Shakespeare as an economist by Farnam Henry Walcott 1853-

Author:Farnam, Henry Walcott, 1853- [from old catalog]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616, Economics in literature
Publisher: New Haven, Conn., Yale publishing association
Published: 1913-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

SHAKESPEARE AS AN ECONOMIST 447

frequently mentioned and gives him opportunities for many puns. The Prince of Morocco in "The Merchant of Venice" says:

. ■. . They have in England

A coin that bears the figure of an angel

Stamped in gold, but that's insculp'd upon;

But here an angel in a golden bed

Lies all within.

Falstaff also often refers punningly to the "angel." The word "dollar" occurs four times, and in several of the cases gives Shakespeare an excuse for a pun on the word "dolour." That the nature of money was well understood by Shakespeare is shown by Bassanio, who in "The Merchant of Venice" addresses silver as

. . . thou pale and common drudge 'Tween man and man.

This comes quite close to the definition given by economists who speak of money as a "common medium of exchange." But that buying and selling are simply the same thing, and that the man who exchanges money for goods really sells money, as is often pointed out by the economists of the present day, was likewise clear to Shakespeare's mind, for Romeo in paying the apothecary says, "I sell thee poison; thou hast sold me none."

The evils of a depreciated currency were likewise familiar to him. Otherwise there would be no meaning in such expressions as "take a fellow of plain and uncoined constancy" in "Henry V." Schmidt gives in his "Shakespeare-Lexicon" three explanations of this phrase. He says that some take it to mean not counterfeit, therefore true. Others think that it implies that Katharine was the first woman who ever made an impression on Henry. Schmidt himself seems to think that by an uncoined constancy is meant a constancy "which has not the current stamp on it, and, being therefore

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