuse the loan. But nothing will induce Anthonio to break off the humiliating negotiations.
We feel how the author is here working with his hands tied.
Thus far he had let his creatures live, and the angry passions rise; he is not to be curbed by the necessity of coming to a peaceful conclusion of the scène. And yet at this point there was perhaps a chance. Anthonio might have recognized the justice of some of Shylocke's complaints and spoken a few words of amende honorable; he might have explained seriously, without metaphysics; that usury wasto him anexecrable
21*
821


abuse — and then Shylocke's offer of a loan without interest (whatever his motives and later action) might have been slipped in. Yet the more Shylocke is made to appear reasonable and human the more impossible becomes the Flesh-condition which must figure in the Bond. Shakespeare was preparing for Shylocke's atrocity, present and to come, and was letting Anthonio gather nemesis on his own head. So we find the Merchant railing:
I am as like to call thee so againe,
To spet on thee againe, to spurne thee too,
and telling Shylocke, quite unnecessarily, not to lend him the money as to a friend. The 1579 play may have proceeded methodically to an apparently friendly agreement, but here we wonder how the loan will ever be made on any terms. This time Shylocke has to show more than ordinary elasticity: his most earnest expostulations have been met with renewed spittings and spurnings, yet he does not fling away "with a curse, but as a supple villain toying with a notion of getting a hold over Anthonio (which time may ripen into a chance of destroying him) he starts whining:
Why look you how you storme, I would be friends with you, and have your love, Forget the shames that you have stained me with, Supplie your present wants, and take no doit Of usance for my moneyes, and youle not heare me. This is kinde I offer.
At this unexpected development Anthonio has
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j
nothing else to say than: "This were kindness". Bassanio says nothing at all. How is this mental collapse of Anthonio to be accounted for? It is not because he feels that he owes Shylocke a compensation for the outrages he has put upon him. Might this sudden meekness be the prostration of a person who has over-railed himself? Is Anthonio mesmerized by Shylocke? How are we to understand this sudden depth of gullibility in a normal person? The reader must put his own psychology, such as it is, into these three words: "This were Kindness". The offer to make Anthonio a present of a few hundred ducats interest is not an inducement to strike a merchant-prince dumb with grateful astonishment. Nor can Anthonio imagine that his arguments and railing combined, had made of Shylocke a convert to the right doctrine concerning usury: not a minute ago the Jew had piercingly ridiculed Anthonio's best argument. Thus far Shylocke had not spoken fawningly, he had been indignant, violent, sarcastic and insulting. Instead of dangling a fly at his trout, he had prodded him with the rod. Anthonio must need the money very badly to bear Shylocke's tone. "To buy his favour
!I extend this friendship" Shylocke explains a moment after. Is Anthonio's favour for sale to the Jew whom he has just lowered himself by reviling? To be a beneficiary of Shylocke's whim! We might stave off our difficulty in following the workings of Anthonio's mind, by thinking that he is merely stunned; that he is not won over, but just beginning to think it out, and trying to see whose leg was being pulled (there is I. believe no other idiom for what would pass through
21
323


Anthonio's mind): "This were kindness, but does he suppose
But there is no more scope for shelving difficulties, the end of the scène is near. We are at line 143 and at 181 all is over, the Flesh-Bond concluded, and Anthonio in a mood to pat Shylocke on the back. To cover all that ground in forty lines the speed has to be vertiginous:
This kindnesse will I showe, Go with me to a notarie, seale me there Your single bond, and, in a merrie sport, If you repay me not on such a day, In such a place, such sum or sums as are Exprest in the condition, let the forfeite Be nominated for an equal pound Of your faire flesh, to be cut off and taken In what part of your bodie it pleaseth me.
Suppose the MS. of the Merchant broke off here, at Shylocke's proposal 'to buy his friendship'. Would any one have guessed Anthonio's answer? We know he was liable to sudden extremes, but I cannot think there was ever such an angelic simpleton of a Merchant Prince:
Content infaith, Be seale to such a bond, And say there is much kindnesse in the Jew.
