Scene 3. Page 413.
Enter Shylock.
His stage dress should be a scarlet hat lined with black taffeta. This is the manner in which the Jews of Venice were formerly distinguished. See Saint Didier Histoire de Venise. In the year 1581 they wore red caps for distinction's sake, as appears from Hakluyt's Voyages, p. 179, edit. 1589. Lord Verulam, in his Essay on usury, speaking of the witty invectives that men have made against usury, states one of them to be "that usurers should have orange-tawny bonnets, because they do Judaize."
Scene 3. Page 414.
Shy. He lends out money gratis, and brings down
The rate of usance here with us in Venice.
"It is almost incredyble what gaine the Venetians receive by the usury of the Jewes, both pryvately and in common. For in everye citee the Jewes kepe open shops of usurie, taking gaiges of ordinarie for xv in the hundred by the yere; and if at the yeres ende the gaige be not redemed, it is forfeite, or at the least dooen away to a great disadvantage: by reason whereof the Jewes are out of measure wealthie in those parties."—Thomas's Historye of Italye, 1561, 4to, fo. 77.
Scene 3. Page 416.
Shy. He stuck them up before the fulsome ewes.
Fulsome has, doubtless, the same signification as the preceding epithet rank, the physical reason for its application being very generally known. "Ικτιδος pellis. Proverbium apud Germanos in vilissimum quodque et maxime fœtidum scortum. Nam Ictis, id est sylvestris mustela cum graviter exarserit, male olet." Erasmi Adagia. Spenser makes one of his shepherds speak thus of a kid:
"The blossoms of lust to bud did beginne
And spring forth ranckly under his chinne."