gment! O wise young
judge, how I do honour you! How much elder are you than your looks!"

Portia now desired Shylock to let her look at the bond; and when she
had read it, she said, "This bond is forfeited, and by this the Jew
may lawfully claim a pound of flesh, to be by him cut off nearest
Anthonio's heart." Then she said to Shylock, "Be merciful; take the
money, and bid me tear the bond." But no mercy would the cruel Shylock
shew; and he said, "By my soul I swear, there is no power in the
tongue of man to alter me."--"Why then, Anthonio," said Portia,
"you must prepare your bosom for the knife:" and while Shylock was
sharpening a long knife with great eagerness to cut off the pound of
flesh, Portia said to Anthonio, "Have you any thing to say?" Anthonio
with a calm resignation replied, that he had but little to say, for
that he had prepared his 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, "Anthonio, 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 Anthonio 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 Anthonio.

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