The Jew of Malta by Christopher Marlowe (read along books .txt) 📕
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Christopher Marlowe wrote The Jew of Malta at the height of his career, and it remained popular until England’s theaters were closed by Parliament in 1642. Many have critiqued it for its portrayal of Elizabethan antisemitism, but others argue that Marlowe criticizes Judaism, Islam, and Christianity equally for their hypocrisy. This antisemitism debate continues on to Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, which was written about ten years later and which some consider to be directly influenced by The Jew of Malta.
The play focuses on a wealthy Jewish merchant named Barabas who lives on the island of Malta. When the island’s governor strips Barabas of all his wealth in order to pay off the invading Turks, Barabas plots and schemes to get his revenge, killing all who get in his way and ultimately pitting Spanish Christians against Ottoman Muslims in an attempt to punish them all.
Scholars dispute the authorship of the play, with some suggesting that the last half was written by a different author. Though the play is known to have been performed as early as 1594, the earliest surviving print edition is from 1633, which includes a prologue and epilogue written by another playwright for a planned revival.
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- Author: Christopher Marlowe
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Tush, governor, take thou no care for that,
My men are all aboard,
And do attend my coming there by this.
Why, heard’st thou not the trumpet sound a charge?
CalymathYes, what of that?
FernezeWhy then the house was fired,
Blown up, and all thy soldiers massacred.
O, monstrous treason!
FernezeA Jew’s courtesy:
For he that did by treason work our fall,
By treason hath delivered thee to us:
Know, therefore, till thy father hath made good
The ruins done to Malta and to us,
Thou canst not part; for Malta shall be freed,
Or Selim ne’er return to Ottoman.
Nay, rather, Christians, let me go to Turkey,
In person there to mediate your peace;
To keep me here will naught advantage you.
Content thee, Calymath, here thou must stay,
And live in Malta prisoner; for come all the world
To rescue thee, so will we guard us now,
As sooner shall they drink the ocean dry
Than conquer Malta, or endanger us.
So, march away, and let due praise be given
Neither to Fate nor Fortune, but to Heaven.
This distinguished Florentine, degraded into a personification of unscrupulous policy, was frequently appealed to on the Elizabethan stage ↩
The Due de Guise, who had organised the Massacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572, and was assassinated in 1588. ↩
Old ed. “Samintes;” modern editors print “Samnites,” between whom and the “men of Uz” there can be no possible connection. We have Saba for Sabraea in Faustus [see p. 195]. —Bullen ↩
Count. ↩
Seldom seen. ↩
It was an ancient belief that a suspended stuffed halcyon (i.e. kingfisher) would indicate the quarter from which the wind blew. ↩
Enter them at the custom-house. ↩
Freight. ↩
Scrambled. ↩
The scene is here supposed to be shifted to a street or to the Exchange. ↩
I.e. Foolish. ↩
Misquoted from Terence’s Andria, iv. 1, 12. The words should be “Proximus sum egomet mibi.” ↩
The scene is supposed to be inside the council-house. ↩
Bashaws or Pashas. ↩
I.e. Haply. ↩
Refuses. ↩
Convert. ↩
Violent emotion. ↩
Dyce suggests that on the Jews’ departure the scene is supposed to shift to a street near Barabas’s house. ↩
I.e. Repair. ↩
Foolish. ↩
Portuguese gold coins. ↩
I.e. Sex. ↩
The old edition has † inserted here, presumably to indicate the sign that Barabas was to make with his hand. ↩
The scene is before Barabas’s house, now turned into a nunnery. ↩
We have a kind of echo of this in Shylock’s “My daughter, O my ducats,” etc. ↩
I.e. Treat. ↩
Freight. ↩
I.e. Did not lower our flags. ↩
Old ed. “Spanish,” ↩
Old ed. “left and tooke.” The correction was made by Dyce. ↩
Established. ↩
The scene is the market-place. ↩
This recalls Shylock’s “Still have I borne it with a patient shrug.” ↩
Defiled. ↩
Pieces of silver coin. ↩
An allegorical character in the old moralities. ↩
I.e. Break off our conversation. ↩
Barabas was represented on the stage with a large false nose. In Rowley’s Search for Money (1609) allusion is made to the “artificiall Jewe of Maltaes nose.” ↩
Use. ↩
I.e. In good earnest. ↩
Dyce supposes a change of scene here to the outside of Barabas’s house. ↩
Affianced. ↩
A piece of money with a cross marked on one of its sides, like the Portuguese cruzado. ↩
Satisfied. ↩
The scene is the outside of Bellamira’s house, and it is suggested that she makes her appearance on the verandah or on a balcony. ↩
The scene is a street. ↩
Brave. ↩
The scene is a room in Barabas’s house. ↩
“Prior” in the old editions, which both Dyce and Bullen follow. Cunningham substituted “governor,” which is evidently correct. ↩
The scene is still within Barabas’s house, but an interval of time has elapsed. ↩
I.e. Portendeth. ↩
I.e. In short. ↩
The juice of ebony, formerly regarded as a deadly poison. ↩
The scene is the interior of the council-house. ↩
Cannon. ↩
The scene is the interior of the convent. ↩
I.e. Hated. Formerly the word was in common use in this sense. ↩
Artifice. ↩
This was a crime of which the Jews were often accused, especially, according to Tovey (in his Anglia Judaica), when the king happened to be in want of money. ↩
The scene is a street in Malta. ↩
I.e. Equal to. ↩
Attics; lofts (Latin, solarium). The word is still in use in some parts of England and in legal documents. ↩
Ithamore. ↩
Convent (as in “Covent Garden”). ↩
The scene is a room in the house of Barabas. ↩
The old edition
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