=Merchant of Venice= (_The_), Antonio, who borrowed 3000 ducats for three months of Shylock, a Jew. The money was borrowed to lend to a friend named Bassanio, and the Jew, “in merry sport,” instead of interest, agreed to lend the money on these conditions: If Antonio paid it within three months, he should pay only the principal; if he did not pay it back within that time, the merchant should forfeit a pound of his own flesh, from any part of his body the Jew might choose to cut it off. As Antonio’s ships were delayed by contrary winds, he could not pay the money, and the Jew demanded the forfeiture. On the trial which ensued, Portia, in the dress of a law doctor, conducted the case, and, when the Jew was going to take the forfeiture, stopped him by saying that the bond stated “a pound of flesh,” and that, therefore, he was to shed no drop of blood, and he must cut neither more nor less than an exact pound, on forfeit of his life. As these conditions were practically impossible, the Jew was nonsuited and fined for seeking the life of a citizen.--Shakespeare, _Merchant of Venice_ (1598). The story is in the _Gesta Romanorum_, the tale of the bond being ch. xlviii., and that of the caskets ch. xcix.; but Shakespeare took his plot from a Florentine novelette called _Il Pecorone_, written in the fourteenth century, but not published till the sixteenth. There is a ballad on the subject, the date of which has not been determined. The bargain runs thus: “No penny for the loan of it, For one year shall you pay-- You may do me a good turn Before my dying day; But we will have a merry jest, For to be talkêd long; You shall make me a bond,” quoth he, “That shall be large or strong.” =Merchant’s Tale= (_The_), in Chaucer, is substantially the same as the first Latin metrical tale of Adolphus, and is not unlike a Latin prose tale given in the appendix of T. Wright’s edition of Æsop’s fables. The tale is this: A girl named May married January, an old Lombard baron, 60 years of age, but entertained the love of Damyan, a young squire. She was detected in familiar intercourse with Damyan, but persuaded her husband that his eyes had deceived him, and he believed her.--Chaucer, _Canterbury Tales_ (1388). =Mercian Laws.= (See MARTIAN.) =Mercilla=, a “maiden queen of great power and majesty, famous through all the world, and honored far and nigh.” Her kingdom was disturbed by a soldan, her powerful neighbor, stirred up by his wife Adicĭa. The “maiden queen” is Elizabeth; the “soldan,” Philip of Spain, and “Adicia” is injustice, presumption, or the bigotry of popery.--Spenser, _Faëry Queen_, v. (1596).