PORTIA.
You, merchant, have you anything to say?
ANTONIO.
But little. I am arm’d and well prepar’d.
Give me your hand, Bassanio. Fare you well,
Grieve not that I am fallen to this for you,
For herein Fortune shows herself more kind
Than is her custom: it is still her use
To let the wretched man outlive his wealth,
To view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow
An age of poverty, from which ling’ring penance
Of such misery doth she cut me off.
Commend me to your honourable wife,
Tell her the process of Antonio’s end,
Say how I lov’d you, speak me fair in death.
And when the tale is told, bid her be judge
Whether Bassanio had not once a love.
Repent but you that you shall lose your friend
And he repents not that he pays your debt.
For if the Jew do cut but deep enough,
I’ll pay it instantly with all my heart.
BASSANIO.
Antonio, I am married to a wife
Which is as dear to me as life itself,
But life itself, my wife, and all the world,
Are not with me esteem’d above thy life.
I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all
Here to this devil, to deliver you.
PORTIA.
Your wife would give you little thanks for that
If she were by to hear you make the offer.
GRATIANO.
I have a wife who I protest I love.
I would she were in heaven, so she could
Entreat some power to change this currish Jew.
NERISSA.
’Tis well you offer it behind her back,
The wish would make else an unquiet house.
SHYLOCK.
These be the Christian husbands! I have a daughter—
Would any of the stock of Barabbas
Had been her husband, rather than a Christian!
We trifle time, I pray thee, pursue sentence.
PORTIA.
A pound of that same merchant’s flesh is thine,
The court awards it and the law doth give it.
SHYLOCK.
Most rightful judge!
PORTIA.
And you must cut this flesh from off his breast.
The law allows it and the court awards it.