The quality of mercy
Commenter “Lee Also” writes this:
I have always felt that, as doctors take the Hippocratic Oath when they receive their degree, Portia’s Speech should be administered to freshly minted JD’s as an oath:
“The quality of mercy is not strained;
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…”
The rest of the speech can be found here. One of its themes is to pit mercy against the cry for justice, two strains in the law that continue to this day.
However, I don’t think it’s the answer. After all, the left is very big on mercy – for the left. What has happened in many cities across the land is the application of a very dichotomous standard of mercy: looters and rioters on the left, in particular if they are minorities, are given enormous benefit of mercy. For those on the right, in particular those involved in the Capitol incursion of January 6th, even if their only offense was trespassing? Why, throw the book at them because they deserve no mercy.
Mercy can be a tool just like anything else, and if it is applied differently to different groups, or if it’s applied to the exclusion of justice, that’s a huge problem.
But let’s take a look at Portia and “The Merchant of Venice,” shall we?
I don’t think I’ve ever read the entire play, but I’ve certainly read significant portions of it. What’s more, my introduction to it was through the route of an essay by newspaper columnist Harry Golden that I read as a youngster, in which he asserted that Shakespeare had a kind of double message in his play. I don’t have access to the entire Golden essay anymore, but I remember it well enough to recall this sort of thing from the essay:
Shakespeare gave his audience a play in which they could confirm their prejudices – but he did much more. Shakespeare was the first writer in seven hundred years who gave the Jew a “motive.” Why did he need to give the Jew a motive? Certainly his audience did not expect it. For centuries they had been brought up on the stereotype, “this is evil because it’s evil,” and here Shakespeare comes along and goes to so much “unnecessary” trouble giving Shylock a motive. At last – a motive!
Fair sir, you spit on me Wednesday last;
You spurned me such a day; another time
You called me dog.
Much more at the link, including this additional excerpt from Golden’s essay:
[Shakespeare] is actually writing a satire on the Gentile middle class and the pseudo-Christians, and he wastes no time. What does Antonio, this paragon of Christian virtue, say to this charge of Shylock’s? Does he turn the other cheek? Does he follow the teaching of Jesus to “love thine enemies?” Not by a long shot. This “noble” man replies to Shylock’s charge:
I am as like to call thee so again,
To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too.…And when it all goes against Shylock [at the end], Shakespeare seems to go out of his way to give us a frightening picture of the “victors.” He has them standing together pouring out a stream of vengeance. We’re not through with you yet Jew, and the money we have left you after you have paid all these fines, you must leave that to Jessica and your son-in-law who robbed you. Shakespeare keeps them hissing their hate. Tarry yet a while, Jew, we’re still not through with you. You must also become a Christian. The final irony. The gift of love offered in an atmosphere which is blue with hatred. And as all of this is going on, Shakespeare leaves only Shylock with a shred of dignity!
I pray you, give me leave to go from hence.
You may agree or disagree with that interpretation of the play, but there’s a lot to be said for it. I recall that Golden also pointed out that Shylock is given this speech:
SALARINO
Why, I am sure, if he forfeit, thou wilt not take
his flesh: what’s that good for?SHYLOCK
To bait fish withal: if it will feed nothing else,
it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and
hindered me half a million; laughed at my losses,
mocked at my gains, scorned 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, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled 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 villany you
teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I
will better the instruction.
[NOTE: Robert Frost saw the mercy vs. justice problem long ago and had this to say. It’s well worth reading.]
Three weeks ago, The Nation published a piece by Kali Holloway entitled “I’m for (Prison) Abolition, and yet I want the Capitol Rioters in Prison.” Her argument is that, while prison may be unfair (mostly for those who belong to favored groups), she nevertheless wishes for “every lawless white supremacist Capitol insurrectionist to be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” Such, one fears, is the quality of mercy to be expected once the shamefully uninformed and grotesquely unqualified hyper-partisan M Garland (supported by Cocaine Mitch) is confirmed.
For anyone interested, the 2004 film version of “The Merchant of Venice” with Al Pacino and Jeremy Irons is quite approachable and satisfying.
We had to read “Merchant” at my Catholic high school and memorize Portia’s speech.
Are kids assigned Shakespeare in high school anymore?
Three weeks ago, The Nation published a piece by Kali Holloway entitled “I’m for (Prison) Abolition, and yet I want the Capitol Rioters in Prison.” Her argument is that,
She said the quiet part out loud. At least since Victor Navasky’s purchase of the publication in 1977, The Nation has been an publication of no value and a promoter of the aggression of its constituency. Now the whole portside is like that, except for a few oddballs like Alan Dershowitz. This will not end well.
I read Merchant in college. I was assigned to argue that the play wasn’t anti-semitic, and one of my classmates was assigned to argue that it was. I spoke with my classmate afterwards, and we both had come to the conclusion that the viewpoint opposite the one we were arguing was the easier argument.
Given the fact that the knee-jerk assumption of the day can be doubted like that, I’m inclined to believe that The Bard intentionally added the anti-anti-semitic elements.
Villain has a point.
Now if they’d all just paid more attention to the Categorical Imperative, all would have been well.
(I don’t mean that, of course. 🙂
No system, constitutional or bureaucratic can balance the claims of justice and mercy for long. Perverse incentives will always drag the needle one way or the other. Try as we may, there is no running away from character, conscience and the human heart; so a prosecutorial system which rewards sociopathy is unlikely to attract or keep the fair but just sorts engaged for long.
“Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution; justice without mercy is cruelty.” Thomas Aquinas
Mercy to the underserving and/or unrepentent is injustice.
Justice absent mercy to the deserving and/or repentent is injustice.
Mercy to the cruel is cruelty to the innocent. Some classical guy.
I don’t see mercy in this summer’s shenanigans. I see tactics.
Somewhere between age 8 and 12 my mother used the Merchant of Venice [specifically, as I recall: “If you prick us, do we not bleed?”] to provide the analogy that racial prejudice was just as odious and unreasonable as the anti-Semitism in this play.
While I was reared without any formal religious instruction, by social osmosis I picked up the concept that Jews were blamed for the deicide of Jesus, but even as a child I could understand that it was unreasonable to blame a whole group for the supposed actions of a (potentially bribed) group of 20 or 30 Jews calling out “give us Barabbas!” Thus I have never understood the adult devotion to anti-Semitism in some circles. Even the Muslims probably have a sounder argument if the Islamic version of their history has any validity at all.
R2L:
It is handy to have a scapegoat. See Rene Girard who I carp on about from time to time. I say that flippantly, but it’s not flippant at all.
If it’s not going to be the Jews, it has to be someone else. There’s no “None of the Above” option box in evolved social behaviour.
Straight White Males are prime candidate right now with the broader mass of all Deplorables coming soon to the Auto da Fe near you.
We as groups and individuals may or may not be interested in Mimesis. Regardless, Mimesis is Interested in Us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvbvqiYuRBI
Nope… I don’t like it either.
“Even the Muslims probably have a sounder argument if the Islamic version of their history has any validity at all.”
???
(Unless one believes that Luther’s Anti-Semitism was perfectly justifiable….)
R2L, Zaphod,
When looking for a scapegoat I always, eventually stumble onto the truth that a mirror is the most accurate place to look to meet the person holding me back from achieving what I am so certain I deserve.