Commend me to your honourable wife:
Tell her the process of Antonio's end;
Say how I loved 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 presently 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, whom, 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 Barrabas
Had been her husband rather than a Christian!
[Aside]
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.
SHYLOCK Most learned judge! A sentence! Come, prepare!
PORTIA Tarry a little; there is something else.
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