The Struggle for Law
becomes the representative of the law. The truth remains truth, even when the individual defends it only from the narrow point of view of his personal interest. It is hatred and revenge that take Shylock before the court to cut his pound of flesh out of Antonio’s body; but the words which the poet puts into his mouth are as true in it as in any other. It is the language which the wounded feeling of legal right will speak, at all times and in all places; the power, the firmness of the conviction, that law must remain law, the lofty feeling and pathos of a man who is conscious that, in what he claims, there is question not only of his person but of the law. “The pound of flesh,” Shakespeare makes him say:—
"The pound of flesh, which I demand of him,
Is dearly bought, is mine, and I will have it;
If you deny me, fie upon your law;
There is no force in the decrees of Venice.
. . . . . I crave the law.
. . . . . I stay here upon my bond.”
“I crave the law.” In these four words, the poet has described the relation of law in
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