Portia’s Quality of Mercy.

Standard Citation: Purdy, Gilbert Wesley. “Portia’s Quality of Mercy”. Virtual Grub Street,   https://gilbertwesleypurdy.blogspot.com/2020/06/portias-quality-of-mercy.html [state date accessed].

In This Series:

• Shakespeare's Funeral Meats
• Portia's Quality of Mercy
• A Model for Lady Macbeth

The tragedies were not the only works by Seneca read in the original Latin by Shakespeare,[1] it would seem.  In 1904, E. A. Sonnenschein read a paper before the International Congress of Arts and Sciences at St. Louis revealing that Portia’s speech before the Doge, in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, IV.i. 194-212, was excerpted from Seneca the Younger’s De Clementia.[2] 

Five passages from the first nineteen sections of the first book of the Clementia made clear that the correspondence is strong.  I present them, here, together with solid English translations by John W. Basore, from the 1928 Loeb edition.

(1) Nullum clementia ex omnibus magis quam regem aut principem decet (i. 3.; i. 19.).

                                             "It becomes

The throned monarch better than his crown."

[Yet of all men none is better graced by mercy than a king or a prince.]

(2) EO scilicet formosius id esse magnificentiusque fatebimur quo in maiore praestabitur potestate (i. 19.):

" 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest."

[We shall admit, of course, that this quality is the more beautiful and wonderful, the greater the power under which it is displayed;]

(3) Quod si di placabiles et aequi delicta potentium non statim fulminibus persequuntur, quanto aequius est hominem hominibus praepositum miti animo exercere imperium? (i. 7) :

"But mercy is above this sceptred sway,

It is enthroned in the heart of kings;

It is an attribute of God himself."

[But if the gods, merciful and just, do not instantly avenge with the thunderbolt the shortcomings of the mighty, how much more just is it for a man, set over men, to exercise his power in gentle spirit]

(4) Quid autem ? Non proximum eis (dis) locum tenet is qui se ex deorum natura gerit beneficus et largus et in melius potens ? (i. 19.):

"And earthly power doth then show likest God's

When mercy seasons justice."

[he who bears himself in a godlike manner, who is beneficent and generous and uses his power for the better end — does he not hold a place second only to the gods?]

(5) Cogitato . . . quanta solitudo et vastitas futura sit si nihil relinquitur nisi quod iudex severus absolverit (i. 6.) :

                              "Consider this

That in the course of justice none of us

Should see salvation."[3]

[consider how great would be the loneliness and the desolation of it if none should be left but those whom a strict judge would acquit.]

Seneca’s, of course, is a much longer work and Shakespeare was writing a poetical speech on Mercy into a play not a philosophical dialogue.  These are highlights that are chosen from those points that apply not only to the Emperor Nero, Seneca’s original target audience, and the source of the royal imagery, but to humanity in general such as Shylock.

So many correspondences — one even beginning with literal translation of “Cogitato” to “Consider this” — in less than 20 lines is quite impressive.  At first, the world of Shakespeare scholarship announced it as the most impressive finding of its kind.  Sonnenschein’s name appeared in footnotes from the books of Sidney Lee and other highly respected scholars.  And then it disappeared.  Even the 1916 New Variorum edition of the play added no mention of the finding.

No flaw was found in the research.  I say this with confidence not only because there is no record but because the correspondences speak clearly and for themselves.  Likely a line from Sonnenschein’s 1905 follow-up essay “Shakspere and Stoicism”[4] is to the point: ‘I hope, by the way, that no "Baconian" will find in this article grist for his mill.’

There had been, after all, no English translation of Seneca’s philosophical essays before Shakespeare’s death.  The appearance that he had been able to read and closely follow entire Latin essays aided and abetted the “enemies” of the “true” Shakespeare.  The suppression of such information had already become common practice in the field.  Little by little, such information (in an overall environment, admittedly, of bizarre claims) was coming to be refused consideration regardless the quality of the work.  If it causes difficulties for the orthodox narrative it does not, by definition, exist.[5]

Returning to the original subject, Sonnenschein was not quite confident what from Seneca was the corollary for the lines stating of mercy that

                                             "It is twice blessed ;

It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes."

He suggests that, perhaps, it came from the story, in section 9, of Augustus pardoning Cinna.  Apparently he was unaware that the first lines of Clementia I.v. were as good a match as any of the above examples.

vides, ut puto, quam necessaria sit clementia; tibi enim parcis, cum videris alteri parcere.

[you see, I think, how requisite is mercy; for you are merciful to yourself when you are seemingly merciful to another.]

This is by no means the last word on the matter, however.  We will return to Sonnenschein and De Clementia as they relate to Shakespeare soon.

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[1] see my “Shakespeare’s Funeral Meats” https://gilbertwesleypurdy.blogspot.com/2020/05/shakespeares-funeral-meats_13.html

[2] This first two lines are generally understood to have been mindful of the apocryphal biblical book of Ecclesiasticus, xxxv,19.

[3] While Seneca does not speak of "Salvation," he does say that no one would go without severe punishment for his sins (peccati).  Sonnenschein did also point out that lines from Hamlet, II.ii., seem to come from the same source:

"Use every man after his desert,

and who shall 'scape whipping?"

[4] Sonnenschein, E. A. “Shakspere and Stoicism”.  The University Review, Vol. 1. May 1905, 23-41.

[5] The quality Shakespeare Authorship discourse as it presently is, the fact that Sonnenschein’s middle name was “Adolf” would have seen him excoriated and left to the fate he deserved anyway  for doubting "the true Shakespeare".

Also at Virtual Grub Street:

• Shakespeare and Painter’s Palace of Pleasure. May 19, 2020. “…there is no richer source for clues to who was Shakespeare.”
• What About Edward de Vere’s Twelfth Night of 1600/01? January 28, 2020. “Leslie Hotson, who brought the Orsino-Orsino coincidence to the attention of the Nevillians seems to have made one particular mistake that is all to our point.”
• Malvolio’s Crow's Feet and “the new Mappe”. October 14, 2019. “Percy Allen’s candidate is not mentioned by any of these parties. The traditionalists, of course, could not consider it possible because it would suggest far too early a date for the play.”
• The Battle Over Shakespeare's Early and Late Plays. September 24, 2018. “The answers to the post-Oxford dilemma, of course, are three.”
• Shakespeare On Blood-Flow. August 19, 2018, “For all of the obvious examples, such as Hamlet’s mention of the supernova that held the attention of all the world, in 1572, and the description of St. Elmo’s Fire in The Tempest, however, the answer lies much more quietly woven into the text of the poems and plays as a whole.”
• Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.