Note 98 — III.
Reading edition
Shakespeare would certainly never have chosen this name had he been forced to retain the Roman spelling. Like Perdita, "lost lady," or "Cordelia," "heart-lady," Portia is "fortune-lady." The two great relative groups of words, Fortune, fero, and fors—Portio, porto, and pars (with the lateral branch, op-portune, im-portune, opportunity, etc.), are of deep and intrinsic significance; their various senses of bringing, abstracting, and sustaining, being all centralized by the wheel (which bears and moves at once), or still better, the ball (spera) of Fortune,—"Volve sua spera, e beata si gode:" the motive power of this wheel distinguishing its goddess from the fixed majesty of Necessitas with her iron nails; or ἀνάγκη, with her pillar of fire and iridescent orbits, fixed at the centre. Portus and porta, and gate in its connexion with gain, form another interesting branch group; and Mors, the concentration of delaying, is always to be remembered with Fors, the concentration of bringing and bearing, passing on into Fortis and Fortitude.