If Anthonio seeing it all in a flash had flown into a towering passion and burst out: — 'You cut-throat dog, I see your drift, but now you shall take usance, and you shall seal this Blood-Bond', — and dragged Shylocke to the notary's, one could have understood.
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The great Anthonio expecting 'thrice three times the valew of this Bond', might have entered into it defiantly recklessly, desperately. But how otherwise?
Prof. R. Moulton has argued that Anthonio's consent to the Flesh-Penalty was prepared for "by one of Shakespeare's greatest triumphs of mechanical ingenuity." "Shylocke says in effect: Since you Christians cannot understand interest in the case of money, while you acknowledge it in the case of flesh and blood % suppose I take as my interest in this bond, a pound of your own flesh. In such a context the monstrous proposal sounds almost natural."
It is clear that Shylocke could almost make a victim of Prof. Moulton. Shylocke says forfeit, forfeiture, (penalty Anthonio calls it); Prof. Moulton makes him suggest a pound of flesh as interest. If interest is taken, it is to be paid as a certainty, not as a contingency. It was as a rule deducted in advance2. That means that Anthonio irrevocably owes Shylocke a pound of his flesh, and yet Anthonio is 'content infaith', and says 'there is much kindnesse in the Jew'? But then Shylocke has just disclaimed interest, 'no doit of usance'; and yet it is to be nominated and expressed in the Bond? We should not confuse interest with forfeit. Forfeit is the penalty to be suffered in case of default; it is a menace to serve as a deterrent against negligence on the part of the debtor. Not until he failed to pay could the forfeit be exacted. Let a jurist explain this:
1 Shakespeare as a Dramatio Artist, p. 64; Prof. Moulton as a good Aristotelian overlooks that it is Shylocke and not Anthonio who speaks of the increase of flocks, i.e. interest in flesh.
1 Interest or usury was taken in, not on the capital lent, e.g. 12 in the hundred.
825


— Dans1 le vieux droit anglais, comme dans plusieurs législations primitives, beaucoup d'engagements se dissimulent sous la forme de conventions pénales. Le débiteur promet de se soumettre a telle peine, de payer telle amende, s'il n'exécute pas son engagement. Et les billets sont rédigés de telle sorte que la clause pénale est 1'objet principal de la convention, et que le but véritable des parties n'y figure qu'a titre de condition. Ceci parait sans doute obscur. Je prends un exemple: Pierre veut-il s'engager a payer a Paul mille écus avant le Ier janvier prochain? II n'écrira pas: "Je paierai mille écus", mais il écrira: "Moi, Pierre, je dois a Paul deux mille écus, sous la condition que, si je paie a Paul mille écus avant le Ier janvier, cette obligation sera nulle et de nul effet".2 Pierre a done tout intérêt a remplir la condition, c'est a dire, a payer les mille écus dans le délai fixé, pour éviter de tomber sous le coup de la clause pénale, du forfait, c'est a dire d'en devoir deux mille. S'il ne réalise pas
1 Prof. Paul Huvelin, Bulletin de la Sooiété des amis de l'Universitë de Lyon, L. Procés de Shylock, 23 février 1902. A most illuminating article. * Professor Paul Huvelin appends an important bibliography, the most authoritative of his sources being Blackstonës Commentaries, Bk. II, Ch. XX; further, Pe.rgame.nt Conventionalstrafe und Interesse in ihrem Verhaeltnis zu einander, (Berlin 1896); Williams, Principles of the law of personal pro perty, 15th ed. London 1894, p.fOO—201. Prof. Theodoor Niemeyer of Kiel gives a very similar explanation in Der Rechtsspruch gegen Shylock, 1912, "In England (as in Rome) it had been customary of old to secure a bond by stipulating enormous conctractual punishments (Konventionalstrafen) in case of default. In fact it was done in this form that the Penalty was represented as the principal thing, and the debt proper as a secondary matter. A person wishing to bind himself legally to the payment of 3000 ducats at a specified date, and willing to confirm this obligation by a contractual penalty or forfeit, expressed himself as follows: 'I owe.... ten thousand ducats. I shall not owe them if at such and such a date I punctually pay three thousand ducats'. Such bonds were strietly enforced by the Law Courts."
