Nerissa and Gratiano congratulate the lovers and announce that they also have made a match and ask permission to be married at the wedding ceremony of Portia and Bassanio. Portia agrees to the double wedding, and Gratiano boastfully wagers that he and Nerissa produce a boy before they do.
While the lovers are enjoying their happiness, Lorenzo, Jessica, and Salerio arrive. Salerio says that he has come with a letter from Antonio to Bassanio, and that he met Lorenzo and Jessica, whom he persuaded to come with him. As Portia welcomes her fiancé's old friends, Bassanio opens Antonio's letter. He reads it, and Portia notices that he has turned pale; the letter contains bad news. She begs him to share the cause of his anguish, and he tells her that he has just read "the unpleasant'st words / That ever blotted paper." He confesses that he is deeply in debt to "a dear friend" who in turn is in debt to a dangerous enemy. Turning to Salerio, Bassanio asks, "But is it true? . . . Hath all his ventures fail'd?" Has not a single one of Antonio's ships returned safely? Not one, Salerio replies, and besides, even if Antonio now had the money to repay Shylock it would do no good, for Shylock is already boasting of how he will demand "justice" and the payment of the penalty for the forfeited bond. Jessica testifies to her father's determination to "have Antonio's flesh" rather than accept "twenty times the value of the sum" that Antonio owes.
When Portia understands that it is Bassanio's "dear friend that is thus in trouble," she offers to pay any amount to prevent his suffering "through Bassanio's fault." But first, she and Bassanio will be married and then immediately afterwards he must go to Antonio's aid, "for never shall you lie by Portia's side / With an unquiet soul." In Bassanio's absence, she and Nerissa "will live as maids and widows." Bassanio then reads to Portia the full contents of Antonio's letter. Antonio says that he wishes only to see Bassanio before he dies; his plans "have all miscarried," he says; his "creditors grow cruel"; his "estate is very low"; and his "bond to the Jew is forfeit." Yet, Antonio says, all debts between him and Bassanio are "cleared," and he says that he wishes only "that I might but see you at my death." Portia comprehends the gravity of the situation. Bassanio must leave at once. "O love, dispatch all business, and be gone!" she tells him, as her newly bethrothed lover makes ready to leave for Venice.
