And I don't deny the nastiness, and the difficulties of performance of "Merchant" (as of "Shrew"), but like Richard II being performed at the time of Essex's rebellion, Shakespeare's plays are not without context in their time. Someone who is a controlled daughter of a dead father does a dramatic, stick in your mind, speech about those in power using mercy - that's an interesting image for the time, and a time used to reading symbols. There's quite a bit about daughters and fathers in all that nastiness.

I guess there are people who would rather live in a society where justice is equated with retribution, and others who would rather justice is tempered with mercy, and both will find justification in whatever scripture they follow.

By a curious link, a friend's father died in agony of prostate cancer in the same ward treating Ronnie Biggs. Palliative care, as I also saw with my mother, is not necessarily very effective. It's a small mercy to let the man see his family.


Penny