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, opportune, importune, 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 
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.