berlain's servants (successive titles of
Shakespeare's company), as well as by those of the Earls of Pembroke and
Sussex. It was entered on the 'Stationers' Register' to John Danter on
February 6, 1594. {66b} Langbaine claims to have seen an edition of this
date, but none earlier than that of 1600 is now known.

'Merchant of Venice.'

For part of the plot of 'The Merchant of Venice,' in which two romantic
love stories are skilfully blended with a theme of tragic import,
Shakespeare had recourse to 'Il Pecorone,' a fourteenth-century
collection of Italian novels by Ser Giovanni Fiorentino. {66c} There a
Jewish creditor demands a pound of flesh of a defaulting Christian
debtor, and the latter is rescued through the advocacy of 'the lady of
Belmont,' who is wife of the debtor's friend. The management of the plot
in the Italian novel is closely followed by Shakespeare. A similar story
is slenderly outlined in the popular medieval collection of anecdotes
called 'Gesta Romanorum,' while the tale of the caskets, which
Shakespeare combined with it in the 'Merchant,' is told independently in
another portion of the same work. But Shakespeare's 'Merchant' owes much
to other sources, including more than one old play. Stephen Gosson
describes in his 'Schoole of Abuse' (1579) a lost play called 'the Jew . . .
showne at the Bull [inn]. . . representing the greedinesse of worldly
chusers and bloody mindes of usurers.' This description suggests that
the two stories of the pound of flesh and the caskets had been combined
before for purposes of dramatic representation. The scenes in
Shakespeare's play in which Antonio negotiates with Shylock are roughly
anticipated, too, by dialogues between a Jewish creditor Gerontus and a
Christian debtor in the extant play of 'The Three Ladies of London,' by
R[obert] W[ilson], 1584. There the Jew opens the attack on his Christian
debtor with the lines:

Signor Mercatore, why do you not pay me? Think you I will be mocked
in this sort?
This 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 thee.

Subsequently, when the judge is passing judgment in favour of the debtor,
the Jew interrupts:

Stay, there, most puissant judge. Signor Mercatore consider what you
do.
Pay me the principal, as for the interest I forgive it you.