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SIGMUND FREUD HAD THE CAPACITY OF A GENIUS FOR DIPPING HIS MIND IN Shakespeare and running off with insights no one else would have noticed. In "The Theme of the Three Caskets" his attention was captured by a minor theme in The Merchant of Venice. Why he focused on this theme to the neglect of others is the subject matter of this brief speculative communication.
When one thinks of The Merchant of Venice, certain themes rush to mind more rapidly than others, given their gripping emotional intensity:
1Shylock demanding a pound of flesh from Antonio for failure to repay the loan on time;
2Shylock's poignant speech against prejudice;
I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
3Portia's remarkable speech about the quality of mercy;