326


la condition qui peut annuler 1'obligation, le forfait est dü tout entier. — Cette forme de billet était la seule que connüt la vieille coutume anglaise, la common law."
The forfeit was therefore usually of an extravagant nature, because it rested with the debtor himself to prevent its materializing. But however exaggerated, absurd even, it was grim earnest. Throughout the play the assumption, even in the highest legal quarters, in the Doge's court itself, is that the forfeiture is not incapable of being enforced. Then why did Shakespeare resort to so stagey a trick as to slip it in by way of a "merrie sport"? Did he borrow the notion from the "merrie jest" of the Gernutus ballad? Did it occur in „The Jew" — play of 1579? Wherever it came from it is inadequate, at least it seems to me there cannot be two opinions about that. Is any one prepared to stake his reputation on the assertion that the thing was possible in any civilization we know of?"
The world prizes The Merchant of Venice as one of the most gloriously beautiful of Romantic Dramas. That judgment eternity will not efface. It is as presumptious to praise it, as to carp at it. As the result of our reflexions let us add one more to the lessons that have been learnt from it, a lesson in literary evolution:
The more highly organized an art-creation grows, the more destructive to its inner truth become
1 An attempt to fix the time and place exactly at Rome 'in the single decade preceding A. D. 320' starts from the erroneous premise that there were Christians and Jews concerned in the original happenings. (Shaking the Dust from Shakespeare, by Harris J, Griston, New York 1924).
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the vestiges of a primitive legend of which it
purports to be a modernization. It is impossible to modernize a legend. What would have become of Goethe's Faust, with say, Macchiavelli in the place of Mephistopheles? What if such a "humanized" Mephistopheles had proposed his bond as "a merrie jest"? The mediaeval Gesta-story, which simply read Mercator as Dyabolus was nearest to reality. If that frankly symbolical basis is departed from, the facts not only of psychology, but also of the world as we know it from history, have to be wrested to such an extent, that the drama which is to visualize things as if seen between heaven and earth, enters the domain of Erewhon. There Merchants may be pillars of the Canon Law and withal gullible in the extreme; there Bassanios' may behave as they do without being cads; there brides are disposed of by lottery; there "a young lady, obviously breaking the sartorial law of sex, and armed with an untruthful introduction from an absentee judge, is allowed to officiate at once as plaintiff,pleader,preacher,arbitrator assessor, sentencer, and Christian conversionist",1 and there but nowhere else a Jew may desire and have power to act like the Devil.
For a profound study of the Jewish soul and character the interested reader should go elsewhere.
Our Conclusions may be summarized thus: There has been no continuity between pre-expulsion Jewry and the Resettlement of the (Spanish) Jews in
1 Zangwill, The Voioe of Jerusalem, p. 228. The demand that Shylocke 'presently become a Christian' is Anthonio's, not Portia's.
