1 Hawks and other birds are tamed by keeping them from sleep. To this Shakspeare alludes.-So in Cart-of the fondest and softest tenderness. It expresses the utwright's Lady Errant :

i. e. take his present atonement,' or submission.venant, in his Cruel Brother, uses the word twice with The words were formerly synonymous.

Oth. Certain, men should be what they seem.
Iago. Why, then, I think Cassio's an honest man.
Oth. Nay, yet there's more in this:

I pray thee, speak to me as to thy thinkings,

[As, I confess, it is my nature's plague
To spy into abuses and, oft, my jealousy
Shapes faults that are not,-I entreat you, then,
From one that so imperfectly conjects,
You'd take no notice? nor build yourself a trouble
Out of his scattering and unsure observance :
It were not for your quiet, nor your good,
Nor for my manhood, honesty, or wisdom,
To let you know my thoughts.
Oth.
What dost thou mean?
Iago. Good name, in man, and woman, dear my
lord,

Is the immediate jewel of their souls:

Who steals my purse, steals trash;" 'tis something, nothing:

'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thou-
sands:*

But he that filches from me my good name,
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.

Oth. By heaven, I'll know thy thought.
Iago. You cannot, if my heart were in your hand;
Nor shall not, whilst 'tis in my custody."
Oth. Ha!

Iago. O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;

As thou dost ruminate; and give thy worst of It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth make

As where's that palace, whereinto foul things
Sometimes intrude not? who has a breast so pure,
But some uncleanly apprehensions

Keep leets, and law-days, and in session sit
With meditations lawful?

Oth. Thou dost conspire against thy friend, Iago,
If thou but think'st him wrong'd, and mak'st his ear
A stranger to thy thoughts.
Iago.

I do beseech you,—
Though I, perchance, am vicious in my guess,

The meat it feeds on: That cuckold lives in bliss,
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger;
But, O, what damned minutes tells he o'er,
Who dotes, yet doubts; suspects, yet strongly loves!
Oth. O, misery!

Iago. Poor, and content, is rich and rich enough;
But riches, fineless, 10 is as poor as winter,
To him that ever fears he shall be poor:-
Good heaven, the souls of all my tribe defend
From jealousy!

Oth

Why! why is this?
Think'st thou, I'd make a life of jealousy,
To follow still the changes of the moon
With fresh suspicions? No: to be once in doubt,
Is-once to be resolv'd: Exchange me for a goat,
When I shall turn the business of my soul
To such exsufficate11 and blown surmises,

So

8 Nunc ager Umbreni sub nomine nuper Ofelli Dictus, erit nulli proprius; sed cedet in usum Nunc mihi, nunc alii.' Horat. Sat. lib. ii. 2.

1 Thus the earliest quarto. The first folio reads'close dilations. Which Johnson says was intended for cold delations, i. e. occult and secret accusations, working involuntary from the heart. The second folio in Camden's Remaines, 1605, p. 107:reads cold dilations, which Warburton explains Nunc mea, mox hujas, sed postea nescio cujus' 'cold, keeping back a secret,' which men of phlegmatic 9 The old copy reads mock. The emendation is constitutions, whose arts are not swayed or governed by Hanmer's. Steevens attempted to justify the old readtheir passions, we find can do: while more sanguine ing; but his arguments are not convincing; and the tempers reveal themselves at once, and without re-slight alteration of the text renders it much more clear, serve.' Upton says dilations comes from the Latin dilationes, delayings, pauses.

2 I believe the meaning is, would they might no longer seem or bear the shape of men.—Johnson. 3 I am not bound to do that rhich even slaves are not bound to do.' So in Cymbeline :

Every good servant does not all commands,
No bond but to do just ones."

--- No perfection is so absolute
That some impurity doth not pollute.'
Rape of Lucrece.

