before the Court;Phoenix/Cockpit;Whitehall;Indoor Professional
Speech prefix(es)
Merch. | 2. Merch. | 2 Merch.
Words
156
Characters
827
Typicality
0.35 (cosine to cluster centroid)
TCP id
A06991
BritDrama no.
828
Cluster
Cluster 3 — Citizens, tradesfolk & neighbors
Important excerpts
No keyword-matching excerpt could be extracted (the cluster label doesn't share vocabulary with this character's speech).
Full speech
Barabas, thy ships are safe, Riding in Malta Rhode: And all the Merchant's With other Merchandise are safe arrived, And have sent me to know whither your self Will come and custom them. They are. The very Custom barely comes to more Then many Merchant's of the Town are worth, And therefore far exceeds my credit, Sir. I go. Of the Speranza, Sir. I neither saw them, nor inquired of them. But this we herd some of our seamen say, They wondered how you durst with so much wealth Trust such a crazed Vessel, and so far. I go. Exit. Thine Argosy from Alexandria, Know Barabas does ride in Malta Rhode. Laden with riches, and exceeding store Of Persian silks, of gold, and Orient Pearl: Sir, we were wafted by a Spanish Fleet That never le to us till within a league, That had the Galleys of the Turk in chase. Sir we saw they not.
Plot summary
Plot — The Jew of Malta
For ten years, Malta has failed to pay tribute to the Turks; now Séliml(@alymath comes to collect the arrears, but grants Bémeze, the Governor, a month to find the money. Ferneze requires the island’s Jews to contribute half their assets towards the sum, on pain of forcible conversion; but Bafabas, a wealthy merchant with trading links all over the east, refuses either to pay or to become a Christian. His entire estate is seized and his house converted to a nunnery. Unbeknown to the authorities, there is a cache of money and jewels hidden in the house; Barabas has his daughter, Abigail, become a nun in order to get access to it. After retrieving the gold, she leaves the convent, and Barabas buys a new house. The Spanish Vice-Admiral, Martin(§@elgposcs} arrives in Malta after routing the Turkish navy. He is granted permission to sell his prisoners as slaves on the island, even though this will be provocative to the Turks; Ferneze decides to keep the gold he levied to pay the tribute, and count on Spanish aid in the war that will follow. Barabas visits the slave market and buys [fiamiore; they swap stories about their exploits in villainy. A Turkish pasha comes to collect the tribute money, but Ferneze refuses to pay. War looms. Mathias and WEdGwiek both love Abigail. Barabas asks her to encourage Lodowick, even though she prefers Mathias; he doesn’t want her to marry either, but particularly wants to destroy Lodowick to get revenge on Ferneze, his father. He tells Mathias of Lodowick’s interest, and forges a challenge from Lodowick. The two young men fight and kill one another. When Abigail finds out what has happened, she rejoins the nunnery. Barabas adopts Ithamore as his heir and sends the nuns an anonymous gift of poisoned rice. They all die; Abigail’s last act is to confess to Friar Barnardine her 1589 father’s part.in the deaths of Mathias and Lodowick. Barmardine and Friarjacom try to exploit the power this knowledge gives them over Barabas, without explicitly revealing it (which is forbidden under canon law). Barabas sets enmity between them by pretending he wishes to join a religious order and give that order his money; the two friars vie with one another to offer him an easier life, and he promises himself to both. He and Ithamore strangle Barnardine with his own girdle and stand up the body as if alive; it falls down when Jacomo strikes it, and he is hanged for the murder. With fewer visitors coming to Malta, there has been a slackening in trade…