Note 29 — VII ASPECTS OF SHAKESPEARE'S PHILOSOPHY[24]
Reading edition
In a paper on "Latin as an Intellectual Force," read before the International Congress of Arts and Sciences at St Louis in September 1904, Professor E.A. Sonnenschein sought to show that Portia's speech on mercy is based on Seneca's tract, De Clementia. The most striking parallel passages are the following:—
It becomes The throned monarch better than his crown. (M. of V., IV., i. 189-90.)
Nullum clementia ex omnibus magis quam regem aut principem decet. (Seneca, De Clementia, I., iii., 3):—
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest.
Eo scilicet formosius id esse magnificentiusque fatebimur quo in maiore praestabitur potestate (I., xix., 1):—
But mercy is above this sceptred sway; It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself. (M. of V., IV., i., 193-5.)
Quod si di placabiles et aequi delicta potentium non statim fulminibus persequuntur, quanto aequius est hominem hominibus praepositum miti animo exercere imperium? (I., vii., 2):—
And earthly power doth then show likest God's When mercy seasons justice. (M. of V., IV., i., 196-7.)
Quid autem? Non proximum eis (dîs) locum tenet is qui se ex deorum natura gerit beneficus et largus et in melius potens? (I., xix., 9):—
Consider this, That in the course of justice none of us Should see salvation. (M. of V., IV., i., 198-200.)
Cogitato ... quanta solitudo et vastitas futura sit si nihil relinquitur nisi quod iudex severus absolverit (I., vi., 1).
This remarkable series of parallelisms does not affect the argument in the text that Shakespeare, who reiterated Portia's pleas and phraseology in Isabella's speeches, had a personal faith in the declared sentiment. Whether the parallelism is to be explained as conscious borrowing or accidental coincidence is an open question.