The quality of mercy

The Civil War divided our country like no other event in our history. Consequently, people in both North and South suffered wounds both physical and emotional. Abraham Lincoln in his Second Inaugural Address spoke to the need for healing and presented the opportunity for the country’s men and women to care for all traumatized by war and division.

Having just commemorated the 25^th anniversary of 9/11, we remember the trauma of that horrific event. After 9/11, we were a unified nation helping those impacted. On March 4, 1865, near the end of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln addressed the country and concluded his speech with these famous words:

“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and for his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

I believe Abraham Lincoln understood that to stay united as a country, people must see others as human beings. They must treat others with mercy, “a disposition to be kind and forgiving.” We must affirm our unity and extend mercy to those we considered “enemies.”

Once at a meeting, I was sharing a meal with several others. At one point, an attendee at our table started to disparage people in a group not represented at our meeting. This person’s voice was so strident in denouncing this group that I was envisioning him referring to an infestation of cockroaches rather than human beings with different views. I wish this person had instead heeded the commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice presents scenes that enable the audience to reflect on the nature of being human and also the possibility of extending mercy to another. One plot in the play reveals that the law-abiding Christian merchant, Antonio, has taken out a substantial loan from the Jew, Shylock, on behalf of a close friend. Both parties agreed that if the loan could not be repaid by a designated date, Antonio would be obliged to give “a pound of flesh” to Shylock as recompense. When the loan cannot be repaid, a trial ensues and Shylock demands Antonio’s “pound of flesh.”

Shakespeare does not portray Shylock as a “monster,” for Shylock has legitimate complaints against the self-righteous merchant. Earlier in the play, Shylock asserts that he is a human being. “I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?”

Recently, I saw a billboard near the Indiana State Fairgrounds proclaiming, “You don’t have to be a Jew to protect Jews.” Another version ends with, “Just a good human being.” We can repudiate anti-Semitism and affirm the dignity of each person regardless of ethnicity or religion treating all with civility.

In the play’s court scene, Portia, a wealthy heiress, manly-dressed as Balthasar, enters to defend Antonio. Her speech is a persuasive plea for Shylock to show mercy. She begins:

The quality of mercy is not strained / It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
upon the place beneath. It is twice blest / It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

Portia concludes her speech aligning mercy with the divine.

It is an attribute to God himself / And earthly power doth then show likest God’s
When mercy seasons justice.

Yes.

Nancy Kelly Smith is a retired English professor and published author. She is also an Ambassador for the national civility organization Civic Renaissance. Learn more at civic-renaissance.com.