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the time of Cromwell and of Charles II. The "MiddleAge of Anglo-Jewish History" is practically a blank of three and a half centuries. In Elizabethan and early Stuart England no unconverted Jews were known to be living. Nevertheless the contemporary Jew engaged some of the attention of Englishmen: English merchants and adventurers came in contact with Jews in the Mediterranean regions, Italy, Barbary and Turkey; after 1600 also in the United Provinces of the Netherlands. To the home-keeping majority, including the play-wrights, the Jew was anexotic, or an abstraction, known through the Bible, ancient history (Josephus), sermons and rumour. There is no relation between the familiarity with the term "Jew" in the literature of the time and the supposed presence of overt Jews in England. The current use of the word "Jew" for a usurer, a pawnbroker, a Puritan or a foreign dissenting Protestant, was necessarily figurative, and almost unrestricted, because in the absence of racial Jews such metaphorical use could not lead to misunderstanding. This figurative use in vacuo does not count heavily as a presentation of "how ithers see us". The greatest Jew plays are not the most realistic in the respect of picturing the Jew as he really was: Barabas and Shylocke cannot stand for the nation. As regards the Merchant of Venice this is owing to the mythical and symbolic nature of the original story, and the mixing of periods and civilizations involved in its modernizations; in the course of which a mediaéval Italian Jew was introduced to fill the place of a 'character who could hardly be maintained on the stage as a reality beyond
329


the Middle-Ages: a (pagan) slave, or the Devil. The subject matter of The Merchant has not been definitely traced to the Oriënt or to the Jews; it might more probably be derived from Western Europe in a heathen age. In writing The Merchant Shakespeare relied to a considerable extent on an older drama of 1579, the author of which seems to have been a clerical scholar, with some knowledge of Hebrew. The evolution of the Flesh-Bond theme (from Dolopathos 1200 [the Gesta Romanorum post 1300] II Pecorone 1400,_ the lost play of 1579, to the Merchant of Venice 1596) shows that the Shylocke play, in spite of Shakespeare's genius, is a medley of primitive data incapable of consistent and convincing modernization, and that it should be read in the spirit of the Romantic drama which it is, as pure fiction. Of the second-rate plays, A Christian turn'd Turk is nearer to actualities of the more sordid kind observable; so is the Zariph scène in The Three Brothers Sherley, whilst the Zabulon scènes in The Custom of the Country disfigure still more an already unfaithful Spanish original. All the plays dealt with agree in showing that Jews were not present in Elizabethan and early Stuart England.
330


A SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ifote: Individual plays have only been noted if not readily aocessible. Lives of Shakespeare, and Publications of various Shakespeare Societies have not been specified.
The Jewish Quarterly Beview.
La Bevue des Etudes Juives.
Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England.
Papers of the Anglo-Jewish Exhibition (Jacobs and Wolf 1887).
The Jewish Encyclopaedia.
Abbot, F. 0. Israël in Europe, 1907.
Abrahams, Israël. Jewish Life in the Middle-Ages, 1896.
Anon. Every Woman in her Humour, 1609. (Brit. Mus. C. 34. 6. 57).
„ idem, Bullen's Old Plays, volume IV. Aristoteles, Politeia, translated by Jowett, Oxford 1885. [Arnall, William], The complaint of the Children of Israël, by Solomon Abrabanel, 1732.
Bacon, Francis. Life of Henry VII. (Latin and English), 1625.
Beü, Dr. William. Shakespeare's Puck and his Folkslore, Nürnberg 1864 (3 vols)
Belloc, Hilaire. The Jews. 1922.
Benfey, Theodor. Pantschatantra, 1859; (1891).
Bernardi (Divi). Opera Omnia, Basiliae 1566.
Besant, Sir Walter. Survey of London, 10 vols. London in the Times of the Tudors (1904).
Boas, F. S. Shakspere and his Predecessors. 1902.
Bolland, O. J. P. J. Christendom en Bente, artikel in De XXe Eeuw, Amsterdam, Mei 1902.
Calendars of Letters, Despatches and State-Papers. Negotiations England-Spain,
ed. Bergenroth and Gayanjos. Gotisch, Edward N. The Jew in English Literature, Richmond, Virginia 1909. Cervantes (Miguel de — Saavedra). The Wanderings of Persiles and Sigismunda;
translated by L. D. S. (London 1854). „ The Travels of Persiles and Sigismunda, a Northern History. London,
Printed by H. L., for M. L. 1619 (Br. Mus. C 59. ff. 2). „ Spanish edition, (en Brucelas 1618, Royal Library, The Hague). Chambers, E. K, The Elizabethan Stage. Oxford Clarendon Press 1923.4 vols. Campbell, J. F. Popular Tales of the West Highlands, Edinburgh 1860. ChurchiR—Ketter. Die Lateinisehen Universitats-Dramen. Macchiavellus, Jahr-
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Cibber, CoUey. Love makes a Man, or The Fop's Fortune.
