SHAKSPER 2005: "Translated and Improved"

From: Hardy M. Cook (editor@shaksper.net)
Date: 11/17/05 

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 16.1903  Thursday, 17 November 2005

[1] 	From: 	Florence Amit <florence_amit@hotmail.com>
	Date: 	Wednesday, 16 Nov 2005 20:05:04 +0200
	Subj: 	"Translated and Improved"

[2] 	From: 	Peter Bridgman <peter@pfjb.freeserve.co.uk>
	Date: 	Wednesday, 16 Nov 2005 20:17:18 -0000
	Subj: 	Re: SHK 16.1890 "Translated and Improved"

[3] 	From: 	HR Greenberg <HrgSmes@aol.com>
	Date: 	Wednesday, 16 Nov 2005 23:21:46 EST
	Subj: 	Re: SHK 16.1890 "Translated and Improved"

[4] 	From: 	Florence Amit <florence_amit@hotmail.com>
	Date: 	Thursday, 17 Nov 2005 15:26:27 +0200
	Subj: 	"TRANSLATED AND IMPROVED"


[1]-----------------------------------------------------------------
From: 		Florence Amit <florence_amit@hotmail.com>
Date: 		Wednesday, 16 Nov 2005 20:05:04 +0200
Subject: 	Subject: "Translated and Improved"

Shylock's Character

Are there yet those who feel that a "sympathetic" view of a Jew's 
perceived sins will be sufficient, while the true exposition of his 
blameless qualities, faithfully portrayed in a great work of art may be 
disregarded? A pitiful, defective Shylock like Radford's, is not new. 
Many examples have been staged since Victorian times, after medieval 
devilish varieties became unsupportable. All such travesties must be 
scorned. Radford's raja like condescension remains an insult to 
Shakespeare's high morality and comprehension as well as to Jewish 
merit. If instead, it was a case of a realistic though 'unsympathetic' 
Jewish character, like Bud Schulberg's Sammy, of "What Makes Sammy Run", 
I would make no objection. Not every Jew is a perfect human specimen. 
But I do object to the on-going false representation of a virtuous 
religious Jewish character, who challenges the unjust rulings of the 
Italian Inquisition by extraordinarily inciting the wrath of local 
Christians. Early in the play Shylock all but professes to the gentile 
Antonio that like Biblical Jacob in confrontation with Laban, he is 
compelled to resort to a scheme of justifiable deception because of a 
matter of dire consequence. I believe that Shakespeare created in 
Shylock the most correctly oriented old man of his entire canon. At a 
time of supreme physical weakness he lends himself to a gamble that may 
just succeed to provide a SHAI LOCH: in Hebrew, "a present to you", to 
his daughter and heir, so that her family will survive in an unfamiliar, 
Ottoman place of refuge. Radford's problem, besides his attitude is that 
he neither knows how to read history nor Shakespeare's play.  Sadly, it 
would seem others are similarly limited.

Backgrounds and  Foregrounds  for "The Merchant of Venice"

It is often noticed of Shakespeare that he choose regal persons as the 
heroes for many of his plays. Considering his time, clearly he was not 
alone in this. Like others he did replay the histories of kings and 
senators and dramatize the tragedies of princes. That must have put such 
high personages definitely in the forefront of his mind, causing him to 
consider some basic variations - for those who may be enhanced may 
likewise be diminished. King Lear for example, moves from palace to 
hovel in order to find true greatness of spirit. What then if the 
selected subject is a community in exile who cannot have a supreme ruler 
that will represent it? Would that cause Shakespeare's viewpoint to be 
diverted in order to harmonize with the high and mighty of the place of 
exile? In another time, would he have caused us to celebrate the king of 
the Persians and his lackey, Haman who despised the Jews rather than 
Purim's legendary Mordechai and Esther?  Surely the poet's morality 
would determine his choice of whose story he should be telling. So then, 
if it is decided that "The Merchant of Venice" is William Shakespeare's 
tale of a subject people who was being unreasonably persecuted does it 
remain feasible to maintain that he would persevere with high personages 
of the Christian world by anchoring their thoughts, reaffirming their 
concepts and coming to their conclusions? Will we continue to echo this 
would-be partiality without submitting it to a Jewish set of values and 
conditions? Indeed the very language used by Hebrew speaking exiles can 
be full of allusions that the audience never dreamt of, but which are 
never the less faithful to the poet's choice of subject. Perhaps we may 
begin to ascertain the conditions prevailing for that subject people 
depicted in the play after we settle in our mind that the primacy of a 
Doge and Pope will not be regarded, although their uncompromising 
decrees remain in force to form the play's milieu.  As for Jewish and 
other people of worth, we will have to unveil them according to the 
outcome of their endeavors. So then, for the sake of veracity, I tell 
the spectator who accepts these conclusions, to be cautious about 
ostensible words spelled out in the English text that carry out 
purposeful deceptions or inhibit authentic concepts.

