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. 
    This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood;
    The words expressly are, a pound of flesh: 
    But, in the cutting it, if thou dost shed
    One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods
    Are, by the laws of Venice, confiscate
    Unto the state of Venice.

GRATIANO.  O upright judge!—­Mark, Jew;—­O learned judge!

SHYLOCK.  Is that the law?

PORTIA.  Thyself shall see the act;
    For, as thou urgest justice, be assur’d,
    Thou shalt have justice, more than thou desir’st.

GRATIANO.  O learned judge,—­Mark, Jew;—­a learned judge!

SHYLOCK.  I take this offer then,—­pay the bond thrice,
    And let the Christian go.

BASSANIO.  Here is the money.

PORTIA.  Soft;
    The Jew shall have all justice;—­soft;—­no haste;—­
    He shall have nothing but the penalty.

GRATIANO.  O Jew!  An upright judge, a learned judge!

PORTIA.  Therefore, prepare thee to cut off the flesh. 
    Shed thou no blood; nor cut thou less, nor more,
    But just a pound of flesh:  if thou tak’st more,
    Or less, than a just pound,—­be it but so much
    As makes it light, or heavy, in the substance,
    Or the division of the twentieth part
    Of one poor scruple,—­nay, if the scale do turn
    But in the estimation of a hair,—­
    Thou diest, and all thy goods are confiscate.

GRATIANO.  A second Daniel, a Daniel, Jew! 
    Now, infidel, I have thee on the hip.

PORTIA.  Why doth the Jew pause?  Take thy forfeiture.

SHYLOCK.  Give me my principal, and let me go.

BASSANIO.  I have it ready for thee; here it is.

PORTIA.  He hath refus’d it in the open court;
    He shall have merely justice, and his bond.

GRATIANO.  A Daniel, still say I; a second Daniel! 
    I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word.

SHYLOCK.  Shall I not have barely my principal?

PORTIA.  Thou shalt have nothing but the forfeiture,
    To be so taken at thy peril, Jew.”

So, seeing himself beaten on all points, the Jew would leave the court.  But not yet is he allowed to go.  Not until he has been fined for attempting to take the life of a Venetian citizen, not until he is humiliated, and so heaped with disgrace and insult that we are sorry for him, is he allowed to creep away.

The learned lawyer is loaded with thanks, and Bassanio wishes to pay him nobly for his pains.  But he will take nothing; nothing, that is, but the ring which glitters on Bassanio’s finger.  That Bassanio cannot give—­it is his wife’s present and he has promised never to part with it.  At that the lawyer pretends anger.  “I see, sir,” he says:—­