But what if one of the other suitors should also have a noble heart whose pulses feed discernment, one as fine and unconventional as herself! There is just hazard enough to affront her cherishing of the absent Bassanio. She does not relish the moment when her heart, richer than the princes know of, goes into the lottery. However, when her father made his will, it doubtless occurred to her that his choice of metals came from a life's experience of the calibre of the average man, and was meant affectionately to protect her till the true gentleman should come. As Nerissa says, "Your father was ever virtuous; and holy men, at their death, have good inspirations; therefore, the lottery that he hath devised in these three chests, of gold, silver, and lead (whereof _who chooses his meaning_ chooses you) will, no doubt, never be chosen by any rightly but one whom you shall rightly love." Fortunate is the man who wins a wife because he chooses Heaven's meaning in a woman! Luckless the wife who is not chosen by some implied Heaven in a man! The written scrolls which are enclosed in the caskets show that her father anticipated acutely the ordinary motives of mankind. The suitors imagine that they are reflecting in a superior style as they give their reasons for taking to the gold or the silver; but they are realty biased by the common sentiment, as Portia sees:-- "Oh, these deliberate fools! When they do choose, They have the wisdom by their wit to lose." So one by one they slaughter themselves and clear the way. How Shakspeare's verse celebrates Bassanio's approach to Belmont? It is like a gracious prelude conceived by her secret preference, escaping to guide him to her where she lies under a spell which he must break. There enters a messenger, sumptuous in blank verse, like the tabard of a herald whose message is desired. "Madam, there is alighted at your gate A young Venetian, one that comes before To signify the approaching of his lord. ... I have not seen So likely an ambassador of love: A day in April never came so sweet, To show how costly summer was at hand, As this fore-spurrer comes before his lord." The lover has reached the enchanted palace, and is in haste to liberate its inmate. Portia might have said, with the antique grace that always clothes her speech, that he came to attack, like a new Perseus, those menacing metals which rivet her in reach of danger, to lift her passionately out of fetters. How she struggles not to show her love, and thus she shows it!-- "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."