How we cite our quotes: (Act.Scene.Line). Line numbers correspond to the Norton Shakespeare edition.
Quote #13
PORTIA
I pray you tarry; pause a day or two
Before you hazard; for, in choosing wrong,
I lose your company; therefore forbear a while.
There's something tells me—but it is not love—
I would not lose you; and you know yourself
Hate counsels not in such a quality.
But lest you should not understand me well—
And yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought—
I would detain you here some month or two
Before you venture for me. I could teach you
How to choose right, but then I am forsworn;
So will I never be; so may you miss me;
But if you do, you'll make me wish a sin,
That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes!
They have o'erlook'd me and divided me;
One half of me is yours, the other half yours—
Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours,
And so all yours. O! these naughty times
Puts bars between the owners and their rights;
And so, though yours, not yours. Prove it so,
Let fortune go to hell for it, not I. (3.2.1)
This is the first time we've seen Portia really tongue-tied. She's hesitant to admit she's in love, but she will say that hate never moved anybody the way she's being moved. For the first time, Portia is more than obediently committed to her father's wishes—love has driven her to consider her own feelings first. She would hate herself for defying her father, but she'd also hate herself if Bassanio lost the lottery. Bassanio has undone her strength, so now she feels the conflicting tug between love and good sense.
Our favorite heroine Rosalind, from As You Like It, figured out that love's tension is a wave that you've got to ride, not fight. Unlike Rosalind, Portia flips out and is feeling divided here. She babbles on about how she belongs to Bassanio, wants to share everything with him, and, implicitly, loves him, but we have no evidence that she's known him for any longer than a day. Just as debt was Bassanio's undoing, and Bassanio was Antonio's undoing, it seems this is the first time Portia has ever been thrown down by love. We suppose we'll have to forgive her naiveté.
Quote #14
PORTIA
[Aside] How all the other passions fleet to air,
As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embrac'd despair,
And shudd'ring fear, and green-ey'd jealousy!
O love, be moderate, allay thy ecstasy,
In measure rain thy joy, scant this excess!
I feel too much thy blessing. Make it less,
For fear I surfeit. (3.2.6)
Portia is again overcome with love, but this time she knows Bassanio will actually be her husband (since he's chosen the right casket), so she tries to temper her love and be a little more practical. We get the hint here that she'll sober up soon enough from the giddy state she was in at the beginning of the scene. As Graziano joked several quotes back, the gloss of new love wears off soon enough. Portia, a very reasonable woman, is already cautioning herself, trying to get her reason and moderation to overcome her passion.
Quote #15
PORTIA
You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,
Such as I am. Though for myself alone
I would not be ambitious in my wish
To wish myself much better, yet for you
I would be trebled twenty times myself,
A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich,
That only to stand high in your account
I might in virtues, beauties, livings, friends,
Exceed account. But the full sum of me
Is sum of something which, to term in gross,
Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractis'd;
Happy in this, she is not yet so old
But she may learn; happier than this,
She is not bred so dull but she can learn; (3.2.7)
Love makes us want to be better than we are. We don't like the fact Bassanio didn't come to woo Portia purely out of love, or that Portia wasn't able to choose her lover freely. But Portia's earnest sentiments here sway us to consider that love (at least hers) is real, not counterfeit.