The Merchant of Venice

by William Shakespeare

He hath disgrac’d me and hind’red me half a million; laugh’d at my losses, mock’d at my 50 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 55 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 60 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 villaiy 65 you teach me I will execute; and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.

So may the outward shows be least themselves: The world is still deceiv’d with ornament. In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt But, being season’d with a gracious voice, Obscures the show of evil? In religion, 80 What damned error but some sober brow Will bless it, and approve it with a text, Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?

Thou call’dst me dog before thou hadst a cause, But, since I am a dog, beware my fangs;

And twenty of these puny lies I’ll tell, That men shall swear I have discontinu’d school About a twelvemonth. I have within my mind 80 A thousand raw tricks of these bragging Jacks, Which I will practise.