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.
From Tales from Shakespeare
by Charles and Mary Lamb