Portia

Play

The Merchant of Venice

Summary

Portia is the brilliant, witty, and wealthy heiress of Belmont, constrained by her dead father's will to accept only the suitor who chooses the correct casket from three of gold, silver, and lead. She is Shakespeare's most intellectually formidable comic heroine: when Bassanio wins her hand and Antonio's life is threatened by Shylock's bond, Portia disguises herself as the lawyer Balthasar and delivers a masterly courtroom performance that defeats Shylock on both legal and moral grounds. Her "quality of mercy" speech is among the most celebrated in Shakespeare.

Notable Quotations

"The quality of mercy is not strained; / It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven / Upon the place beneath." *(IV.i)*

"How far that little candle throws his beams! / So shines a good deed in a naughty world." *(V.i)*

"The brain may devise laws for the blood, but a hot temper leaps o'er a cold decree." *(I.ii)*

"If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches and poor men's cottages princes' palaces." *(I.ii)*

Cross-references

• The Merchant of Venice — the play
• Comedies — genre
• character_bassanio — her husband, who chooses the lead casket
• character_shylock — whose bond she defeats in the courtroom scene
• character_antonio_mov — whose life she saves
• character_gratiano — Bassanio's companion, who marries her lady Nerissa