Portia (The Merchant of Venice) play, she disguises herself as a man, then assumes the role of a lawyer's apprentice (named Balthazar) whereby she saves the life of Bassanio's friend, Antonio, in court. In the court scenes, Portia finds a technicality in the bond, thereby outwitting Shylock and saving Antonio's life when everyone else including Antonio fails. It is Portia who delivers one of the most famous speeches in "The Merchant of Venice": Despite Portia's lack of formal legal training, she wins her case by referring to the details of the exact language of the law. Her success involves prevailing on technicalities rather than the
Lyman S. Ayres II (1913) Lyman II grew up in Indianapolis. At the age of twenty-one he replaced his middle name with the initial S. Lyman II graduated "cum laude" from Yale University. He served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy in the South Pacific during World War II. Lyman's grandfather, Lyman S. Ayres, a dry goods merchant from Oswego, New York, founded the L. S. Ayres retail department store in Indianapolis in 1872. Lyman II's father, Fred, was president of the family's department store business from 1896 until 1940. On September 22, 1934, Ayres married Isabel Ferguson, the daughter of Eliza and