Page 133 - William_Shakespeare_-_The_Merchant_of_Venice_191

Enter Tubal

—Tubal
Shylock, do you intend to go through with this heinous act? 5

—Shylock
Until the very end.

—Tubal
But you have nothing to gain and all to lose. He’s already broken. He cannot interfere with your
business. And such an act would destroy us in the eyes of Venice; they would have cause to treat
us Jews as a cruel and faithless people.

—Shylock
6
And do they not already treat us that way?

—Tubal
But why go through with this? Just take the principal—or double—and be done with it.

—Shylock
Why does Antonio spit on me? Why do Christians despise us? We are different. We are not
like them—thus, they cannot see us. They choose not to see us. But now they will see. Now
they must look upon the Jew and hear him. I will play this hand til the very end. 7

—Tubal
What end is that?

squashes the tomato instead of cleanly cutting it. In frustration, he discards the knife and tries another, with equal
lack of success. After a few failures (perhaps the knives are dull because Launcelet is no longer there to sharpen
them) he picks up the first knife again, wipes the knife with a towel, and puts it into his bag. (He will sharpen the
blade on the sole of his shoe at a later time).
One could also add a symbolic element here and have Shylock mistakenly cut himself with one of the
knives as he is distractedly testing it. This notion reflects a line from the ancient Chinese text, the Tao Te Ching,
which states: “He who kills is like he who cuts with the blade of the Great Wood-Carver. Truly, whoever cuts with
the blade of the Great Wood-Carver is likely cut himself.” (Verse 74)
4. The scene could end here (without any words spoken and without the entrance of Tubal). Ending the scene here
would accentuate Shylock’s sense of aloneness. This speechless added scene could be used in a production which
stays true to the original text—such ‘trueness’ allows for additional staging (and deletions of text) but does not
tolerate the addition of any new dialogue. The general rule allows for some archaic words to be modernized and for
a character to say the name of another characters, even if that name does not appear in the text. (For example, some
productions have Shylock call out ‘Jessica, Jessica’ upon his return from Bassanio’s dinner, even though her
name—and this direction to call out her name—does not appear in the original text.)
5. add: ‘—this act of cutting out Antonio’s heart before the Duke and magistrates?’
6. A few lines of explanatory dialogue, relating to the oath that Shylock made, could be inserted here. [See
Additional Notes, 3.5.02]
7. The scene could—and possibly should—end here. The addition of further dialogue reveals Shylock’s
motivation—which is not to kill Antonio but only to psychologically ‘torture’ him. Without this motive explicated,
the audience would assume that Shylock is motivated by blind hatred and revenge and that he fully intends to kill
Antonio when he enters the court.
[See Additional Notes, 3.5.01]