Bassoes, Officers, Guard, Slaves, Messenger,
and Carpenters

KATHARINE, mother to MATHIAS.
ABIGAIL, daughter to BARABAS.
BELLAMIRA, a courtezan.
Abbess.
Nun.

MACHIAVEL as Prologue speaker.

Scene, Malta.

THE JEW OF MALTA.

Enter MACHIAVEL.

MACHIAVEL. Albeit the world think Machiavel is dead,
Yet was his soul but flown beyond the Alps;
And, now the Guise [11] is dead, is come from France,
To view this land, and frolic with his friends.
To some perhaps my name is odious;
But such as love me, guard me from their tongues,
And let them know that I am Machiavel,
And weigh not men, and therefore not men's words.
Admir'd I am of those that hate me most:
Though some speak openly against my books,
Yet will they read me, and thereby attain
To Peter's chair; and, when they cast me off,
Are poison'd by my climbing followers.
I count religion but a childish toy,
And hold there is no sin but ignorance.
Birds of the air will tell of murders past!
I am asham'd to hear such fooleries.
Many will talk of title to a crown:
What right had Caesar to the empery? [12]
Might first made kings, and laws were then most sure
When, like the Draco's, [13] they were writ in blood.
Hence comes it that a strong-built citadel
Commands much more than letters can import:
Which maxim had [14] Phalaris observ'd,
H'ad never bellow'd, in a brazen bull,
Of great ones' envy: o' the poor petty wights
Let me be envied and not pitied.
But whither am I bound? I come not, I,
To read a lecture here [15] in Britain,
But to present the tragedy of a Jew,
Who smiles to see how full his bags are cramm'd;
Which money was not got without my means.
I crave but this,--grace him as he deserves,
And let him not be entertain'd the worse
Because he favours me.
[Exit.]

ACT I. [16]

BARABAS discovered in his counting-house, with heaps
of gold before him.

BARABAS. So that of thus much that return was made;
And of the third part of the Persian ships
There was the venture summ'd and satisfied.
As for those Samnites, [17] and the men of Uz,
That bought my Spanish oils and wines of Greece,
Here have I purs'd their paltry silverlings. [18]
Fie, wh