Anthony Munday and The Merchant of Venice

Summary

Scott McMillin is fond of saying that Anthony Munday was always in the middle of everything. However true that may be, Munday has never been at the centre of work on The Merchant of Venice. This situation has obtained despite the fact that Shakespeare seems to have used both versions of a narrative that Munday had handled once in Zelauto (1580) and again, though differently, in The Orator (1596), and that contains central features of the Shylock-Antonio bond plot as well as of the story of Jessica's elopement to marry the person she loves.

While the source closest to Merchant is Ser Giovanni's II Pecorone, Shakespeare's debt to Zelauto includes the doubling of suitors, the addition of a daughter for the usurer, the use of two women disguised as attorneys, and a sonin- law who will inherit the usurer's possessions. Two differences from Zelauto have not deterred critics from drawing these parallels, the fact that in Zelauto the usurer is a Christian rather than Jew and that the bond involves eyes rather than a pound of flesh. Further, like Merchant, the judge in Zelauto uses a plea for mercy that relies, like Portia's, on a religious argument. As for The Orator, its importance has seemed to lie in the arguments used on Shylock's behalf in the trial scene, especially the notions that in certain circumstances one might prefer to take flesh over money and that being treated as a slave is worse than losing a pound of flesh (4.1.89-99, and 4.1.39-41).