"Farewell, good Launcelot—
Alack, what heinous sin it is in me
To be ashamed to be my father's child!
But though I am a daughter to his blood,
I am not to his manners; O Lorenzo,
If thou keep promise, I shall end this strife;
Become a Christian, and thy loving wife!"
This beautiful Jewess forswears her birth and religion for infatuated love, and throws to the winds all duty and honor as a daughter; a renegade of matchless quality, stealing her father's money and jewels to elope with the fascinating Christian Lorenzo.
The Hebrew race has not produced many Jessicas; and the morality taught by Shakspere of a daughter "fooling her father" is base and rotten in principle.
Shylock says to his daughter:
"Well, Jessica, go in to the house,
Perhaps I will return immediately;
Do as I bid you;
Shut doors after you; fast bind, fast find,
A proverb never stale in thrifty mind."
Then at the turn of his back the beautiful fraud Jessica says:
"Farewell, and if my fortune be not crost,
I have a father, you a daughter, lost!"
Lorenzo with his friends appear under the window of Shylock's house to steal away Jessica, and she appears above in boy's clothes, and asks:
"Who are you? Tell me for more certainty,
Albeit, I'll swear that I do know your tongue."
He responds: