The Jew of Malta | Quotes

Machiavel's brief prologue introduces the play, sets the tone, and foreshadows all that will come. The character, based on Niccolò Machiavelli, who was known and abhorred by Elizabethan audiences as a notorious schemer, remarks that Barabas has succeeded in accumulating vast wealth by applying the "policy" that Machiavelli himself has advocated in his The Prince. Readers can be sure that the play will show Barabas as a ruthless schemer in the mode of Machiavelli himself.

Marlowe leaves readers in no doubt that Barabas is out for himself and no one else. His own person, his daughter, and his wealth are all that matter to him.

The line compactly juxtaposes right and wrong, emphasizing what Barabas sees as the flaws in the Maltese worldview and system of justice.

In the tenuous argument here, Barabas contends that a false statement or commitment made openly is to be preferred to hypocrisy. As it happens, Barabas is adept at both strategies.

Ferneze's bombastic assertion here, in context, is somewhat hollow, since it will be the Spaniards, rather than the Maltese, who will bear the consequences of resistance to the Ottomans.

In this semi-comic catalog of outrageous actions, Barabas boasts to Ithamore of his virtuosity in particularly heinous crimes.

The quotation exemplifies the meaning of "policy" in Elizabethan English: "stratagem," "self-interest," or "craftiness."

Barabas mutters these words as Ithamore makes a quick exit to fetch the pot of rice that Barabas will use to poison the nuns. The Jew is under no illusions about the greed of his newly purchased slave.

Abigail's dying words convey her newly found piety and sincerity. Doubtless, most of Marlowe's audience would have found her refuge in the Christian faith to be laudatory.

Ithamore, ever the cynic, here refers to Friar Barbardine and Friar Jacomo. Barabas replies, "I smelt 'em ere they came." Readers clearly see that Marlowe freely attacks religion in all its guises, whether Christian, Jewish, or Muslim.

The classical allusion here is to the Greek myth recounting the heroic journey of Jason and the Argonauts to find the golden fleece. Ithamore combines the allusion with a pun, in which "fleece" also means "to plunder" or "cheat."

Barabas laments the misfortune of being blackmailed by his slave Ithamore. Typically, he overstates his grief.

Ithamore uses false arguments and bias to justify the blackmailing of Barabas. Ironically, when he and Barabas first met, they vied with each other, each boasting about his criminal, evil acts.

These words, spoken late in the play, sum up Barabas's Machiavellian philosophy of self-interest, advantage, and cunning strategy ("policy").

Barabas's last words show him defiant to the end. It is fitting that the murderer who condemned his own daughter to die with an elaborate curse (Act 3, Scene 4) should die a violent death with a curse on his lips.