Florence

[2]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: 		Peter Bridgman <peter@pfjb.freeserve.co.uk>
Date: 		Wednesday, 16 Nov 2005 20:17:18 -0000
Subject: 16.1890 "Translated and Improved"
Comment: 	Re: SHK 16.1890 "Translated and Improved"

David Basch writes ...

 >Antonio had in the past shunned such transactions since, taking as
 >absolute the Bible's prohibition against lending on interest (actually
 >only to co-religionists) ...

Where is the prohibition in the Bible?  I ask because last Sunday's 
gospel, the 'parable of the talents', seems to condone the practice ...

"His master answered him, "You wicked and lazy servant!  ... you should 
have deposited my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have 
recovered my capital with interest"." (Matt. 25: 26-27).

Peter Bridgman

[3]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: 		HR Greenberg <HrgSmes@aol.com>
Date: 		Wednesday, 16 Nov 2005 23:21:46 EST
Subject: 16.1890 "Translated and Improved"
Comment: 	Re: SHK 16.1890 "Translated and Improved"

In fact, the advertisement put up by the so far unknown Yiddish 2nd 
Avenue entrepreneur went as follows and I have this from YIVO

HAMLET
SCHAUSPIEL VON SHAKESPEARE
VERANDERT AND VERBESSERT

Hamlet
Drama by Shakespeare
Alerted changed  etc  and improved

[4]-------------------------------------------------------------
From: 		Florence Amit <florence_amit@hotmail.com>
Date: 		Thursday, 17 Nov 2005 15:26:27 +0200
Subject: 	"TRANSLATED AND IMPROVED"

Dear forum,

My previous mailing was general. Now I would like to answer David Basch. 
I have not seen the film but according to David's description it 
captures "all the color and scruffiness of real life Venice."

  Was Renaissance Venice really scruffy? We are not speaking of London. 
  I have books that show a very elegant city.

"Unkempt hair and shaggy beards abound everywhere."

  Not according to Titian, Tintoretto and others painters. This ought to 
be checked out.

  "He makes Shylock noble, bigger than life, and ultra sympathetic."

This I answered in my previous posting. I do not agree with David that 
Antonio is a coreligionist of Shylock; otherwise 1.He would have 
recognized the weekly readings from the Torah about Laban and Jacob 
instead of giving his own prejudicial interpretation. 2. His friends 
Salerio and Solanio would not have made the distinctions that they did 
differentiating between Antonio, his protégé Bassanio and Bassanio's 
"kin" after which they leave the unpopular band of converts without ever 
having  greeted them. According to my calculations, historically it is 
the period when Marranos were being expelled from Italian cities and 
even suffered in Ancona from executions at the stake. 3. How could a Jew 
impose a conversion upon another Jew? 4. Imagery used by Antonio like 
that of lamb and shepherd compliment a Christian's learning  more than a 
Jew's.

"the Bible's prohibition against lending on interest to coreligionists, 
he regards it as immoral and has reviled Shylock for his usury."

Antonio does not want to borrow from Shylock because he does not want to 
do business with a stiff necked Jew who will not convert. (Jews were 
anyhow being put out of the banking business by the Inquisition.)  And 
because until now he did not need cash so urgently.)

"Antonio ...needs money to help his penniless friend, Bassanio , who, in 
turn, urgently needs funds to woo Portia, a beautiful rich heiress. "

Bassanio was not penniless, although he did not have funds to compete 
with the state of titled suitors. But did he need to compete on that 
level? The answer is no. He only needed to answer the riddle of the 
caskets. The reason why Bassanio asks for money from Antonio is because 
he has already initiated the scheme with Shylock by which Antonio will 
be forced to go to court with Shylock, once his ships are delayed in 
ports where he has agent friends.  Antonio will become the bait to 
"catch a fish with all" : the governing body in Venice. Otherwise a 
Jew's property was at the mercy of the state bureaucracy, represented by 
Salerio and Solanio.  Jessica would then have no dowry to present to her 
Marrano espoused Lorenzo, Bassanio's "kin".

"Ostensibly to make peace with Antonio, Shylock agrees to give the loan,"

I have answered this. At this stage Antonio's orientation would not 
permit peace with a Jew.

"However, the transaction is clouded by the fact that Shylock inserts 
into the bond agreement what he calls a "merry sport," an unusual 
penalty clause of "a pound of [Antonio's] fair flesh" if he defaults."

