The Quality of Mercy

William Shakespeare

(1564-1616)

From The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, I

This speech addresses one of the most enduring human issues—the tension between justice and mercy. It is played out at a societal level when we sentence people for their crimes and later when we consider them for parole. A person has committed a crime and stands before a judge or parole board. What does justice demand? What about mercy in the form of a second chance? Sometimes the tension is writ very large. For example, in 2009, the allegedly mortally ill man convicted of murdering 270 people by blowing up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland was released to spend his final days with his family. Releasing a dying man from jail is a merciful act, but was his crime so severe that this expression of mercy comes at the expense of justice?[1]

The tension is also played out person-to-person in workplaces, families, and marriages. In a smaller but equally real way the advice columns in the newspapers regularly carry letters from spouses who have been betrayed and from parents whose drug-abusing children are begging for a second chance. Mercy in the form of forgiveness for an unfaithful spouse—it is asking a lot. A helping hand to a drug-user may be enabling the child’s developing addiction. There is no simple answer to these dilemmas, and that is when Shakespeare is at his best.

To understand the speech, we need some context from the play The Merchant of Venice. Bassanio who has squandered his estate wishes to woo the wealthy heiress Portia. He asks his friend Antonio to lend him three thousand ducats to subsidize his trip to see Portia. Antonio agrees but, because he is low on cash, promises to cover a bond if Bassanio can find a lender. Bassanio turns to the Jewish moneylender Shylock and names Antonio as the loan’s guarantor. The debt comes due. In this speech Portia is lobbying Shylock for mercy. Shylock is entitled to a gruesome payment — a pound of flesh. Portia begs him to reconsider, pointing out to him in a cleverly alliterative line that “mercy is above the sceptered sway.”

The Merchant of Venice

Act IV, I

The quality of mercy is not strain’d, It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath: it is twice bless’d; It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes ‘Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown; His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; But mercy is above this sceptered sway, It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God’s When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, Though justice be thy plea, consider this— That in the course of justice, none of us Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy; And that same prayer, doth teach us all to render The deeds of mercy.

The speech/poem is an elegant and heart-felt appeal, ending with the reminder that we always ask for mercy for our own misdeeds, a fact we should remember when others ask us to forgive them.

This play’s history in many ways overshadows the speech and the play itself. The role of Shylock, a Jew, has been scrutinized for a very long time. Shylock has been played as a clown, a villain, and sympathetically as a tragic figure. There are serious academic studies that help us understand Shylock’s role and they are worth reading. Part of that history includes the way the Nazi propaganda machine made use of the play. Shortly after Kristallnacht in 1938, The Merchant of Venice was broadcast for propagandistic ends over the German airwaves. Productions of the play followed in Lübeck (1938), Berlin (1940), and elsewhere in Nazi Germany. When Portia says, “Therefore, Jew, though justice be thy plea, consider this…” we have a stark reminder that his Jewish identity is central to the exchange. Unfortunately, the character of Shylock has helped shape the depiction of Jews in English literature throughout the centuries. It is difficult to set that history aside when one hears this speech. But the dialogue between mercy and justice is important and revealing whenever it is encountered.

The speech is not long and has a clear voice—the entreaty of a devoted friend. It is constructed as a rational argument, but it is delivered from the heart. For this reason, I found it fairly easy to memorize. Here's a version by Laura Carmichael (of Downton Abbey fame).

[1] He was said to be terminally ill with prostate cancer; he died almost three years later, in 2012.