a few selections
Christopher Marlowe was Shakespeare’s most influential precursor on the Elizabethan stage. He specialized in episodic, linear plays, full of declamation and built on the exploits of powerful and ruthless men. His Jew of Malta was not the chief source of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, but it may have suggested the Jessica episodes and some incidental language of the play, and Marlowe's title character Barabas may serve as a counterfoil for Shakespeare’s Shylock. In Barabas, Marlowe seems much less interested in exploring the psychology of a social scapegoat than in building an arch-villain and master of "policy," a word which referred to duplicitous behavior in the service of political ambition. Barabas’ career of crime includes playing off Turks against Maltese to gain power in Malta, stirring up fatal violence between two Christians who seek to marry his daughter Abigail, and poisoning a whole Christian nunnery which Abigail has joined upon her conversion. He is a cardboard figure of unparalleled evil. (In the first excerpt below he meditates on his riches. In the second he explains why he's happy not to be a Christian.) At some point in the play it occurs to most readers that Marlowe is mocking as well as rehearsing the anti-Semitic stereotypes at his disposal and using Muslim and Christian as well as Jewish characters to cast all religious beliefs into ironical perspective. It’s hard to read the third excerpt below, in which the villainous Jew compares notes with an almost equally villainous Turkish slave he has purchased, without suspecting that Marlowe is laughing obliquely at everyone.
Enter Barabas in his counting-house, with heaps of gold before him.
Barabas. So that of thus much that return was made;
And of the third part of the Persian ships
There was the venture summed and satisfied.
As for those Samnites and the men of Uz
That bought my Spanish oils and wines of Greece,
Here have I pursed their paltry silverlings.
Fie, what a trouble 'tis to count this trash!
Well fare the Arabians, who so richly pay
The things they traffic for with wedge of gold,
Whereof a man may easily in a day
Tell that which may maintain him all his life.
The needy groom that never fingered groat
Would make a miracle of thus much coin,
But he whose steel-barred coffers are crammed full,
And all his life-time hath been tired
Wearying his fingers' ends with telling it,
Would in his age be loath to labor so,
And for a pound to sweat himself to death.
Give me the merchants of the Indian mines
That trade in metal of the purest mold,
The wealthy Moor that in the eastern rocks
Without control can pick his riches up
And in his house heap pearl like pebble-stones,
Receive them free and sell them by the weight.
Bags of fiery opals, sapphires, amethysts,
Jacinths, hard topaz, grass-green emeralds,
Beauteous rubies, sparkling diamonds,
And seld-seen costly stones of so great price
As one of them, indifferently rated
And of a carat of this quantity,
May serve in peril of calamity
To ransom great kings from captivity
This is the ware wherein consists my wealth.
And thus methinks should men of judgment frame
Their means of traffic from the vulgar trade,
And as their wealth increaseth, so enclose
Infinite riches in a little room.
But now how stands the wind?
Into what corner peers my halcyon's bill?
Ha! To the east? Yes; see how stands the vanes!
East and by south; why then I hope my ships
I sent for Egypt and the bordering isles
Are gotten up by Nilus' winding banks.
Mine argosy from Alexandria,
Loaden with spice and silks, now under sail,
Are smoothly gliding down by Candy shore
To Malta, through our Mediterranean sea.
But who comes here?
Enter a Merchant
How now?
Merchant. Barabas, thy ships are safe,
Riding in Malta road . . . .
Barabas. Thus trowls our fortune in by land and sea,
And thus are we on every side enriched.
These are the blessings promised to the Jews,
And herein was old Abram's happiness.
What more may heaven do for earthly man
Than thus to pour out plenty in their laps,
Ripping the bowels of the earth for them,
Making the sea their servants, and the winds
To drive their substance with successful blasts?
Who hateth me but for my happiness?
Or who is honored now but for his wealth?
Rather had I, a Jew, be hated thus,
Than pitied in a Christian poverty;
For I can see no fruits in all their faith,
But malice, falsehood, and excessive pride,
Which methinks fits not their profession.
Haply some hapless man hath conscience,
And for his conscience lives in beggary.
They say we are a scattered nation.
I cannot tell, but we have scambled up
More wealth by far than those that brag of faith.
There's Kirriah Jairim, the great Jew of Greece,
Obed in,Bairseth, Nones in Portugal,
Myself in Malta, some in Italy,
Many in France, and wealthy every one,
Ay, wealthier far than any Christian.
I must confess we come not to be kings.
That's not our fault. Alas, our number's few,
And crowns come either by succession
Or urged by force, and nothing violent,
Oft have I heard tell, can be permanent.
Give us a peaceful rule; make Christians kiigs,
That thirst so much for principality.
I have no charge, nor many children,
But one sole daughter, whom I hold as dear
As Agamemnon did his Iphigen;
And all I have is hers. But who comes here? Enter three Jews.
Ithamore. Faith, sir, my birth is but mean. My name's Ithamore, my profession what you please.
Barabas. Hast thou no trade? Then listen to my words,
And I will teach that shall stick by thee.
First, be thou void of these affections:
Compassion, love, vain hope, and heartless fear.
Be moved at nothing. See thou pity none,
But to thyself smile when the Christians moan.
Ithamore. 0, brave masterl I worship your nose for this.
Barabas. As for myself, I walk abroad 'a nights
And kill sick people groaning under walls.
Sometimes I go about and poison wells,
And now and then, to cherish Christian thieves,
I am content to lose some of my crowns
That I may, walking in my gallery,
See 'em go pinioned along by my door.
Being young, I studied physic and began
To practice first upon the Italian.
There I enriched the priests with burials
And always kept the sexton's arms in ure
With digging graves and ringing dead men's knells.
And after that I was an engineer,
And in the wars 'twixt France and Germany,
Under pretense of helping Charles the Fifth,
Slew friend and enemy with my stratagems.
Then after that I was an usurer,
And with extorting, cozening, forfeiting,
And tricks belonging unto brokery,
I filled the jails with bankrouts in a year,
And with young orphans planted hospitals,
And every moon made, some or other mad,
And now and then one hang himself for grief,
Pinning upon his breast a long great scroll,
How I with interest tormented him.
But mark how I am blessed for plaguing them:
I have as much coin as will buy the town.
But tell me now, how hast thou spent thy time?
Ithamore. Faith, master,
In setting Christian villages on fire,
Chaining of eunuchs, binding galley slaves.
One time I was an hostler in an inn,
And in the night time secretly would I steal
To travelers' chambers and there cut their throats.
Once at Jerusalem where the pilgrims kneeled,
I strew'd powder on the marble stones,
And therewithal their knees would rankle so
That I have laughed a-good to see the cripples
Go limping home to Christendom on stilts.
Barabas. Why this is something. Make account of me
As of thy fellow; we are villains both.
Both circumcised, we hate Christians both.
Be true and secret; thou shalt want no gold.
But stand aside. Here comes Don Lodowick. Enter Lodowick.
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