5 Who has so virtuous a breast that some impure conceptions and uncharitable surmises will not sometimes enter into it; hold a session there, as in a regular court, and bench by the side" of authorised and law. ful thoughts. In the poet's thirtieth sonnet we find the same imagery:

When to the sessions of sweet silent thoughts 1 summon up remembrance of things past.' A leet is also called a law day. This court, in whose manor soever kept, was accounted the king's court, and commonly held every half year,' it was a meeting of the hundred to certify the king of the good manners and government of the inhabitants,' &c.

elegant, and poetical, and has been so well defended by
Malone and others, that I have not hesitated to adopt it
The following passages have been adduced in con
firmation of Hanmer's reading. At the end of the third
Act, Desdemona remarks on Othello's jealousy :-
'Alas the day! I never gave him cause.'

To which Emilia replies:

But jealous fools will not be answer'd so,
They are not jealous ever for the cause,

But jealous, for they are jealous: 'tis a monster
Begot upon itself, born on itself?

10 i. e. endless, unbounded. Warburton observes that this is finely expressed-winter producing no fruits.

11 No instance of this word has elsewhere occurred. It appears to me to be intended to convey the meaning of whispered, or made out of breath. Sufflation is interpreted by Phillips, a puffing up, a making to swell with blowing. In Plautus we have, 'Suflant nescio quid uxore; which Cooper renders, He hath whispered somewhat in his wives eare, whatsoever it be. He also translates Rumoris nescio quid aface rat, a certain brute or rumour come to my hearing." Though I do not agree with the following explanation, I think it right to lay it before the reader :-It seems to me, (says Mr. Todd,) that all the critics have overlooked the meaning of the passage. Ersufficates may be traced to the low Latin exsuflare, to spit down upon, an ancient form of exorcising; and, figuratively, to spit out in abhorrence or contempt. See Du Cange, in v. exsufflare. Ersufficate may thus signify contemp 7 The sacred writings were perhaps in the poet's tible: and Othello may be supposed to mean, that he thoughts: A good name is rather to be chosen than would not change the noble designs, that then employed great riches, and loving favour than silver and gold.'--his thoughts, for contemptible and despicable surmises." Proverbs, xxii. 1.

6 i. e. conjectures. Thus the quarto 1622. The folio reads:

and of my jealousy

Shapes faults that are not, that your wisdom
From one that so imperfectly conceits,
Would take no notice.'

Johnson's Dict. in v. Exsuffolate.

Matching thy inference.' 'Tis not to make me | As my thoughts aim not at. Cassio's my worthy

jealous,

To say-my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company,
Is free of speech, sings, plays, and dances well;
Where virtue is, these are more virtuous :2
Nor from mine own weak merits will I draw
The smallest fear, or doubt of her revolt;
For she had eyes, and chose me: No, lago;
I'll see, before I doubt; when I doubt, prove;
And, on the proof, there is no more but this,-
A way at once with love, or jealousy.

Jago. I am glad of this, for now I shall have reason
To show the love and duty that I bear you
With franker spirit: therefore, as I am bound,
Receive it from me :-I speak not yet of proof.
Look to your wife; observe her well with Cassio;
Wear your eye-thus, not jealous, nor secure :
I would not have your free and noble nature,
Out of self-bounty, be abus'd; look to 't:
I know our country disposition well;
In Venice they do let heaven see the pranks
They dare not show their husbands; their best con-

I am to pray you not to strain my speech
To grosser issues, nor to larger reach,
Than to suspicion.

Oth. will not.
Iago.
Should you do so, my lord,
My speech should fall into such vile success?
I i. e. such as you have mentioned in describing the
torments of jealousy.

2 A passage in All's Well that Ends Well is perhaps
the best comment on the sentiments of Othello:
have those good hopes of her education promises: his
disposition she inherits; which makes fair gifts fairer.'
Gratior e pulchro veniens et corpore virtus.
3 Self bounty for inherent generosity.

friend :

My lord, I see you are mov'd.
Oth.

No, not much mov'd:-
I do not think but Desdemona's honest.
Iago. Long live she so! and long live you to

think so!

