“Willingly? the blotch of Egypt upon him!⁠—Willingly, saidst thou?⁠—Ay, as willingly as when, in the Gulf of Lyons, I flung over my merchandise to lighten the ship, while she laboured in the tempest⁠—robed the seething billows in my choice silks⁠—perfumed their briny foam with myrrh and aloes⁠—enriched their caverns with gold and silver work! And was not that an hour of unutterable misery, though my own hands made the sacrifice?”

“But it was a sacrifice which Heaven exacted to save our lives,” answered Rebecca, “and the God of our fathers has since blessed your store and your gettings.”

“Ay,” answered Isaac, “but if the tyrant lays hold on them as he did today, and compels me to smile while he is robbing me?⁠—O, daughter, disinherited and wandering as we are, the worst evil which befalls our race is, that when we are wronged and plundered, all the world laughs around, and we are compelled to suppress our sense of injury, and to smile tamely, when we would revenge bravely.”

“Think not thus of it, my father,” said Rebecca; “we also have advantages. These Gentiles, cruel and oppressive as they are, are in some sort dependent on the dispersed children of Zion, whom they despise and persecute. Without the aid of our wealth, they could neither furnish forth their hosts in war, nor their triumphs in peace, and the gold which we lend them returns with increase to our coffers. We are like the herb which flourisheth most when it is most trampled on. Even this day’s pageant had not proceeded without the consent of the despised Jew, who furnished the means.”

“Daughter,” said Isaac, “thou hast harped upon another string of sorrow. The goodly steed and the rich armour, equal to the full profit of my adventure with our Kirjath Jairam of Leicester ⁠—there is a dead loss too⁠—ay, a loss which swallows up the gains of a week; ay, of the space between two Sabbaths⁠—and yet it may end better than I now think, for ’tis a good youth.”