The quality of mercy is not strained

¹

1. Mercy is something that has to be freely given; no one can force someone else to be merciful. (“Strained” is an old form of “constrained,” meaning “forced.”) From The Merchant of Veniceby William Shakespeare .

The quality of mercy is not strained

²

1. A line from the play The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare . Strained means “constrained,” or “forced”; the speaker is telling Shylock that mercy must be freely given, and is inviting him to show mercy to the title character .