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A messenger with letters from the doctor, New come from Padua.
DUKE. Bring us the letters; call the messenger.
BASSANIO. Good cheer, Antonio! What, man, courage yet! The Jew shall have my flesh, blood, bones, and all, Ere thou shalt lose for me one drop of blood.
ANTONIO. I am a tainted wether of the flock, Meetest for death; the weakest kind of fruit Drops earliest to the ground, and so let me. You cannot better be employ ' d, Bassanio, Than to live still, and write mine epitaph.
[ Enter NERISSA dressed like a lawyer ' s clerk.]
DUKE. Came you from Padua, from Bellario?
NERISSA. From both, my lord. Bellario greets your Grace.
[ Presents a letter.]
BASSANIO. Why dost thou whet thy knife so earnestly?
SHYLOCK. To cut the forfeiture from that bankrupt there.
GRATIANO. Not on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew,