Portia (The Merchant of Venice) Portia (The Merchant of Venice) Portia is the protagonist of William Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice". A rich, beautiful, and 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. If he chooses the right casket, he wins Portia's hand in marriage. If he chooses the incorrect casket, he must leave and never seek another woman in marriage. She is said to be blonde and has curly hair. As Bassanio says to Antonio in (Act I scene I), she is more beautiful than
The Merchant of Venice "The Merchant of Venice". His play "Shylock", first performed at the Théâtre de l'Odéon in December 1889, had incidental music by the French composer Gabriel Fauré, later incorporated into an orchestral suite of the same name. Ralph Vaughan Williams' choral work "Serenade to Music" (1938) draws its text from the discussion about music and the music of the spheres in Act V, scene 1. In both versions of the comic film "To Be or Not to Be" (1942 and 1983) the character "Greenberg", specified as a Jew in the later version, gives a recitation of the "Hath Not a Jew