Cohn, H. A. The Jewes Tragedy by Wm. Hemings, 1662. (Bang's Materialien, 40; 1913.)
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Creizenach, Wi. Geschichte des neueren Dramas. Bnd. D7. Das englische Drama
im Zeitalter Shakespeare's. Halle a. S. 1916. Davies, William (of Hereford), A True Relation of the Travailes and most miser-
able Captivitie, 1614. Diepenhorst, P. A. Calvijn en de Economie. Wageningen 1904. Disraeli, I. The Genius of Judaism, 1S33.
Dodley's Old Plays. Edition Hazlitt 1874—64. (Three Ladies of London). Eckhardt, Eduard. Dialekt und Auslandertypen des alteren englischen Dramas,
Louvain 1909; 1911. (Bang's Materialien, Bnd. 27; 32). Erasmus, Des. Moriae Enconium, Gerardi Listrii commentariis ülustratum,
1527 (Prov. Library of Friesland). Ferguson, R. The Teutonic Kame-System. 1864. Förstemann. E. Deutsches Namenbuch, (3 vols.) Bonn 1900*. Friedlander, O. Shakespeare and the Jew, 1921.
Furness, H. H. The Merchant of Venice. Philadelphia 1916". (A New Variorum Edition).
Oairdner, James. Life of Richard III. Perkin Warbeck. 1878. Cellius, Aulus. Noctes Atticae, (Teubner, Leipzig.)
Gentleman, F. The Tobacconist, a comedy altered from The Alchemist, 1771. Gesta Romanorum. Ed. H. Oesterley, Berlin 1870.
MS. anno 1342, ed. W. Dick (Erlanger Beitrage VH, 1890). English MSS. Harl. 7333. MS. Addit. 9066; London 1879. „ Anglo-Latin MS. Harl. Brit. Mus. 2270 ; 9676 [unpublished]. „ Le Violier des Histoires Romaines 1520, éd. M. G. Brunet 1858. See also Note, page 276.
Giovanni Fiorentino (Ser). H. Pecorone; Milano 1804. (Univ. Lib. Utrecht. „ German translation (J. Gagliardi), with Introduction (H. Floerke) published by Georg Muller. München 1921. Gollancz, I. The Shakespeare Book of Homage, 1916.
Gorionides (Joseph ben Gorion, or Josippon). transl. M. L. van Ameringen, Amsterdam 1868; in Hebrew, Venezia 1530 (Provincial Library of Friesland).
Graetz, H. Shylock in der Sage, der Geschichte und im Drama. Krotoschin 1889. Grimm, Jacob. Deutsche Rechts-Alterthümer, Göttingen, 1828. Griston, Harris Jay, Shaking the Dust from Shakespeare. New York 1924*. Halliwell, J. O. (Philips). Books of Characters, 1857. (only 25 copies printed)
Brit. Mus. 741, k. 24. Henriques, S. H. Q. Jews and the English Law, 1910. Hertz, G. B. British Imperialism in the 18th Cent. 1908 (Brit. Mus. 9525. ee. 12). Huvelin, Paul. Le Procés de Shylock. (Bulletin de la Société des Amis de 1'Uni-
versité de Lyon 1902).
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335




STELLINGEN I
Magister: Hwaet gif hit unclsene beop f ixas ? Piscator: Ic ut-wyrpe t>a unclaenan ut and genime me clsene to mete.
In deze passage uit Aelfric's Colloquium zijn clöene en unclcène op te vatten als rein en onrein in den zin der Levitische spijswetten.
II
Patience and sorrow strove, Who should express her goodliest[.] You have seene, Sun shine and raine at once, her smiles and teares, Were like a better way those happy smilets, That playd on her ripe lip seeme[d] not to know What guests were in her eyes.
[King Lear IV. 3. 19 ff] O. Jespersen, in A Book of Homage 1916, p. 481 ff, en nogmaals in Philosophy of Grammar 1924, p. 28—29, veronderstelt ten onrechte een anakoluthon in deze plaats.
