The Jew of Malta · Act I · Scene II (2/2) (1/2)
Enter Ferneze governor of Malta, Knights, and Officers; met by Calymath, and Bassoes of the Turk.13
Ferneze Now, Bassoes,14 what demand you at our hands?
First Basso Know, Knights of Malta, that we came from Rhodes, From Cyprus, Candy, and those other Isles That lie betwixt the Mediterranean seas.
Ferneze What’s Cyprus, Candy, and those other Isles To us or Malta? what at our hands demand ye?
Calymath The ten years’ tribute that remains unpaid.
Ferneze Alas! my lord, the sum is over-great! I hope your highness will consider us.
Calymath I wish, grave governor, ’twere in my power To favour you; but ’tis my father’s cause, Wherein I may not, nay, I dare not dally.
Ferneze Then give us leave, great Selim Calymath.
Consults apart with the Knights.
Calymath Stand all aside, and let the knights determine, And send to keep our galleys under sail, For happily15 we shall not tarry here; Now, governor, say, how are you resolved?
Ferneze Thus: since your hard conditions are such That you will needs have ten years’ tribute past, We may have time to make collection Amongst the inhabitants of Malta for’t.
First Basso That’s more than is in our commission.
Calymath What, Callapine! a little courtesy. Let’s know their time, perhaps it is not long; And ’tis more kingly to obtain by peace Than to enforce conditions by constraint. What respite ask you, governor?
Ferneze But a month.
Calymath We grant a month, but see you keep your promise. Now launch our galleys back again to sea, Where we’ll attend the respite you have ta’en, And for the money send our messenger. Farewell, great governor and brave Knights of Malta.
Ferneze And all good fortune wait on Calymath!
Exeunt Calymath and Bassoes.
Go one and call those Jews of Malta hither: Were they not summoned to appear to-day?
First Officer They were, my lord, and here they come.
Enter Barabas and three Jews.
First Knight Have you determined what to say to them?
Ferneze Yes, give me leave:⁠—and, Hebrews, now come near. From the Emperor of Turkey is arrived Great Selim Calymath, his highness’ son, To levy of us ten years’ tribute past, Now, then, here know that it concerneth us⁠—
Barabas Then, good my lord, to keep your quiet still, Your lordship shall do well to let them have it.
Ferneze Soft, Barabas, there’s more ’longs to ’t than so. To what this ten years’ tribute will amount, That we have cast, but cannot compass it By reason of the wars that robbed our store; And therefore are we to request your aid.
Barabas Alas, my lord, we are no soldiers: And what’s our aid against so great a prince?
First Knight Tut, Jew, we know thou art no soldier; Thou art a merchant and a moneyed man, And ’tis thy money, Barabas, we seek.
Barabas How, my lord! my money?
Ferneze Thine and the rest, For, to be short, amongst you’t must be had.
First Jew Alas, my lord, the most of us are poor.
Ferneze Then let the rich increase your portions.
Barabas Are strangers with your tribute to be taxed?
Second Knight Have strangers leave with us to get their wealth? Then let them with us contribute.
Barabas How! equally?
Ferneze No, Jew, like infidels. For through our sufferance of your hateful lives, Who stand accursed in the sight of Heaven, These taxes and afflictions are befallen, And therefore thus we are determined.⁠— Read there the articles of our decrees.
Officer Reads. “First, the tribute-money of the Turks shall all be levied amongst the Jews, and each of them to pay one half of his estate.”
Barabas How! half his estate? I hope you mean not mine. Aside.
Ferneze Read on.
Officer Reading. “Secondly, he that denies16 to pay, shall straight become a Christian.”
Barabas How! a Christian? Hum, what’s here to do? Aside.
Officer Reading. “Lastly, he that denies this, shall absolutely lose all he has.”
Three Jews O my lord, we will give half.
Barabas O earth-mettled villains, and no Hebrews born! And will you basely thus submit yourselves To leave your goods to their arbitrement?
Ferneze Why, Barabas, wilt thou be christened?
Barabas No, governor, I will be no convertite.17
Ferneze Then pay thy half.
Barabas Why, know you what you did by this device? Half of my substance is a city’s wealth. Governor, it was not got so easily; Nor will I part so slightly therewithal.
Ferneze Sir, half is the penalty of our decree; Either pay that, or we will seize on all.
Barabas Corpo di Dio! stay! you shall have half; Let me be used but as my brethren are.
Ferneze No, Jew, thou hast denied the articles, And now it cannot be recalled.
Exeunt Officers, on a sign from Ferenze.
Barabas Will you, then, steal my goods? Is theft the ground of your religion?
