But Portia begins her extraordinary (according to common law at least) judgment by deciding for the Jew in that, not having paid the principal sum, Antonio must suffer in the foreclosure of the mortgage, as it were, upon his person. This is against the letter of any known law, which gives an equity of redemption to the debtor in all such cases. Her next decision is, that the Jew has his election between the principal sum and the penalty, and that, with his election, not the law itself can interfere. This, again, is not law; for the law abhors a penalty, and even in a foreclosure will not allow the debtor to be mulcted in more than the face of his debt, interest, and costs. But now, having decided, against all law, for the Jew, Portia begins deciding for the Christian, and the first point she makes is that, when Shylock takes his pound, he must not take a hair's weight more or less, nor yet one ounce of blood. This, again, is clearly not law, since it is an eternal principle of jurisprudence that, when the law grants any thing it also grants everything that is necessary to the conversion of that thing to possession (as, when it grants a farm, it likewise tacitly grants a right of way to that farm). So, if Shylock had had any title to his pound of flesh, he would certainly have had a title to draw as much blood as it was absolutely necessary to draw in cutting out that pound, and such portions of flesh over and above a pound as it would be absolutely necessary to cut out, providing the cutting out was done by a skillful operator and not a bungler. Astounded at this turn of the tide, Shylock deliberates, and finally cries, "Well, give me my principal and let me go!" Portia thereupon renders her fourth decision, which is the most astounding of all--namely, that, having once refused a tender of the money in open court, the Jew is not entitled to change his mind and take it! Since the days of Moses-- certainly since the days of Littleton--a tender has never quite destroyed a debt, but only the interest and costs accruing upon it, after the tender! Such a glaring and high- handed sacrifice of common law and common sense to stage effect might have been conceived of by a manager anxious for the plaudits and pence of a crowded house, scarcely by a future lord chancellor of England.