The Merchant of Venice
The Merchant of Venice was a  written by dramatist William Shakespeare. 

In 2293, General  paraphrased lines from play, saying "Tickle us, do we not laugh? Prick us, do we not bleed? Wrong us, shall we not revenge?" while his Bird-of-Prey attacked the  over Khitomer. ()

In 2364, under the influence of polywater intoxication, Data used a slightly rephrased quote from the play to finish his explanation of his similarity to Humans saying, "I have pores. Humans have pores. I have fingerprints. Humans have fingerprints. My chemical nutrients are like your blood. If you prick me, do I not leak?" () 

In 2364 and 2367, several pages of this play from The Annotated Shakespeare were on display in Captain Jean-Luc Picard's ready room and quarters on the . () In 2370, pages from this play from the same book were on display in Data's quarters. ()

As Luther Sloan explained to Kimara Cretak in 2375 "The phrase 'never say die' was originally from a 19th century poem based on Shakespeare's 'Merchant of Venice'. It has since passed into the vernacular as an exhortation never to give up, no matter what the cost." ()

Appendices

Background information 
The identification of illustrations was made by Jörg Hillebrand and Bernd Schneider for Ex Astris Scientia.  Pages of this play were, also, seen in the episodes  and .

The poem to which Sloan refers is "The Merchant of Venice: A Legend of Italy" by .

The titles of  and  reference quotes from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.

According to Dark Mirror, the mirror universe version of the play by  contained a passage which began with the line, "The quality of mercy must be earned."

External links 
 
 
 Full text of The Merchant of Venice at The Literature Network
 Text of "The Merchant of Venice: A Legend of Italy" by Richard Harris Barham at PoemHunter.com
 

de:Der Kaufmann von Venedig
Merchant of Venice, The