The Merchant of Venice

Shylock– a rich Jew, father of Jessica
Antonio - a merchant of Venice;
Bassanio – Antonio's friend, in love with Portia
Portia – a rich heiress
Gratiano – friend of Antonio and Bassanio;
Nerissa – Portia's waiting-maid

• Antonio a generous Christian merchant gives interest free loans
• Shylock mean and stingy Jewish money lender has intense dislike of Antonio
• Bassanio has no money but wants to marry Portia the rich heiress
• Bassanio asks Antonio for a lend of some money
• Antonio has all his money tied up in a shipment
• Antonio asks Shlyock for a lend of the money for Bassanio
• Shylock sees an opportunity to get at Antonio
• Shylock offers to lend Antonio the money and for a 'sport' Antonio can put up a pound of flesh as collateral, so if he cannot pay he has to have a pound of his flesh cut off his body.
  
• Antonio's ships are lost, Shylock demands his pound of flesh.
• Antonio is prepared to give up his pound of flesh.
• Portia hears about what has happened and disguises herself as a lawyer (a man) to argue against Shylock.
• Portia (in disguise) points out that Shylock must not spill a drop of blood, or take 1oz of flesh more or less than is what is in the contract, on pain of death.
• Shylock is forced to pay compensation
• Bassiano is very grateful to Portia and asks her (him) how he can repay him
• Portia (in disguise) asks Bassiano for the ring which Portia has given him
• Bassiano does not want to give it but feels he must because of his obligation
• Nerissa (in disguise) asks Gratiano her husband (Bassiano's friend) to also give up the ring Nerissa has given her and Grantiano obliges, wanting to seem as grateful as Bassiano
• Portia and Nerissa later have fun teasing Bassiano and Gratiano

Quotes

Act. v. Sc. I
How many things by season season'd are
To their right praise and true perfection!

Act II, Sc. VI
But love is blind, and lovers cannot see
The pretty follies that themselves commit.

Act I, Sc. I
Why should a man whose blood is warm within,
Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster?

Act. v. Sc. I
How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

Act I, Sc. III
Shall I bend low, and in a bondman's key,
With bated breath and whispering humbleness.

Act I, Sc. III
My meaning in saying he is a good man, is to have you understand me that he is sufficient.

Act III, Sc. I
The villany you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard, but I will better the instruction.

Act III, Sc. I
I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?

Act I, Sc. III
Ships are but boards, sailors but men: there be land-rats and water-rats, water-thieves and land-thieves.

Act I, Sc. II
When he is best, he is a little worse than a man; and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast.

Act III, Sc. II
An unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractised;
Happy in this, she is not yet so old
But she may learn.

Act III, Sc. II
Tell me where is fancy bred,
Or in the heart or in the head?
How begot, how nourished?
Reply, reply.

Act I, Sc. I
I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano,
A stage, where every man must play a part;
And mine a sad one.

Act III, Sc. II
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt
But being season'd with a gracious voice
Obscures the show of evil?

Act IV, Sc. I
Speak me fair in death.

Act IV, Sc. I
A harmless necessary cat.

Act I, Sc. II
I dote on his very absence.

Act II, Sc. II
In the twinkling of an eye.

Act III, Sc. V
Let it serve for table-talk.

Act II, Sc. II
An honest exceeding poor man.

Act II, Sc. VII
All that glitters is not gold

Act IV, Sc. I
Is it so nominated in the bond?

Act II, Sc. II
It is a wise father that knows his own child.

Act I, Sc. III
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

Act. v. Sc. I
This night methinks is but the daylight sick.

Act II, Sc. V
And the vile squeaking of the wry-necked fife.

Act IV, Sc. I
I never knew so young a body with so old a head.

Act I, Sc. II
God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man.

Act III, Sc. I
If my gossip Report be an honest woman of her word.

Act IV, Sc. I
What! wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice?

Act II, Sc. II
Truth will come to sight; murder cannot be hid long.

Act III, Sc. I
If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge.

Act III, Sc. II
Here are a few of the unpleasant'st words
That ever blotted paper!

Act III, Sc. II
The seeming truth which cunning times put on
To entrap the wisest.

Act I, Sc. III
For when did friendship take
A breed for barren metal of his friend?

Act III, Sc. V
Thus when I shun Scylla, your father, I fall into Charybdis, your mother.

Act I, Sc. I
Fish not, with this melancholy bait,
For this fool gudgeon, this opinion.

Act I, Sc. I
Now, by two-headed Janus,
Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time.

Act II, Sc. I
Mislike me not for my complexion,
The shadow'd livery of the burnish'd sun.

Act I, Sc. II
They are as sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing.

Act I, Sc. III
You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,
And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine.

Act I, Sc. III
A goodly apple rotten at the heart:
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

Act I, Sc. I
I do know of these
That therefore only are reputed wise
For saying nothing.

Act III, Sc. II
There is no vice so simple but assumes
Some mark of virtue in his outward parts.