Ferneze No, Jew, we take particularly thine, To save the ruin of a multitude: And better one want for a common good Than many perish for a private man: Yet, Barabas, we will not banish thee, But here in Malta, where thou gott’st thy wealth, Live still; and, if thou canst, get more.
Barabas Christians, what or how can I multiply? Of naught is nothing made.
First Knight From naught at first thou cam’st to little wealth, From little unto more, from more to most: If your first curse fall heavy on thy head, And make thee poor and scorned of all the world, ’Tis not our fault, but thy inherent sin.
Barabas What, bring you Scripture to confirm your wrongs? Preach me not out of my possessions. Some Jews are wicked, as all Christians are: But say the tribe that I descended of Were all in general cast away for sin, Shall I be tried by their transgression? The man that dealeth righteously shall live: And which of you can charge me otherwise?
Ferneze Out, wretched Barabas! Sham’st thou not thus to justify thyself, As if we knew not thy profession? If thou rely upon thy righteousness, Be patient and thy riches will increase. Excess of wealth is cause of covetousness; And covetousness, O, ’tis a monstrous sin.
Barabas Ay, but theft is worse: tush! take not from me then, For that is theft! and, if you rob me thus, I must be forced to steal and compass more.
First Knight Grave governor, list not to his exclaims. Convert his mansion to a nunnery; His house will harbour many holy nuns.
Ferneze It shall be so.
Reenter Officers.
Now, officers, have you done?
First Officer Ay, my lord, we have seized upon the goods And wares of Barabas, which, being valued, Amount to more than all the wealth in Malta. And of the other we have seized half.
Ferneze Then we’ll take order for the residue.
Barabas Well, then, my lord, say, are you satisfied? You have my goods, my money, and my wealth, My ships, my store, and all that I enjoyed; And, having all, you can request no more; Unless your unrelenting flinty hearts Suppress all pity in your stony breasts, And now shall move you to bereave my life.
Ferneze No, Barabas, to stain our hands with blood Is far from us and our profession.
Barabas Why, I esteem the injury far less To take the lives of miserable men Than be the causers of their misery. You have my wealth, the labour of my life, The comfort of mine age, my children’s hope, And therefore ne’er distinguish of the wrong.
Ferneze Content thee, Barabas, thou hast naught but right.
Barabas Your extreme right does me exceeding wrong: But take it to you, i’ the devil’s name.
Ferneze Come, let us in, and gather of these goods The money for this tribute of the Turk.
First Knight ’Tis necessary that be looked unto: For, if we break our day, we break the league, And that will prove but simple policy.
Exeunt all except Barabas and the Jews.
Barabas Ay, policy! that’s their profession, And not simplicity, as they suggest. The plagues of Egypt, and the curse of Heaven, Earth’s barrenness, and all men’s hatred Inflict upon them, thou great Primus Motor! And here upon my knees, striking the earth, I ban their souls to everlasting pains And extreme tortures of the fiery deep, That thus have dealt with me in my distress!
First Jew O yet be patient, gentle Barabas.
Barabas O silly brethren, born to see this day; Why stand you thus unmoved with my laments? Why weep you not to think upon my wrongs? Why pine not I, and die in this distress?
First Jew Why, Barabas, as hardly can we brook The cruel handling of ourselves in this; Thou seest they have taken half our goods.
Barabas Why did you yield to their extortion? You were a multitude, and I but one: And of me only have they taken all.
First Jew Yet, brother Barabas, remember Job.
Barabas What tell you me of Job? I wot his wealth Was written thus: he had seven thousand sheep, Three thousand camels, and two hundred yoke Of labouring oxen, and five hundred She-asses: but for every one of those, Had they been valued at indifferent rate, I had at home, and in mine argosy, And other ships that came from Egypt last, As much as would have bought his beasts and him, And yet have kept enough to live upon: So that not he, but I, may curse the day, Thy fatal birth-day, forlorn Barabas; And henceforth wish for an eternal night, That clouds of darkness may enclose my flesh, And hide these extreme sorrows from mine eyes: For only I have toiled to inherit here The months of vanity and loss of time, And painful nights, have been appointed me.
Second Jew Good Barabas, be patient.
Barabas Ay, I pray, leave me in my patience. You, Were ne’er possess’d of wealth, are pleased with want; But give him liberty at least to mourn, That in a field amidst his enemies, Doth see his soldiers slain, himself disarmed, And knows no means of his recovery: Ay, let me sorrow for this sudden chance; ’Tis in the trouble of my spirit I speak; Great injuries are not so soon forgot.