III
In Al. Schmidt's Shakespeare Lexicon en in C. Onion's Shakespeare Glossary, wordt condition (such sum or sums as are expressed in the condition, Merchant of


Venice I. III. 148) onjuist toegelicht, terwijl de verklaring bij interest (Merchant of Venice I. III. 51) het daarin verscholen probleem niet aanroert.
IV
In Robert Daborne's "A Christian turn'd Turke" (nieuwe druk bewerkt door Swaen, Anglia X, 1898) luiden 11. 541 en 542 als volgt:
Jew. I am your Merchant Ruben Rabshake, my wife,
her sister
Fetch me three hundred Dukets for this Gentleman en zijn te verstaan:
Jew (concluding the transaction): 'I am your Merchant' (calling his servants:) 'Reuben! Rabshake!' (introducing his women-folk:) 'My wife; her sister.'
V
ld. 11. 1664—5, luiden: To thinke what might have been cares, not the terrors Of present suffering.
lees:
To thinke what might have been, cures not the terrors Of present suffering.
VI
Het is wenscheüjk terug te keeren tot de oorspronkelijke en juiste(re) uitspraak Shylocke [lïlok]
VII
De uitspraak van Prof. F. Boas (Shakspere and his Predecessors, p. 216): "It is necessary to emphasize the fact that the whole episode of Jessica and her
n


III
Christian lover, of which there is no hint in II Pecorone, is obviously modelled upon that of Abigail and Don Matthias in the Jew of Malta", berust op een onjuiste chronologie.
VIII
"The Horrible Act of Soltan Soliman, Emperour of the Turkes, in murthering his eldest sonne Mustapha in the year of our Lorde 1553, "by Hughe Goughe", is vertaald naar Nicolaus Moffan Burgundus. Het vermoeden van Morris W. Croll, dat Goughe's verhaal de bron zou zijn van Fulke Greville's tragedie Mustapha is onjuist. (Zie Univ. of Pennsylvania Publications 1903).
LX
Het beeld in Enoch Arden (123 ff.): So now that shadow of mischance appear'd No graver than as when some little cloud Cuts off the fiery highway of the sun And isles a light in the offing....
is niet construeerbaar.
X
Het bijv. naamw. gul, "mild", hangt samen met het werkwoord geven.
XI
Het zelfst. naamw. pet (hoofddeksel) is een willekeurige formatie uit petasus of uit 7téTa<ro<;.
XII
Kade (ka, kaai, wal) is door "klankoverdrijving" ontstaan uit kaai < quai (zie Dr. G. G. Kloeke in het Tijdschrift voor Nederl. Taal en Letterkunde, XLIII).


IV
XIII
De omstreeks 1500 sporadisch voorkomende infinitief constructies, als in de volgende voorbeelden:
Comment le filz de 1'empereur, estre commis a tous les sept sages, fuit instruit (L'ystoire des Sept Sages de Rome; Soc. des Anc. T. fr., Gaston Paris, p. 60); en in "Avoir heu le consentement de 1'empereur ils serchèrent de son estat (ibidem p' 62) kunnen niet afdoende verklaard worden, (met Huguet, Syntaxe de Rabelais, Paris 1894) door ellips van de prepositie après.
XIV
De uiteenzetting welke Dr. H. G. de Maar (Handboek der Engelsche Handelstaal C 171) geeft van het "voorwerp met onbepaalde wijs", is niet in overeenstemming met zijn in de inleiding tot deel A aangekondigd, streven: "de tegenwoordige taalbeschouwing der wetenschappelijke taalonderzoekers dienstbaar te maken aan het onderwijs."
XV
Het zou voor studenten in de moderne talen van nut zijn een cursus in de palaeographie te volgen.
XVI
Bij het Middelbaar Onderwijs in Nederlandsch OostIndië, blij ve alleen het Engelsch verplicht, terwijl Fransch en Duitsch facultatief gesteld dienen te worden.