Shylock's rebuke from The Merchant Of Venice by Shakespeare<br /><br />Recited by Frank Burbeck <br /><br />Victor 17163<br /><br />1912<br /><br />Spoken by Shylock<br /><br />Act 1, Scene 3<br /><br />Signior Antonio, many a time and oft<br />In the Rialto you have rated me<br />About my moneys and my usances:<br />Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,<br />For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.<br />You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,<br />And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,<br />And all for use of that which is mine own.<br />Well then, it now appears you need my help:<br />Go to, then; you come to me, and you say<br />‘Shylock, we would have moneys:’ you say so;<br />You, that did void your rheum upon my beard<br />And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur<br />Over your threshold: moneys is your suit<br />What should I say to you? Should I not say<br />‘Hath a dog money? is it possible<br />A cur can lend three thousand ducats?’ Or<br />Shall I bend low and in a bondman’s key,<br />With bated breath and whispering humbleness, Say this;<br />‘Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last;<br />You spurn’d me such a day; another time<br />You call’d me dog; and for these courtesies<br />I’ll lend you thus much moneys’?<br /><br />Bassanio has no money but he needs money so he can woo Portia, so Bassanio turns to his friend Antonio for a loan.<br /><br />Antonio has invested his own money in ships and cannot furnish his friend with money, so he hopes to help Bassanio by going to Shylock for a loan.<br /><br />Shylock is Jewish. The others are Christian.<br /><br />Shylock is bitter that he is asked for money after being badly treated by Antonio in the past.<br /><br />That bitter feeling is the basis for this famous monologue.
