Bassanio would have paid it to him, but said Portia, "No! He shall have nothing but his bond."
"You, a foreigner," she added, "have sought to take the life of a Venetian citizen, and thus by the Venetian law, your life and goods are forfeited. Down, therefore, and beg mercy of the duke."
Thus were the tables turned, and no mercy would have been shown to Shylock, had it not been for Antonio. As it was, the money-lender forfeited half his fortune to the state, and he had to settle the other half on his daughter's husband, and with this he had to be content.
Bassanio, in his gratitude to the clever lawyer, was induced to part with the ring his wife had given him, and with which he had promised never to part, and when on his return to Belmont he confessed as much to Portia, she seemed very angry, and vowed she would not be friends with him until she had her ring again. But at last she told him that it was she who, in the disguise of the lawyer, had saved his friend's life, and got the ring from him. So Bassanio was forgiven, and made happier than ever, to know how rich a prize he had drawn in the lottery of the caskets.
PILGRIM'S PROGRESS _John Bunyan, the son of a man who mended broken kettles and pans, a tinker, was born in England in 1628. Though a wild lad, with little education, he married a splendid wife who changed the evil course of his life and interested him in religion.
This earnest, powerful, fighting Puritan preacher aroused his congregation so much and so often that the authorities put him in jail. Eight years before Bunyan's birth 74 Puritan men and 28 women, members of Dr. Robinson's church, escaped persecution by sailing in the Mayflower and landing at Plymouth Rock. For twelve years Bunyan was locked up in the little jail at the end of the bridge at Bedford. He made laces to support his family, and read the Bible and Fox's Book of Martyrs. Though an ignorant man, he became deeply religious.
Except the Bible, and possibly Shakespeare, probably no other book in the English language has been read by more people.
In the version here given the story has been condensed by omitting the less dramatic passages, but the author's text remains otherwise unchanged._
CHRISTIAN STARTS ON HIS JOURNEY
By John Bunyan