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Authored by: PJ on Sunday, January 20 2013 @ 02:40 PM EST |
OK. But the way you wrote it, you seemed to
be saying that the merchant was the aggressor
asking for a pound of flesh. Not so. He just
wants to borrow some money from Shylock, who
asks for the pound of flesh if he is not
repaid instead of interest, and subsequently
insists on it.
I would call Shylock, therefore, the aggressor.
I also would wonder about thinking of him as
the merchant. I don't know what time period
the play is supposed to be about, but with
variations here and there depending on who was
the king or prince or his wife or the pope,
Jews were greatly restricted as to what kinds
of work or professions they could do or enter,
when they were allowed to live in a country
at all.
Moneylending was allowed, banking. They could
be doctors, although restricted as to who they
could treat, etc.
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