These are Portia's views of mercy on the throne (_Merchant of Venice_, IV., i., 189 _seq._):-- 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown; * * * * * Mercy is above this sceptred sway; It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God's When mercy seasons justice. Consider this, That in the course of justice none of us Should see salvation.[29] [Footnote 29: 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 (dis) 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.] Here are Isabella's words in _Measure for Measure_ (II., ii., 59 _seq._):-- No ceremony that to great ones 'longs, Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword, The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe, Become them with one half so good a grace As mercy does. How would you be If He, which is the top of judgment, should But judge you as you are?