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"How can you ever hope for mercy for yourself, when you don’t give any now?" - Act 4 Scene 1

"The quality of mercy is not strained." - Act 4 Scene 1

"I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction. "- Act 3 Scene 1

What if my house be troubled with a rat, And I be pleased to give ten thousand ducats To have it baned? What, are you answered yet? Some men there are love not a gaping pig, Some that are mad if they behold a cat, And others when the bagpipe sings i’th’ nose Cannot contain their urine; for affection, Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood Of what it likes or loathes. . . .So can I give no reason, nor I will not, More than a lodged hate and a certain loathing I bear Antonio, that I follow thus A losing suit against him. Are you answered? - Act 4 Scene 1

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In The Merchant of Venice, the characters that represent mercy are shown in the courthouse scene where Antonio is being tried for breaking his contract. In this scene Shylock is asked to show Antonio mercy and let him off unscathed. Shylock refuses to allow Antonio to live and denies 9000 ducats (which was triple the amount Antonio owed him.)

The Duke is also a key representation of mercy in this scene as he pleads for Antonio's life and spare's Shylock's when he is found to be conspiring against a Venetian citizen's life.

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How is mercy explored on. the Merchant of Venice?

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How is mercy explored on. the Merchant of Venice?

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Mercy comes up constantly in Act 4 Scene 1, the duke says that Shylock is lacking "From any dram of mercy." The duke foreshadows Shylock's downfall saying "How can you ever hope for mercy for yourself, when you don’t give any now?" and later on in the play Shylock obviously loses everything. Portia also references mercy stating to Shylock "The quality of mercy is not strained." With this Portia says that you don't show mercy because you have to but out of the morality in your heart. After the loophole is discovered, some believe that Antonio shows mercy but in my opinion the evidence shows that he is in fact cruel. Antonio says that "To let the wretched man outlive his wealth," which is saying that usually the man outlives is wealth and ends his life in poverty and how horrible that would be. the then strips Shylock of all his wealth and forces him to live in poverty, and therefore forcing the rest of Shylocks life to be horrible.