Salarino says to the Jew:
"Why, I am sure if he forfeit, thou wilt not
Take his flesh; what's that good for?"
Shylock now begins to gloat over his prospect of a dire vengeance upon the Christian Antonio, and replies to Salarino:
"To bait fish withal; if it will feed nothing else,
It will feed my revenge!
Antonio hates me because I'm a Jew;
Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands;
Organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?
Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons,
Subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
Warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter,
As a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us do we not laugh? if you poison us
Do we not die? and if you wrong us shall we not revenge?
The villainy you teach me, I will execute!"
Tubal, the Hebrew friend of Shylock, says:
"But Antonio is certainly undone."
Shylock delighted says:
"That's true, that's very true.
Tubal, fee me an officer; bespeak him a fortnight before.
I will have the heart of Antonio if he forfeit the bond.
Go, Tubal, meet me at our synagogue."
Portia again appears for the third time to undergo matrimonial choice.
Bassanio, the particular friend of Antonio, is the real love suitor for the hand and heart of the beautiful Portia, and appears at her palace, attended by his faithful Venetian friends. He is a high-toned, but impecunious Italian gentleman, whose heart and soul are ninety per cent. larger than his pockets.