Act One: The Bond

"In sooth, I know not why I am so sad," said Antonio, a rich merchant of Venice, to his friends. "It wearies me; you say it wearies you." His friends thought he must be worried about his ships, which were at sea with all his fortune; he said he was not. "I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; a stage where every man must play a part, and mine a sad one."

His dearest friend, Bassanio, a young gentleman who had spent all his money, came to ask for help. There was a lady at Belmont, richly left — fair, and of wondrous virtues — named Portia; and suitors came from all the four winds to win her. Bassanio believed that she had looked on him with favour; if he had the means to hold a rival place among her suitors, he was sure he would win her, and could repay all his debts. Antonio had no ready money; all his fortunes were at sea. But he would use his credit: "Go forth; try what my credit can in Venice do."

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At Belmont, Portia was weary of this great world. Her father, who had died, had left a strange will: she could neither choose whom she would nor refuse whom she disliked. Each suitor must choose among three caskets, of gold, of silver and of lead; one of them held her portrait; the man who chose it would be her husband, and those who chose wrong must swear never to marry. "So is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will of a dead father." She and her waiting-woman, Nerissa, ran through the list of suitors — a Neapolitan prince who talked of nothing but his horse, a County Palatine who frowned all day, a French lord, an English baron who spoke no language but his own, a German who drank — and mocked each one. All of them, happily, had gone home without risking the choice. Nerissa reminded her of a young Venetian, a scholar and a soldier, who had once come there with the Marquis of Montferrat: Bassanio. "Yes, yes, it was Bassanio," said Portia — "as I think, so was he called."

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In Venice, Bassanio went to Shylock, a Jewish moneylender, to borrow three thousand ducats for three months, on Antonio's bond. Shylock considered. Antonio was a good man — that is, his credit was sufficient; but his ships were scattered abroad, and ships are but boards, sailors but men; there be land-rats and water-rats, land-thieves and water-thieves.

Antonio came in. Shylock, aside, told the audience why he hated him: Antonio lent out money without interest, and so brought down the rate of usance in Venice; and he hated Shylock's sacred nation, and railed at him in public, on the Rialto, where merchants most did congregate.

And to Antonio, aloud, Shylock spoke of the abuse he had suffered:

"Signior Antonio, many a time and oft in the Rialto you have rated me about my moneys and my usances: still have I borne it with a patient shrug, for sufferance is the badge of all our tribe." Antonio had called him misbeliever, cut-throat dog, and spat upon his gown, and spurned him with his foot as a stray dog is driven from a threshold; and now he came asking for money. "What should I say to you? Should I not say 'Hath a dog money? is it possible a cur can lend three thousand ducats?'" Antonio was unrepentant: "I am as like to call thee so again, to spit on thee again, to spurn thee too." Let him lend it rather to his enemy.

Shylock suddenly changed his tone. He would be friends; he would lend the money, and take no interest at all. Only, "in a merry sport," let the bond say that if Antonio could not repay on the day, the forfeit should be "an equal pound of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken in what part of your body pleaseth me." Bassanio was alarmed; Antonio laughed: his ships would be home a month before the day. "Content, i' faith: I'll seal to such a bond, and say there is much kindness in the Jew."

The Christians' word for Shylock throughout the play is "the Jew," often used as an insult; it is kept here only where it is part of a quotation like this one.