The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-03-16
sHYLoCK AND THE LAW

That anything new and informative car
 still be written about the works of Shake speafe, especially such . closely-studied play
 ss the Merchant of, Venice seems scarcely possible. That an entire new book replese witt
 information, plausible, logical, and yet a,
 variance with many settled conclusions ol
 scholars, could be complied, is . tribute ts human powers of research, and yet lamentable
 commentary upon previous human proneness to accept timeworn theories because they are
 timeworn. The book is appropriately entitled
 Shaking the Dust from Shakespeare" by g lawyer, Harris Jay Griston, and lives up to
 it's title most vigorously.
 Scholars have long held that the date of the action of this play was some time during the commercial pre-eminence of the city of Venice, that is, during the latter part of the Middle Ages. The frequent recurrence of the word state instead of city was explained away by the theory that in those days the government of a city had the independence and the authority of a state. But Mir. Gris- ton quite convincingly shows that it was probably the old state of Venetia, which we know to have been commercially important long before the city came into existence. The city, which is occasionally referred to in the play, is calculated by the author to have been Apuleia, which was in late Roman times leading city of that particular coast.
 The manner in which the author fixes the date is quite ingenious. He cites the fact that Christianity did not become a sane tioned religion in Rome until 311 A. D., and that the laws permitting the seizure of a defaulting debtors person were repealed by Constantine in 320. The action then must take place somewhere between 311 and 320 A. D. Although most critics have said that the idea of taking a pound of flesh for a debt is preposterous and that the laws ap- parently authorizing such practice must have been figurative, our lawyer critic ayers that the laws were taken literally by contempora- neous commentators. He is supported in this by numerous citations. The bond between Antonio and Shylock was legal bond, and Antonio's life was forfeit except for the technicality raised by Portia that the bond stipulated only flesh and not blood. There fore, Shylock must take his flesh without drawing blood. That being impossible, he lost the case in practice although he won it in equity, for Portia adjudged the bond a legal one.
 It has been the custom to regard Shylock as an unusually cruel specimen of humanity, AS perhaps he may have been, But one must remember that Shylock was claiming the fulfillment of his bond, not under Jewish law, not under some diabolical scheme of his own contriving, but under the Venetian law which Romans imposed upon themselves equally with all strangers who might be within their gates, and which they enforced in behalf of strangers as well as in behalf of citizens Indeed, the law under which Shylock made his appeal to the court be- longed to a code expressly designed to apply to commercial cities and seaports where men of all nations, creeds and laws mingled and did business together. It is worth noting that Antonio himself acknowledged the valid ity of the bond and was ready to bare his flesh to the knife of Shylock, had it not been for the technicality raised by the court itself
 The authority of the creditor over the debtor in pre-Constantinian times was very great. The debtor had certain protective stipulations, such as thirty or sixty days of grace, and the like, but eventually he must pay his debt, have it paid for him, have an- other accepted suarantor assume the obliga- tion, or else become a slave of the creditor. Where there were two or more creditors, it was the early law that, in the event of final failure to pay, they might actually divide the body of the unfortunate debtor among them. This amiable custom naturally pre- supposed the death of the victim. It might become serious thing to fail to pay one's legal obligations in those gentle times. As for Shylock, he may have been cruel; he may have been vindictive; but he was within the law. He has his spiritual eounterparts. of various races and natiOnalities, in modern times. It is the law only that has changed.