Merchant of Venice. - Repositories

194 NOTES
of an iambus, or of a dactyl (three syllables, of which the
first is accented).
" Often I have you I heard that told:
^ ^ ^ ^
Many a | man his | life hath | sold."
— IL, viL, 66, 67.
Sometimes an iambic line is substituted in one of the trochaic
stanzas, as in II., vii., 72.
In v., i,, note also the amoebean verses, and the stichomythia;
both of these terms are explained on p. 184, 11. 1-24 — note.
SOURCES OF THE PLAY
The Originality of Shakespeare. —Shakespeare was not an
imitator nor a plagiarist, although he probably never devised the
entire plot of any one of his dramas. But what need had he
of original stories when in London libraries and bookstalls could
be found translations of French and Italian romances, and when
the history of his own country and of Scotland was full of the
most thrilling tragedy ? What time, moreover, had he in which
to devise plots had he wished, since he was actor as well as
playwright, and since, as Dr. Furness shows us from an examination
of the diary of the stage-manager, Henslowe, the London
public demanded "a new play, upon an average, every seventeen
or eighteen days, including Sundays " ? Shakespeare himself,
as the same author computes, must have written on the
average at least two plays a year. Above all it must be remembered
that the story or old play that Shakespeare found ready
made, was a mere outline, and that it had to be altered to suit