Ivanhoe

CHAPTER VI

1 (p. 62) epigraph: The lines are from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (act 1, scene 3).

2 (p. 76) misery of Lazarus: It would be unlikely for a medieval Jew to refer to the New Testament (Luke 16:20-21), the parable of the poor man at the rich man’s gate. A further irony is that Isaac more resembles the rich man in the story than the beggar.

3 (p. 79) the Jews of this period: Scott significantly underplays the extent of persecution of the Jews at this time. Brought to England with the Normans, they were given royal protection by the Conqueror in return for enormous loans, but their situation in England deteriorated significantly under Richard I, whose coronation day itself was marred by pogroms. Isaac and Rebecca’s departure at the end of the novel is an implicit signal of how intolerable the combination of extortion and violence had become for the Jews in twelfth-century England. They were officially expelled in 1290 by Edward I and not readmitted until 1655.

4 (p. 80) the host of the Pharoah: Isaac recalls the biblical account of the fate of Pharoah’s army at the crossing of the Red Sea in Exodus 14:25.