SHAKESPEARE ON MERCY
The British poet-playwright William
Shakespeare (1564-1616) was not a saint or seer or a sage or a priest but a
great poet with the qualities of a kind-hearted human being.
A person who is almost as merciful as
God Almighty has in him the qualities of compassion, forgiveness and kindness.
A sufi poet says that God forgives all
kinds of chronic sinners not only once but innumerably because His court of
justice is not one of disappointment but
of eternal hope. He goes on giving the guilty new chances for self-reformation.
According to religious thinkers
patience, helpfulness, goodness, gentleness, grace, kindness, humanism , forgiveness, and
pity are the core qualities of those powerful people who have the authority of
punishing the wrong-doers but do not use
their authority immediately. .
Here are some relevant quotes from
Shakespeare’s writings:
*Priests
pray for enemies, but princes kill. ---Henry
VI , 2nd Part, Act 5.
**Press not
a falling man too far; ‘t is virtue.----Henry
VIII, Act 3.
***The
common executioner,/Whose heart the accustom’d sight of death makes hard,/Falls not the axe
upon the humbled neck/But first begs pardon.---As You Like It, Act 3.
****When vice makes mercy, mercy ‘s so
extended,/That for the fault’s love is the offender friended. ----Measure for Measure, Act 4.
Finally, a full sonnet on Mercy by William
Shakespeare from Merchant of Venice, Act
4.
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.
Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it
becomes
The throned monarch better than his
crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal
power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of
kings.
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;
It is an attribute of God himself;
And earthly power doth then show like
God’s
When mercy seasons justice.
*****
G.R.Kanwal
10 August 2026
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