In the “Merchant of Venice” the Bardo raises the eternal question of the relationship between economics and ethics. The Notepad of Michael the Great
“The Merchant of Venice” (1596-1598) is one of William Shakespeare’s most discussed and controversial plays. As the eminent American academic Richard Sennet noted, his plot revolves around a singular circumstance (“Lo stranero”, Feltrinelli, 2016). Shylock, a wealthy Jewish usurer, hates – in return – Christians. However, he grants Bassanio a loan of three thousand ducats with the surety (one would say today) of his friend Antonio. But, if he is not returned within three months, whoever has guaranteed him will have to compensate the damage with a pound of flesh from his own body. Good luck turns its back on Antonio, the ships carrying all his wealth are lost in a shipwreck. Shylock then demands that the clause be honored.
The economic system of the time (we are in the sixteenth century) made extensive use of word contracts; although they were sometimes registered, the word given to confirm their commitment was decisive. As described by the American historian Frederic C. Lane, money transfers took place as follows: “Whoever made a payment appeared in person in front of the banker, who was sitting behind a counter under the portico of a Rialto church, with his open log in front. The payer orally instructed the banker to make a transfer to the account of the person to whom the payment was intended “(” Storia di Venezia “, Einaudi, 2015).
In Rialto, therefore, the beating heart of the maritime republic’s trade, a thousand deals were done every day without government guarantees, because a good reputation was a necessary and sufficient condition. On the other hand, outside the theater, the subjects of Elizabeth I treated the Jews as animals, human creatures halved, who could not be trusted. To some extent Shakespeare accentuates these prejudices, turning Shylock into something of a cannibal.
Everything would suggest that the Doge declares the contract immoral and, consequently, null and void. But as soon as one of the minor characters foretells this conclusion, Antonio immediately objects: “The Doge cannot stop the course of the law”. He then explains that this is one of the reasons behind the prosperity of Venice: “If foreigners were denied / The benefits enjoyed here in Venice / The state would be seriously discredited, / Since the city’s trade and profits / from all races “(” The merchant of Venice “, edited by Agostino Lombardo, Feltrinelli, 2013).
The Bardo thus raises the eternal question of the relationship between economics and ethics. Antonio goes even further: because of the “benefits” the agreements must be respected, beyond the morality of those who sign them. Even cannibalism must be tolerated, if both parties agree. Conceived in this way, the contract appears as a force capable of autonomously generating its own rights, claims and privileges: no superior law, no external authority can interfere with its procedures.
Faced with the Doge who tries to make him withdraw from his purpose, Shylock reacts by taunting him with insolence because he knows he is not wrong. This is what Porzia, the heiress whom Bassanio wants to marry, means when she says that “in Venice there is no power that can modify a law in force”. And the law and the deal that Antonio and Shylock made through verbal negotiation. Shakespeare – emphasizes Sennett – thus establishes a connection that began to take shape in the Renaissance: that between freedom of speech and the inviolability of the contract. Economic freedom comes from freedom of speech.
The stereotypical image of the greedy Jew has exposed the Shakespearean drama to the accusation of anti-Semitism. In reality, Shylock is a tragic and complex figure. His most famous monologue is an attempt to restore dignity to the body of Jews: “A Jew has no eyes
A Jew has no hands, organs, limbs
[…] If you poison us, we don’t die
And if you do us a wrong we don’t have to take revenge
” . A discourse that calls into question the universality of the inalienable rights of the individual, that is, that all people have equal rights, including that of revenge.
After having built a great drama centered on the contrast between law and morality, in the fourth act comes the twist. Portia, disguised as a lawyer, urges Shylock: she can take a pound of flesh, but not a drop of blood because the contract does not provide for it; moreover, it can also cut a pound, but not a gram more or less. Since it is impossible to be scientifically precise up to this point, the game is over. Not entirely, though. In the sense that the usurer suffers a second defeat, this time in the sphere of family affections. Jessica, his daughter, falls in love with a Christian and abandons him, after robbing him of his treasure, along with his faith.
Told in this way it seems like an abject woman, but inside the work she is absolutely enchanting. Moreover, Shakespeare does not conceive of being a Jew as a curse, or as the stigma of an ethnicity or even of a cultural identity. For him, being Jewish means nothing more than wearing a certain type of clothes, which you can get rid of if, for example, you happen to fall in love with a man. The cunning that uses Portia against Shylock communicates the same “lightness”. This derives, in Sennett’s opinion, from the fact that Shakespeare had intuited the ethical implication of jurisprudence on the stipulation of contracts: freedom of speech and a double-edged sword. With Portia’s harangue, Shylock’s relentless anger is liquidated, and the nobility of his prayer over the body of the Jews is forgotten.
But, for Shakespeare and his contemporaries, this was basically the characteristic of Venice: a cosmopolitan city that had emancipated itself from religious domination, in which good and evil end up having no importance.
