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 answers this in words which it would be almost impossible to
take for Shakespeare's because of their brutal rudeness, were it not, as
we shall see later, that Shakespeare loathed the Jew usurer more than
any character in all his plays. Here are the words:
"
Ant. I am as like to call thee so again,
To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too.
If thou will lend this money, lend it not
As to thy friends; for when did friendship take
A breed for barren metal of his friend?
But lend it rather to thine enemy
Who, if he break, thou mayst with better face
Exact the penalty."
Then Shylock makes peace, and proposes his modest penalty. Bassanio
says:
"You shall not seal to such a bond for me:
I'll rather dwell in my necessity."
Antonio is perfectly careless and content: he says:
"Content, i' faith: I'll seal to such a bond,
And say there is much kindness in the Jew.
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