First Jew Come, let us leave him; in his ireful mood Our words will but increase his ecstasy.18
Second Jew On, then: but trust me ’tis a misery To see a man in such affliction.⁠— Farewell, Barabas.
Exeunt the three Jews.19
Barabas Ay, fare you well. See the simplicity of these base slaves, Who, for the villains have no wit themselves, Think me to be a senseless lump of clay That will with every water wash to dirt: No, Barabas is born to better chance, And framed of finer mould than common men, That measure naught but by the present time. A reaching thought will search his deepest wits, And cast with cunning for the time to come: For evils are apt to happen every day.⁠—
Enter Abigail.
But whither wends my beauteous Abigail? O! what has made my lovely daughter sad? What, woman! moan not for a little loss: Thy father has enough in store for thee.
Abigail Not for myself, but aged Barabas: Father, for thee lamenteth Abigail: But I will learn to leave these fruitless tears, And, urged thereto with my afflictions, With fierce exclaims run to the senate-house, And in the senate reprehend them all, And rend their hearts with tearing of my hair, Till they reduce20 the wrongs done to my father.
Barabas No, Abigail, things past recovery Are hardly cured with exclamations. Be silent, daughter, sufferance breeds ease And time may yield us an occasion Which on the sudden cannot serve the turn. Besides, my girl, think me not all so fond21 As negligently to forgo so much Without provision for thyself and me, Ten thousand portagues,22 besides great pearls, Rich costly jewels, and stones infinite, Fearing the worst of this before it fell, I closely hid.
Abigail Where, father?
Barabas In my house, my girl.
Abigail Then shall they ne’er be seen of Barabas: For they have seized upon thy house and wares.
Barabas But they will give me leave once more, I trow, To go into my house.
Abigail That may they not: For there I left the governor placing nuns, Displacing me; and of thy house they mean To make a nunnery, where none but their own sect23 Must enter in; men generally barred.
Barabas My gold! my gold! and all my wealth is gone! You partial heavens, have I deserved this plague? What, will you thus oppose me, luckless stars, To make me desperate in my poverty? And knowing me impatient in distress, Think me so mad as I will hang myself, That I may vanish o’er the earth in air, And leave no memory that e’er I was? No, I will live; nor loathe I this my life: And, since you leave me in the ocean thus To sink or swim, and put me to my shifts, I’ll rouse my senses and awake myself. Daughter! I have it: thou perceiv’st the plight Wherein these Christians have oppressed me: Be ruled by me, for in extremity We ought to make bar of no policy.
Abigail Father, whate’er it be to injure them That have so manifestly wronged us, What will not Abigail attempt?
Barabas Why, so; Then thus, thou told’st me they have turn’d my house Into a nunnery, and some nuns are there?
Abigail I did.
Barabas Then, Abigail, there must my girl Entreat the abbess to be entertained.
Abigail How! as a nun?
Barabas Ay, daughter, for religion Hides many mischiefs from suspicion.
Abigail Ay, but, father, they will suspect me there.
Barabas Let ’em suspect; but be thou so precise As they may think it done of holiness. Entreat ’em fair, and give them friendly speech, And seem to them as if thy sins were great, Till thou hast gotten to be entertained.
Abigail Thus, father, shall I much dissemble.
Barabas Tush! As good dissemble that thou never mean’st, As first mean truth and then dissemble it⁠— A counterfeit profession is better Than unseen hypocrisy.
Abigail Well, father, say I be entertained, What then shall follow?
Barabas This shall follow then; There have I hid, close underneath the plank That runs along the upper-chamber floor, The gold and jewels which I kept for thee. But here they come; be cunning, Abigail.
Abigail Then, father, go with me.
Barabas No, Abigail, in this It is not necessary I be seen: For I will seem offended with thee for’t: Be close, my girl, for this must fetch my gold.
They retire.
Enter Friar Jacomo, Friar Barnadine, Abbess, and a Nun.
Friar Jacomo Sisters, We now are almost at the new-made nunnery.
Abbess The better; for we love not to be seen: ’Tis thirty winters long since some of us Did stray so far amongst the multitude.
Friar Jacomo But, madam, this house And waters of this new-made nunnery Will much delight you.
Abbess It may be so; but who comes here?
Abigail comes forward.
Abigail Grave abbess, and you, happy virgins’ guide, Pity the state of a distressed maid.
Abbess What art thou, daughter?
Abigail The hopeless daughter of a hapless Jew, The Jew of Malta, wretched Barabas; Sometimes the owner of a goodly house, Which they have now turned to a nunnery.
Abbess Well, daughter, say, what is thy suit with us?