Mojo, Will, & Me

 

Three thousand ducats, - well.  

-Shylock

The Merchant of Venice        Act I, Scene iii, Line 1

And so it begins. This is our first glimpse of, and the first lines spoken by, Shylock. It's also the first line of the scene, and it's spoken by the infamous Shylock.

What an absolutely mesmerizing character he is. Polarizing? Maybe. Dull? Never. When most people think of this play, they think of Shylock and the pound of flesh. Of course, there’s a lot more than that to the play, and there's a lot more than that to Shylock. But it’s here in the third scene that the pound of flesh first comes up.

The scene begins in the middle of a conversation. Obviously Bassanio has already been talking to Shylock and he’s asked for the loan, but we open the scene not with Bassanio’s request, but rather with Shylock’s consideration of the request - Three thousand ducats, - well.

You can almost see Shylock stroking his chin as he says the line slowly. Three thousand ducats, - well.

No, that's not Shylock. It's me. And I'm not thinking about loaning three thousand ducats; I'm thinking about why people stroke their chin when they're thinking about something. I'll need to think about this a little more.