Merchant of Venice - Shylock's Defense - Act III, Scene 1
William Shakespeare
Shylock. To bait fish withal: if it 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 villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will
better the instruction.
