“Then this bond is forfeit,” said Portia. “And lawfully the Jew may claim a pound of flesh to be cut off him nearest the merchant’s heart. Shylock, take thrice thy money, and bid me tear the bond.”

“Take it, you muleheaded ninny!” came a shout from alarmingly close by and was followed by a great rise across the crowd of similar calls.

I looked at Jessica, who had her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide with dismay. “Slipped out,” she explained.

“ ‘Honor thy mother and thy father,’ doesn’t it say in your book?” I said.

“Aye, a full chapter after the first lesson of the Bible, which is ‘Don’t shag the bloody serpent,’ ” she said.

“Fair point, well made,” said I.

“Who is that?” asked Nerissa.

“She are Shylock’s daughter,” said Drool.

“She looks like a boy.”

“Aye,” said the oaf. “She’s a apprentice pirate.”

“What are you?”

“Apprentice fool.”

“She’s the voice you’ll use, Drool,” I whispered to the giant.

Out on the courtroom floor, Shylock pressed on: “No, Your Honor, you know the law and appear a worthy judge; proceed to judgment. By my soul, I swear, there is no power in the tongue of man to alter me. I stand here on my bond.”

“Idiot,” I whispered to my retinue.

Antonio stepped forward, jaw set. “Most heartily I beseech the court to give judgment, no word of man will turn the Jew.”

“So be it,” said Portia. “Prepare thy bosom for his knife.”

“Wise judge,” said Shylock. “Oh, excellent young man.”

“Bind him,” said Portia.

Antonio then seemed to lose whatever resolve he had found, because he began to faint. Iago and Bassanio caught him. Bailiffs brought in a chair, which was set in front of the dais. Gasps and shouts ranging from “Show mercy!” to “Damn the Jew devil!” rang through the crowd.

“Have you a scale to weigh the flesh?” asked Portia.

“I do,” said Shylock.

“And have you a surgeon to stanch the blood so he does not bleed to death?”

“I thought I’d just carve and see how it went,” said Shylock. “My daughter, she could have married a surgeon, and I would have one here. But no—punch in my heart—she is of her own mind. And so no.”

“So it is my fault if Antonio bleeds to death?” Jessica said. “That’s a squirming stein of squid spooge.”

“I adore you,” I said.

“Yeah, right, bugger off,” said the pirate Jess.

“Proceed then, Jew,” said Portia.

Bailiffs took Antonio and bound him to the chair, while he went on about loving Bassanio and how the boy shouldn’t feel bad that he was going to die, nor blame himself, that it was other forces, and his own doing, that caused it. Honestly, I wasn’t paying attention.

“What is Portia up to?” I asked Nerissa.

“I think she’d hoped to talk Shylock out of his revenge.”