Page:Stories from Old English Poetry-1899.djvu/211





EVERAL hundred years ago, when the kingdom of Italy contained many proud and prosperous commercial states, only a few days sail from the city of Venice there lived a very famous and wealthy heiress. She dwelt in a magnificent palace, built on a strongly fortified island, and kept there the state and grandeur of a queen. This heiress, who was named Portia, was very beautiful, and one of the most intellectual women of the age. She was not only skilled in the working of tapestry and all sorts of exquisite embroidery, with which women ordinarily filled up their time, but she was a rare musician, an accomplished scholar, learned in the arts and sciences, and well read in Venetian laws and history.

Portia was of that rare type of Venetian beauty which Titian has made famous in his pictures. Fair as the fairest of Northern wonen, her fleecy golden hair fell in wavy masses