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In Act III Scene 2 of The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare,
Portia : One half of me is yours, the other half yours. Mine own, I would say; but if mine then yours.
Roughly translated it means "One half of me is yours, and the other half—my own half, I’d call it—belongs to you too. If it’s mine, then it’s yours, and so I’m all yours."
Why doesn't Portia directly say that she totally belongs to Bassanio? Why take this "curved route" to end up at the same place?
First of all, let's take a look at the wider context around this line:
Beshrew your eyes,
They have o'erlook'd me and divided me;
One half of me is yours, the other half yours,
Mine own, I would say; but if mine, then yours,
And so all yours. O, these naughty times
Put bars between the owners and their rights!
And so, though yours, not yours.-- The Merchant of Venice, Act 3, Scene 2, Lines 14-20
She's already talking about being divided before she starts on the "one half yours" thing. I'm not completely sure what she means by being overlooked and divided, but presumably it's a reference to the way her father's will allows her only to marry a man who chooses the right casket. Thus, if she fell in love with anyone who didn't choose correctly, she would be divided between love and duty.
Thus, the concept of her being divided is already on the table, hence this particular roundabout way of "saying without saying" that she has feelings for him.
But why does she say it in such a roundabout way at all? Because she doesn't want to admit that she loves him. At this point, he hasn't "won" her yet by passing the Trial by Casket, so in some sense she isn't "allowed" to love him. Earlier on she says (lines 4-6, emphasis mine):
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.
She's denying, perhaps even to herself, that she loves him. She dares not admit it at this stage, for fear of having her heart broken if he chooses wrongly. Thus the convoluted and obfuscated language.
(Also, as someone mentioned in comments, it wouldn't be Shakespeare without some nice flowery verbiage!)
It will be hard to get anything from it on its own, you probably need to take a step back and see it compared to the rest of the scene, and really in contrast to the play.
There's a few points I'd put down if I was writing an essay on this. I'll bullet-point and explain. I'm currently in Year 9/Grade 8, and my English teacher always goes on about PEE paragraphs (Point Evidence Explanation). I will bullet point the points, the evidence is obviously the quote, and then I'll explain:
I'll start with what I think is the strongest point:
It shows he makes her whole
I think the biggest point here, would be that two halves make a whole. One half she has said already belongs to him, but now her own half does too, she is whole again. She is almost saying that he makes her whole. He brings her together.
And now a few other points:
It emphasises her love
If she had simply said "I'm all yours", that isn't as effective. By basically splitting herself in two, and saying that one half already belongs to him, but now the other does too, it shows how much she loves him.
It shows she is flustered
Portia is one of the characters who is a higher intellectual in the play. She is usually in control, quite calm and with the upper hand, but here, she is almost incoherent. It shows she is eager to express her feelings and that she can hardly find the right words to say. She interrupts and corrects herself a lot in the full speech which shows she is completely smitten with Bassanio. It's like she's a young girl asking someone out, and forgetting all her words and being completely flustered about the whole things.
It shows she is fully committed to Bassanio
She is almost granting him ownership of her. She is giving herself to him and this shows her trust and respect for him. She is willing to give everything that belongs to her to him. Only someone who truly and completely loves someone would do something like this.
Hope that helps.
I think Portia is willingly giving herself to Bassanio. She says that 'one half' of herself belongs to him, and the 'second half' (her share of herself) also belongs to him simply because she was his all along.
