Mojo, The Bard, & Me

 

 If you prick us, do we not bleed?

-Shylock

The Merchant of Venice                Act III, Scene i, Line 60

 

Well here’s a treat. We’ve happened upon a really famous, really great, line. If you prick us do we not bleed? Now, as usual it’s part of a much longer speech, and I’m tempted to give you the whole thing. It’s about 25 lines long. Hmmmm. One reason I should is that it shows (at least in my opinion), that Will is seeing both sides of this story and not writing an anti-Semitic work. Another reason is that a lot (most) of Shakespeare’s oft quoted lines are part of a bigger speech and really need the context. That may not particularly be an issue here, but anyway, here goes.

Shylock’s speech is in response to Salarino’s question- Why, I am sure, if he (Antonio) forfeit, thou wilt not take his flesh: what’s that good for?

And Shylock replies-

To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hinder’d me half a million; laught at my losses, mockt at my gains, scorn’d my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies: and what’s his reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal’d by the same means, warm’d and cool’d by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge: if a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute; and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

There, that’s the whole thing. Don’t you feel better for having read it? At the very least, the next time you hear if you prick us, do we not bleed ?  you’ll have a fuller understanding of what’s being said. In fact, you’ll probably have a better understanding than the person that’s saying it.

As far as what exactly is in those lines? Well there's just a ton to unpack there, and if I started we'd still be here days, and pages and pages, from now. So let's just say there's a lot there, and we can each read, and think about a bit. Okay? 

Here's a really old pic downloaded from Ancestry.com. Her name is Caroline Eichmann, and she is my great-grandmother on my mother's father's side. Is she related to Adolf Eichmann, infamous for his role in the holocaust? I've no idea. Caroline's people emigrated to the United States in the nineteenth century, and Eichmann is a pretty common German surname. If I'm related to the nazi it would be a very distant relation. One further tragic irony is that Caroline Eichmann died from burns she received when she inadvertently set herself on fire.  

So why bring it up? Well, it seemed relevant in some respect when talking about Shylock. I'm not even sure exactly how, but it just seems like we're all tied up together in the big picture whether we realize it or not. I think Will realized that and I think today's speech by Shylock refers to that, amongst other things. Something to think about.