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
60 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 accursèd in the sight of heaven,
These taxes and afflictions are befall’n,
And therefore thus we are determinèd.
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.’
70
BARABAS
How, half his estate? [Aside] I hope you mean not mine.
FERNEZE Read on.
OFFICER (reads) ‘Secondly, he that denies to pay shall straight
become a Christian.’
BARABAS
How, a Christian? [Aside] Hum, what’s here to do?
OFFICER (reads) ‘Lastly, he that denies this shall absolutely lose
all he has.’
ALL THREE JEWS O my lord, we will give half!
BARABAS
O earth-mettled villains, and no Hebrews born!
80 And will you basely thus submit yourselves
To leave your goods to their arbitrament?
FERNEZE
Why, Barabas, wilt thou be christened?
BARABAS
No, governor, I will be no convertite.
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.
90 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.
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
100 Than many perish for a private man.
Yet, Barabas, we will not banish thee,
But here in Malta, where thou got’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,
110 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,
120 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
130 Convert his mansion to a nunnery;
His house will harbour many holy nuns.
Enter OFFICERS.
FERNEZE
It shall be so. Now, officers, have you done?
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 seizèd 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,
140 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.
150 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’th’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,
160 And that will prove but simple policy.
Exeunt [FERNEZE, KNIGHTS and OFFICERS].
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
170 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,
180 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,
190 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 birthday, 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.
200 BARABAS Ay, ay;
Pray leave me in my patience. You that
Were ne’er possessed 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.
210 Come, let us leave him in his ireful mood.
Our words will but increase his ecstasy.
SECOND JEW
On, then. But trust me, ’tis a misery
To see a man in such affliction.
Farewell, Barabas.
Exeunt [the THREE JEWS]
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,
220 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 ABIGALL, the Jew’s daughter.
But whither wends my beauteous Abigall?
O, what has made my lovely daughter sad?
What, woman, moan not for a little loss.
Thy father has enough in store for thee.
ABIGALL
Not for myself, but aged Barabas,
230 Father, for thee lamenteth Abigall.
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 rent their hearts with tearing of my hair,
Till they reduce the wrongs done to my father.
BARABAS
No, Abigall, things past recovery
Are hardly cured with exclamations.
Be silent, daughter; sufferance breeds ease,
240 And time may yield us an occasion
Which on the sudden cannot serve the turn.
Besides, my girl, think me not all so fond
As negligently to forgo so much
Without provision for thyself and me.
Ten thousand portagues, besides great pearls,
Rich, costly jewels, and stones infinite,
Fearing the worst of this before it fell,
I closely hid.
ABIGALL Where, father?
BARABAS In my house, my girl.
ABIGALL
Then shall they ne’er be seen of Barabas,
250 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.
ABIGALL 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 sect
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,
260 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
270 Wherein these Christians have oppressèd me.
Be ruled by me, for in extremity
We ought to make bar of no policy.
ABIGALL
Father, whate’er it be, to injure them
That have so manifestly wrongèd us,
What will not Abigall attempt?
BARABAS Why, so.
Then thus: thou told’st me they have turned my house
Into a nunnery, and some nuns are there.
ABIGALL
I did.
BARABAS Then, Abigall, there must my girl
Entreat the Abbess to be entertained.
ABIGALL
How, as a nun?
280 BARABAS Ay, daughter, for religion
Hides many mischiefs from suspicion.
ABIGALL
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.
ABIGALL
Thus, father, shall I much dissemble.
BARABAS Tush,
As good dissemble that thou never mean’st
290 As first mean truth and then dissemble it.
A counterfeit profession is better
Than unseen hypocrisy.
ABIGALL
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, Abigall.
ABIGALL
Then, father, go with me.
BARABAS No, Abigall, in this
300 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.
Enter two FRIARS [JACOMO and BARNARDINE] and [an ABBESS and] TWO NUNS.
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
310 Will much delight you.
ABBESS
It m
ay be so. But who comes here?
ABIGALL [comes forward]
Grave Abbess, and you, happy virgins’ guide,
Pity the state of a distressèd maid!
ABBESS
What art thou, daughter?
ABIGALL
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?
ABIGALL
320 Fearing the afflictions which my father feels
Proceed from sin or want of faith in us,
I’d pass away my life in penitence,
And be a novice in your nunnery,
To make atonement for my labouring soul.
FRIAR JACOMO [to BARNARDINE]
No doubt, brother, but this proceedeth of the spirit.
FRIAR BARNARDINE [tO JACOMO]
Ay, and of a moving spirit too, brother. But come,
Let us entreat she may be entertained.
ABBESS
Well, daughter, we admit you for a nun.
ABIGALL
First let me as a novice learn to frame
330 My solitary life to your strait laws,
And let me lodge where I was wont to lie.
I do not doubt, by your divine precepts
And mine own industry, but to profit much.
BARABAS (aside)
As much, I hope, as all I hid is worth.
ABBESS
Come, daughter, follow us.
BARABAS [coming forward]
Why, how now, Abigall? What mak’st thou
Amongst these hateful Christians?
FRIAR JACOMO
Hinder her not, thou man of little faith,
For she has mortified herself.
BARABAS How, mortified?
FRIAR JACOMO
340 And is admitted to the sisterhood.
BARABAS
Child of perdition, and thy father’s shame,
What wilt thou do among these hateful fiends?
I charge thee on my blessing that thou leave
These devils and their damnèd heresy.
ABIGALL
Father, give me –
BARABAS Nay, back, Abigall!
(Whispers to her) And think upon the jewels and the gold;
The board is markèd thus [makes the sign of the cross]
that covers it.
[Aloud] Away, accursèd, from thy father’s sight!
FRIAR JACOMO
Barabas, although thou art in misbelief
350 And wilt not see thine own afflictions,
Yet let thy daughter be no longer blind.
BARABAS
Blind, friar? I reck not thy persuasions.
[Aside tO ABIGALL.]
The board is marked thus [makes the sign of the cross]
that covers it.
[Aloud] For I had rather die than see her thus.
Wilt thou forsake me too in my distress,
Seducèd daughter? (Aside to her) Go, forget not.
[Aloud] Becomes it Jews to be so credulous?