Oth. And yet, how nature erring from itself,Iago. Ay, there's the point :-As,-to be bold with you,

Not to affect many proposed matches,

Of her own clime, complexion, and degree;
Whereto, we see, in all things nature tends:
Foh! one may smell, in such, a will most rank,
Foul disproportion, thoughts unnatural.-
But pardon me; I do not, in position,
Distinctly speak of her: though I may fear,
Her will, recoiling to her better judgment,
May fall to match you with her country forms,
And (happily) repent.

Oth.

Farewell, farewell:
If more thou dost perceive, let me know more;
Set on thy wife to observe: Leave me, lago.
lago. My lord, I take my leave. [Going.
Oth. Why did I marry ?-This honest creature,
doubtless,

Sees and knows more, much more, than he unfolds.
Iago. My lord, I would, I might entreat your

honour

To scan this thing no further; leave it to time:
And though it be fit that Cassio have his place,
(For, sure, he fills it up with great ability,)
Yet, if you please to hold him off a while,
You shall by that perceive him and his means:
Note, if your lady strain his entertainment1o
With any strong or vehement importunity;
Much will be seen in that. In the mean time,
Let me be thought too busy in my fears,
(As worthy cause I have, to fear-I am,)
And hold her free, I do beseech your honour.
Oth. Fear not my government.11
Iago. I once more take my leave.
Oth. This fellow's of exceeding honesty,
And knows all qualities, with a learned spirit12
Of human dealings: If I do prove her haggard,"
Though that her jesses14 were my dear heart-strings,
I'd whistle her off, and let her down the wind,
To prey at fortune. Haply, for I am black;
And have not those soft parts of conversation
That chamberers have :-Or, for I am declin'd

[Exit.

13

10 i. e. press hard his readmission to his pay and office. Entertainment was the military term for the admission of soldiers.

11 Do not distrust my ability to contain my passion. 12 Learned for experienced. The construction is, 'He knows with an experienced spirit all qualities of human dealings."

4 This and the following argument of lago ought to be deeply impressed on every reader. Deceit and false- 13 Haggard is wild, and therefore libertine. A hag hood, whatever conveniences they may for a time pro-gard falcon was a wild hawk that had preyed for her. mise or produce, are in the sum of life obstacles to self long before she was taken; sometimes also called happiness. Those who profit by the cheat, distrust the a ramage falcon. From a passage in The White Dedeceiver, and the act by which kindness is sought puts vil, or Vittoria Corombona, 1612, it appears that hagan end to confidence.-The same objection may be gard was a term of reproach, sometimes applied to a made with a lower degree of strength against the im-icanton:- Is this your perch, you haggard? fly to the prudent generosity of disproportionate marriages. stews.' So in Shakerley Marmion's Holland's LeaWhen the first heat of passion is over, it is easily suc- guer, 1633: ceeded by suspicion, that the same violence of inclination, which caused one irregularity, may stimulate to another; and those who have shown that their passions are too powerful for their prudence, will, with very slight appearances against them, be censured, as not very likely to restrain them by their virtue.-Johnson. 5 An expression from falconry: to seel a hawk is to sew up his eyelids. Close as oak means as close as the grain of oak.

6 Issues for conclusions.

Before these courtiers lick their lips at her,
I'll trust a wanton haggard in the wind.'

Again :

For she is ticklish as any haggard,
And quickly lost.'

14 Jesses are short straps of leather tied about the foot of a hawk, by which she is held on the fist.-"The falconers always let fly the hawk against the wind; if she flies with the wind behind her, she seldom returns. If therefore a hawk was for any reason to be dismissed, 7 Success here means consequence or event; as suc-she was let down the wind, and from that time shifted resso, in Italian. So in Sidney's Arcadia, p. 39, ed. for herself and preyed at fortune.' This was told to 1613 Straight my heart misgave me some evil suc- Dr. Johnson by Mr. Clark. So in the Spanish Gipsie, cess!" And in The Palace of Pleasure:- Fearing 1053: les their case would sort to some pitiful successe.' 8 Will for inclination or desire. A rank will is a lustful inclination.

9 You shall discover whether he thinks his best means, his most powerful interest, is by the solicitation of your lady.'

That young lannerd (i. e. hawk)
Whom you have such a mind to; if you can whistle

her

To come to fist, make trial, play the young falconer,' 15 Men of intrigue. Chambering and wantonness are mentioned together in the Scriptures.

