Portia

Portia is a female protagonist of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. A rich, beautiful, intelligent heiress of Belmont, she is bound by the lottery set forth in her father's will, which gives potential suitors the chance to choose among three caskets. She is shown to think little of various foreign noblemen of a similar rank. Instead she favours a young but impoverished Venetian noble, Bassanio, who is also a soldier and a scholar, who choose the right casket. Portia is also fond of wordplay and proverbs, frequently quoting and coining them, which was considered a sign of wisdom and sharp wit in Elizabethan era. Some suggest that the character of Portia was based on Queen Elizabeth herself, who also had a penchant for proverbs. The original Portia Shakespeare drew from was Porcia, Cato the Younger's daughter and wife of the Roman statesman Brutus, as well as several biblical allusions. Plot