him. Pardon me, good lady; had you
been there, I think you would have begged the ring of me to give the
worthy doctor.'

'Ah!' said Antonio, 'I am the unhappy cause of these quarrels.'

Portia bid Antonio not to grieve at that, for that he was welcome
notwithstanding; and then Antonio said: 'I once did lend my body for
Bassanio's sake; and but for him to whom your husband gave the ring, I
should have now been dead. I dare be bound again, my soul upon the
forfeit, your lord will never more break his faith with you.' 'Then you
shall be his surety,' said Portia; 'give him this ring, and bid him
keep it better than the other.'

When Bassanio looked at this ring, he was strangely surprised to find
it was the same he gave away; and then Portia told him how she was the
young counsellor, and Nerissa was her clerk; and Bassanio found, to his
unspeakable wonder and delight, that it was by the noble courage and
wisdom of his wife that Antonio's life was saved.

And Portia again welcomed Antonio, and gave him letters which by some
chance had fallen into her hands, which contained an account of
Antonio's ships, that were supposed lost, being safely arrived in the
harbour. So these tragical beginnings of this rich merchant's story
were all forgotten in the unexpected good fortune which ensued; and
there was leisure to laugh at the comical adventure of the rings, and
the husbands that did not know their own wives Gratiano merrily
swearing, in a sort of rhyming speech, that

... while he lived, he'd fear no other thing
So sore, as keeping safe Nerissa's ring.

CYMBELINE

During the time of Augustus Caesar, emperor of Rome, there reigned in
England (which was then called Britain) a king whose name was Cymbeline.

Cymbeline's first wife died when his three children (two sons and a
daughter) were very young. Imogen, the eldest of these children, was
brought up in her father's court; but by a strange chance the two sons
of Cymbeline were stolen out of their nursery, when the eldest was but
three years of age, and the youngest quite an infant; and Cymbeline
could never discover what was become of them, or by whom they were
conveyed away.

Cymbeline was twice married: his second wife was a wicked, plotting
woman, and a cruel stepmother to Imogen, Cymbeline's daughter by his
first wife.

The queen, though she hated Imogen, yet wished her to marry a son of
her own by a former husband (she also having been twice marr