3 The generous islanders' are the islanders of rank, distinction: generosi, Lat. This explanation however (as Steevens observes) may be too particular; for generous also signified valiant, of a brave spirit.

4 In the north of England this term for a handkerchief is still used. The word occurs in Macbeth, Julius Cesar, and other of these plays.

5 That is, copied. Her first thoughts are to have a copy made of it for her husband, and restore the original to Desdemona: but the sudden coming in of lago, in a surly humour, makes her alter her resolution, to please him. The same phrase afterwards occurs between Cassio and Bianca, in Sc. iv.

This scheme of getting the work of this valued handkerchief copied, and restoring the original to Desdemona, was probably introduced by the poet to render Emilia less unamiable. It is remarkable that when she perceives Othello's fury on the loss of this token, though she is represented as affectionate to her mistress, she never attempts to relieve her from her distress; which she might easily have done by demanding the handker chief from her husband, or divulging the story if he refused to restore it. But this would not have served the plot.-In Cinthio's Novel, while the artless Desdemona is caressing the child of Othello's ancient, the villain steals the handkerchief which hung at her girdle without the knowledge of his wife.'--Malone.

This observation is very just; it is particularly striking in the representation; neither is the concluding

I found not Cassio's kisses on her lips:
He that is robb'd, not wanting what is stolen,
Let him not know it, and he's not robb'd at all.
Iago. I am sorry to hear this.

Oth. I had been happy, if the general camp,
Pioneers' and all, had tasted her sweet body,
So I had nothing known: O, now, for ever,
Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!
Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars,
That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!2
Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,3
The royal banner; and all quality,

Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!"
And, O, you mortal engines, whose rude throats
The immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit,
Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!
Iago. Is it possible!--My lord,-

I think my wife be honest, and think she is not;
I think that thou art just, and think thou art not;
I'll have some proof: Her name, that was as fresh
As Dian's visage, is now begrim'd and black
As mine own face.'-If there be cords, or knives,
Poison, or fire, or suffocating streams,
I'll not endure it.-'Would, I were satisfied!
Iago. I see, sir, you are eaten up with passion:
I do repent me, that I put it to you.
You would be satisfied!

Would you, the supervisor, grossly gape on?
Behold her tupp'd?

Oth.

Death and damnation! O!

Iago. It were a tedious difficulty, I think,
To bring them to that prospect: Damn them, then,

Oth. Villain, be sure thou prove my love a If ever mortal eyes do see them bolster,

whore ;

Be sure of it; give me the ocular proof;
[Taking him by the Throat.
Or, by the worth of mine eternal soul,"
Thou hadst been better have been born a dog,
Than answer my wak'd wrath.
Iago.
Is it come to this?
Oth. Make me to see it; or (at the least) so
prove it,

That the probation bear no hinge, nor loop,
To hang a doubt on: or, wo upon thy life!
Iago. My noble lord,——

.6

Oth. If thou dost slander her, and torture me,
Never pray more: abandon all remorse ;
On horror's head horrors accumulate:

Do deeds to make heaven weep, all earth amaz'd,
For nothing canst thou to damnation add,
Greater than that.

Iago.
O, grace, O, heaven, defend me!
Are you a man? have you a soul, or sense?
God be wi' you; take mine office.-O, wretched fool,
That liv'st to make thine honesty a vice!-
O, monstrous world! Take note, take note. O world,
To be direct and honest, is not safe.-
I thank you for this profit; and, from hence,
I'll love no friend, since love breeds such offence.
Oth. Nay, stay :-Thou should'st be honest.
Iago. I should be wise; for honesty's a fool,
And loses that it works for.

More than their own! What then? how then?
What shall I say? Where's satisfaction?
It is impossible you should see this,
Were they as prime as goats, as hot as monkeys,
As salt as wolves in pride, and fools as gross
As ignorance made drunk. But yet, I say,
If imputation, and strong circumstances,-
Which lead directly to the door of truth,-
Will give you satisfaction, you may have it.

