is mind for
death. Then he said to Bassanio, "Give me your hand, Bassanio! Fare you
well! Grieve not that I am fallen into this misfortune for you. Commend
me to your honourable wife, and tell her how I have loved you!" Bassanio
in the deepest affliction replied, "Antonio, I am married to a wife, who
is as dear to me as life itself; but life itself, my wife, and all the
world, are not esteemed with me above your life: I would lose all, I
would sacrifice all to this devil here, to deliver you."

Portia hearing this, though the kind-hearted lady was not at all
offended with her husband for expressing the love he owed to so true a
friend as Antonio in these strong terms, yet could not help answering,
"Your wife would give you little thanks, if she were present, to hear
you make this offer." And then Gratiano, who loved to copy what his lord
did, thought he must make a speech like Bassanio's, and he said, in
Nerissa's hearing, who was writing in her clerk's dress by the side of
Portia, "I have a wife, whom I protest I love; I wish she were in
heaven, if she could but entreat some power there to change the cruel
temper of this currish Jew." "It is well you wish this behind her back,
else you would have but an unquiet house," said Nerissa.

Shylock now cried out impatiently, "We trifle time; I pray pronounce the
sentence." And now all was awful expectation in the court, and every
heart was full of grief for Antonio.

Portia asked if the scales were ready to weigh the flesh; and she said
to the Jew, "Shylock, you must have some surgeon by, lest he bleed to
death." Shylock, whose whole intent was that Antonio should bleed to
death, said, "It is not so named in the bond." Portia replied, "It is
not so named in the bond, but what of that? It were good you did so much
for charity." To this all the answer Shylock would make was, "I cannot
find it; it is not in the bond." "Then," said Portia, "a pound of
Antonio's flesh is thine. The law allows it, and the court awards it.
And you may cut this flesh from on his breast. The law allows it and the
court awards it." Again Shylock exclaimed, "O wise and upright judge! A
Daniel is come to judgment!" And then he sharpened his long knife again,
and looking eagerly on Antonio, he said, "Come, prepare!"

"Tarry a little, Jew," said Portia; "there is something else. This bond
here gives you no drop of blood; the words expressly are, 'a pound of
flesh.' If in the cutting off the pound of fle