Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/231

baffled rage, and Portia went on to say that if in cutting from Antonio’s breast he took more or less than one just pound, if the scale should turn but a hair’s weight more than the just due of flesh, Shylock’s own life was forfeit. No words can describe the joy of Antonio’s friends, or paint the rage of the baffled Shylock. He cried out that he would take then his three thousand ducats, and Bassanio was about to restore them when Portia interposed. She declared since they had been already refused, the Jew should not have the money,—he should have nothing but the bond. She then read the court an ancient law of Venice, which decreed that an alien, who directly or indirectly sought the life of a citizen, should as a punishment lose all his goods and estate, half of which should be given to the person against whom he had conspired, and the rest go to the coffers of the state. This would have been enforced on Shylock, had not Antonio begged the Duke’s mercy for the Jew, on condition that Shylock would sign a paper, giving to Lorenzo and Jessica all the wealth of which he might die possessed, and also that he would promise to receive baptism, and become a Christian. Both these things Shylock was forced to promise, but it was easy to see as he tottered from the council-hall that the broken-spirited old man would never outlive his baptism.