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
Antonio: 'Have you anything to say?' Antonio 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: '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