Hath not a Jew eyes?
Adrian Schiller performs Shylock’s speech from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice
Actor Adrian Schiller performs Shylock’s ‘Hath not a Jew eyes’ speech from The Merchant of Venice, directed by Abigail Graham as part of our Winter 2021/22 season in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.
Hath not a Jew eyes?
Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
— The Merchant of Venice, Act III scene 1.