This clause will allow Shylock to finally be judged as a felon whose 
property may be allocated at the discretion of the court rather than the 
bureaucrats who dealt with Jewish property.

  "Shylock indulged in this "merry sport"

If the playing of lots is a sport  - a game of chance and Purim - 
meaning lots is a merry holiday than it is a merry sport that the Jews 
are playing to prevent the State's plundering.  Shylock himself cannot 
digest the "revenge" bit theme and he puts up all kind of absurd reasons 
for his words.

"Complicating the plot, Shylock has a daughter, Jessica, who robs her 
father and runs away with young Lorenzo, a Christian."

Shylock's last words to Jessica are that she "close" the door "behind" 
her. The unfriendly tax farmers are being deceived by the elopement. 
They are the exploiter, Laban and not Shylock who knows perfectly well 
that Jessica is going and provides for her then as well as for her 
future with his dying breath. She is betrothed to a forced convert who 
may in Turkish territory reestablish himself as a Jew. Shylock's 
soliloquy read for Hebrew described his worry about their different 
upbringings. The other friend Graziano describes the Jewish rituals that 
will he will perform at Belmont.

"Shylock is devastated" etc.

- All for the sake of deception although Shylock misses his "diamond 
lost" most deeply.  "By my hood, a Gentile and no Jew."

Come now what hood? It is the uncircumcised part that is gentile -and 
will be altered.

"While Shylock's rage is realistic, [but pretended] what is unrealistic 
is that Shylock would go through with such a heinous act of mayhem. 
Would the sympathetic Shylock played by Al Pacino be willing to cut 
human flesh and kill Antonio? "

No. Shylock swears by the "holy Sabbath" when any transaction is 
forbidden. He also describes his own misgivings for scaring Antonio in 
his soliloquy read for Hebrew.

"Shylock's reaction to this offer of wives. He thinks it is a shameful 
display of Christian husbandry and would not want any daughter of his to 
have truck with such husbands."

Shylock is quietly reflecting rather than behaving like an obsessed 
murderer. They all await the Duke's decision

"He asks the Venetians whether they would give up their beds and food to 
their slaves? (Actually, Talmudic law requires a slaveowner to give up 
his bed to a slave if it is the only bed in the house.) The point here 
is that such sensitivity to the plight of Venetian slaves is really out 
of character for a guy about to murder a helpless victim."

He is also saying that the Venetians regard the Jewish converts as 
slaves. This is verified by Portia when she describes the relationship 
that had been between Antonio and Bassanio as that of an "egall yoked". 
The Hebrew meaning is a yoked calf.

"So it seems really inconsistent that Shylock, who, when Portia asks 
that he provide a physician to care for his victim's wounds, counters 
that this is not in the bond and Shylock continues with sharpening his 
knife."

What a foolish action an attempt of knifing would have been if it had 
been sincere and so it is a parody of the blood libel.

Shylock is a dying man. Evidence of this is by the urgency of the whole 
tactic while the tax farmers are stalking him for their final 
engorgement. It is indicated by the fact that Tubal suggests that 
Antonio be incarcerated so that the trial be enacted without delay, by 
the Aeson imagery of Jessica and Lorenzo, by the "contentment" of 
Shylock with the threat of his conversion and by the fact that he says 
he is "sick". I think that the knife bit can be added to the evidence. 
Surely it would have been a palsied, ineffectual action by a really sick 
man - but perhaps as a means of getting close to Antonio and whispering 
in his ear, that the whole show is a farce makes it not so ineffectual. 
For this reason and or others Antonio does change. He does the honorable 
thing by helping to carry the transfer of Shylock's property to his heir 
(and for this he is later invited to Belmont where he behaves in a very 
subdued manner).

A word about Graziano: He is no "ruffian" - just over enthusiastic. He 
plays his part to make the scheme look real. Shylock calms him down for 
overdoing it. Shakespeare uses this as an opportunity for indicating the 
lynching that could actually face Shylock by zealots. He also refers to 
the real trial in London of the Marrano physician, Rodrigo Lopez -WOLF, 
who had been in a conspiracy for the benefit of the Portuguese 
pretender, Dom ANTONIO, "Prior of Crato". This is described in my web 
site. Also the rehabilitation of Jessica is indicated by the list serve 
essay currently with "shaksper".

Portia is not a racist just because she repeats Morocco's own word- 
"complexion".  He meant dark while she is differentiating between 
values. As described Radford's presentation is not only ugly but 
anachronistic. So it appears to me.

There is much more to be said but I am quite exhausted.

  Florence

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