Oth. Give me a living reason she's disloyal.
Iago. I do not like the office:

But, sith I am enter'd in this cause so far,-
Prick'd to it by foolish honesty and love,-
I will go on. I lay with Cassio lately;
And, being troubled with a raging tooth,
I could not sleep.

There are a kind of men so loose of soul,
That in their sleeps will mutter their affairs;
One of this kind is Cassio:

In sleep I heard him say,-Sweet Desdemona,
Let us be wary, let us hide our loves!
And then, sir, would he gripe and wring my hand,
Cry,-O, sweet creature! and then kiss me hard,
As if he pluck'd up kisses by the roots,
That grew upon my lips: then laid his leg
Over my thigh, and sigh'd, and kiss'd; and then
Cried,-Cursed fate, that gave thee to the Moor!
Oth. O, monstrous! monstrous!
Iago.
Nay, this was but his dream.
Oth. But this denoted a foregone conclusion;10
'Tis a shrewd doubt, though it be but a dream."

1 The vilest of the camp. Pioneers were generally degraded soldiers. According to the old ordinances of 1510, in which Henry VIII. was an actor, Holinshed war, a soldier who lost any part of his arms by negli-mentions the entry of a drum and fife, apparelled in gence or play, was to be distnissed with punishment, or white damaske and grene bonnettes; and at the Inner to be made some abject pioneer,' Temple celebration of Christmas (described by Leigh in his Accidence of Armory, 1576,) We entered the prince his hall, where anon we heard the noise of drum and fife. It will hardly be necessary to state that this note is abridged from one by Thomas Warton, whose passion for the spirit-stirring instruments to which it relates is upon record. The remainder of his note is an attempt to derive the word whiffler from riffieur, a fifer; but it is probable that it had another origin.

2 There are some points of resemblance btween this speech and the following lines in a poem of George Peele's. 'A Farewell to the Famous and Fortunate Generals of our English Forces, Sir John Norris and Sir Francis Drake, 1589 :

Change love for armes ; gyrt to your blades, my boyes: Your rests and muskets take, take helme and targe, And let god Mars his trumpet make you mirth, The roaring cannon, and the brazen trumpe, The angry-sounding drum, the whistling fife, The shriekes of men, the princelie courser's ney.' 3 In mentioning the fife joined to the drum, Shakspeare, as usual, paints from life; those instruments, accompanying each other, being used in his age by the English soldiery. The fife, however, as a martial instrument, was afterwards entirely discontinued among our troops for many years; but at length revived in the war before the last by the British guards under order of the duke of Cumberland, when they were encamped before Maestricht in 1747, and thence soon adopted into other English regiments of infantry. They took it from the allies with whom they served. This instrunient accompanying the drum is of considerable antiquity in the European armes, particularly the Germian. In a curious picture, painted 1525, in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, representing the siege of Pavia by the French King, we see fifes and drums. In the diary of King Henry's siege of Bolloigne, 1544, (Rymer, Foed. xv. p. 53,) mention is made of drommes and rifleurs marching at the head of the king's army. The drum and fife were also much used at shows and processions. At a stately masque on Shrove Tuesday,

4 Davenant in his Albovine, and Fletcher in his Prophetess, have each of them imitated this passage of Othello.

5 The quarto of 1522 reads, man's eternal soul.”— Perhaps an opposition was designed between man and dog.

6 i. e. all tenderness of nature, all pity; the sense in which remorse is most frequently used by Shakspeare. 7 A similar image is found in Marlowe's Lust's Dominion; where the Moor says:

Cardinal, this disgrace

Shall dye thy soul as inky as my face.'

8 So in Pericles :

If fires be hot, knives sharp, or waters deep, Untied I still my virgin knot will keep.'

9 A living reason is a reason founded on fact and experience, not on surmise and conjecture; a reason that convinces the understanding as perfectly as if the fact were exhibited to the life.

10 Some foregone conclusion is some former ex perience. Conclusion is used for experiment or trial in several other places of these plays.

11 The old quarto gives this line to Iago, as well as the two which follow; in the folio it is given to Othello