Why does Antonio say that he is ready to die?

In act 4, scene 1, Portia, disguised as a lawyer, leads Shylock and Antonio to believe that Shylock has the right to cut out a pound of flesh at the site of Antonio's heart, which, of course, will kill Antonio. It is a dramatic moment. Portia asks Shylock if he has the scale to weight the flesh he is about to cut. Portia then asks Antonio if he has any last words.
Antonio, thinking he is about to die, uses his last words to comfort Bassanio. He loves Bassanio and does not want his friend to feel guilt that he might have caused Antonio's death by asking him for money. Antonio says he is ready to die because this is a way to spare Bassanio's feelings. Antonio wants to show Bassanio that he takes full responsibility for borrowing the money from Shylock.
To further comfort Bassanio, Antonio says his death is really a blessing in disguise. If Shylock doesn't kill him, he will face his old age in poverty, which would be a terrible fate. As he puts it:

Grieve not that I am fall'n to this for you,
For herein Fortune shows herself more kind
Than is her custom. It is still her use
To let the wretched man outlive his wealth,
To view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow
An age of poverty—from which lingering penance
Of such misery doth she cut me off.

Antonio shows his love in the way he is more determined to protect Bassanio from remorse than to worry about his own fate.


Antonio says that he is "arm'd and well prepared" for death. He demonstrates his love for Bassanio in his statement that he is glad to have been able to die in aid of his friend, rather than "outliv[ing] his wealth" and becoming wretched. He asks only that Bassanio "speak me fair in death," and says that he will pay the price to which he has agreed "with all my heart."
Naturally, this upsets Bassanio, who says that he esteems Antonio's life above that of his wife and, indeed, the whole world, but Antonio sees dying for Bassanio's happiness to be a worthy death, and one to which he has contractually agreed. Elsewhere, he says that he is "a tainted wether of the flock," meaning that he is a lesser man, the sort of low-hanging fruit which falls first. Again, he says that Bassanio cannot be better employed than in writing his friend a good epitaph. Antonio is arguing, out of love, that Bassanio is a better man than he is, and that he will willingly die for him.

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