It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

[rolanni]

Today’s guest blogger, William Shakespeare, who offers for your delectation Portia’s speech on the quality of mercy, from The Merchant of Venice.

The quality of mercy is not strain’d,
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea;
Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence ‘gainst the merchant there.

–William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Originally published at Sharon Lee, Writer. You can comment here or there.

Comments

Merchant of Venice

[catherine ives (from livejournal.com)]

Go to www.landmarktheaters.com to see a discussion of The Merchant of Venice. I actually saw the play at the Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City UT. I was pretty shocked because the the crowd on stage often taunts Shylock. From that point of view the play seemed anti semitic to me. I wondered what the audience was making of it. But the guy writing the review at the web site mentioned points out that Shakespeare gave the finest lines in the play to Shylock and here, of course, to his daughter Portia. Also many great Jewish actors including Dustin Hoffman have played Shylock. The strangest thing is before the play was written Queen Elizabeth's doctor, one of the few Jews in London at the time, was put to death on trumped up charges of conpiring againt the queen. Shakespeare wrote this play before he created any of his other great characters: Hamlet, Othello, etc.