The story of the Jew who bargained for a pound of a Christian's flesh in payment of his debt is so widely spread, that there is no necessity for us to believe that Shakspere used this rather poor ballad, more especially as it is probable from the extract from Gosson mentioned above that Shakspere found the two plots of the bond and the caskets already joined together. There is, however, something in Percy's note about the whetting of the knife in verses 25-26, and it would be quite in accordance with the poet's constant practice for him to take this one point from the ballad of Gernutus. The ballad was probably versified from one of the many stories extant, because, even if it be later than Shakspere's play, it is impossible to believe that the ballad-writer could have written so bald a narration had he had the Merchant of Venice before him.
Some forms of the story are to be found in Persian, and there is no doubt that the original tale is of Eastern origin. The oldest European forms are in the English Cursor Mundi and Gesta Romanorum, and the French romance of Dolopathos. See Miss Toulmin Smith's paper "On the Bond-story in the Merchant of Venice," "Transactions of the New Shakspere Society," 1875-6 p. 181. Professor Child prints a ballad entitled The Northern Lord and Cruel Jew (English and Scottish Ballads, vol. viii. p. 270), which contains the same incident of the "bloody minded Jew."
Leti's character as an historian stands so low that his story may safely be dismissed as a fabrication.]
The First Part.
In Venice towne not long agoe
A cruel Jew did dwell,
Which lived all on usurie,
As Italian writers tell.
Gernutus called was the Jew,5
Which never thought to dye,
Nor ever yet did any good
To them in streets that lie.
His life was like a barrow hogge,[869]
That liveth many a day,10
Yet never once doth any good,
Until men will him slay.
Or like a filthy heap of dung,
That lyeth in a whoard;[870]
Which never can do any good,15
Till it be spread abroad.