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is best known to you: And though we have there a substitute of most allowed sufficiency, yet opinion, a sovereign mistress of effects, throws a more safer voice on you: you must therefore be content to slubber the gloss of your new fortunes with this more stubborn and boisterous expedition.

Oth. The tyrant custom, most grave senators,
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
My thrice-driven bed of down: I do agnize1
A natural and prompt alacrity,

I find in hardness; and do undertake
These present wars2 against the Ottomites,
Most humbly therefore bending to your state,
I crave fit disposition for my wife;

phorically to the heart, can only be used to express pain; that the poet might have said, pierced with grief, or pierced with plaints, &c. but that to talk of piercing a heart with consolatory speeches, is a catachresis: but the passage above quoted from Spenser's sixth Book shows that there is no ground for the objection. So also, in Marlowe's Tamburlaine, 1590, we find

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"Nor thee nor them, thrice noble Tamburlaine,

"Shall want my heart to be with gladness pierc'd." Malone. to slubber the gloss of your new fortunes-] To slubber, on this occasion, is to obscure. So, in the First Part of Feronimo, &c. 1605:

"The evening too begins to slubber day."

The latter part of this metaphor has already occurred in Macbeth: golden opinions

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"Which should be worn now in their newest gloss."

Steevens.

thrice driven bed of down:] A driven bed, is a bed for which the feathers are selected, by driving with a fan, which separates the light from the heavy. Johnson.

1

I do agnize - i. e. acknowledge, confess, avow. So, in A Summarie Report, &c. of the speaker relative to Mary Queen of Scots, 4to. 1586: " - a repentant convert, agnising her Maiesties great mercie" &c. Again, in the old play of Cambyses:

"The tenor of your princely will, from you for to agnize." In this instance, however, it signifies to know; as likewise in the following, from the same piece :

"Why so? I pray you let me agnize." Steevens.

It is so defined [i. e. to acknowledge] in Bullokar's English Expositor, 8vo. 1616. Malone.

2 These present wars-] The quarto, 1622, and the folio, by an error of the press, have-this present wars. For the emendation I am responsible. Malone.

Due reference of place, and exhibition ;3
With such accommodation, and besort,
As levels with her breeding.

Duke.

Be 't at her father's.

Bra.

If you please,

I'll not have it so.

Oth. Nor I.
Des.
To put my father in impatient thoughts,
By being in his eye. Most gracious duke,
To my unfolding lend a gracious ear;4
And let me find a charter in your voice,5
To assist my simpleness."

Nor I; I would not there reside,

Duke. What would you, Desdemona?

Des. That I did love the Moor to live with him, My downright violence and storm of fortunes?

3 I crave fit disposition for my wife;

Due reference of place, and exhibition; &c.] I desire, that proper disposition be made for my wife, that she may have precedency and revenue, accommodation and company, suitable to her

rank.

For reference of place, the old quartos have reverence, which Sir Thomas Hanmer has received. I should read:

Due preference of place,·

Johnson.

Exhibition is allowance. The word is at present used only at the universities.

So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona:

"What maintenance he from his friends receives,
"Like exhibition thou shalt have from me."

Again, in King Edward IV, by Heywood, 1626:

4

"Of all the exhibition yet bestow'd,

"This woman's liberality likes me best." Steevens.

Most gracious duke,

To my unfolding lend a gracious ear;] Thus the quarto, 1622. The folio, to avoid the repetition of the same epithet, reads-your prosperous ear; i. e. your propitious ear. Steevens.

5 a charter in your voice,] Let your favour privilege me.

Johnson.

6 To assist my simpleness.] The first quarto reads this as an unfinished sentence:

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7 My downright violence and storm of fortunes-] Violence is not violence suffered, but violence acted. Breach of common rules and obligations. The old quarto has scorn of fortune, which is perhaps » the true reading. Johnson.

May trumpet to the world; my heart's subdued,
Even to the very quality of my lord:9

8

The same mistake of scorn for storm had also happened in the old copies of Troilus and Cressida :

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as when the sun doth light a scorn,"

instead of a-storm.

I am also inclined to read-storm of fortunes, on account of the words that follow, viz. "May trumpet to the world." So, in King Henry IV, Part I:

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the southern wind

"Doth play the trumpet to his purposes."

I concur with Dr. Johnson in his explanation of the passage before us. Mr. M. Mason is of the same opinion, and properly observes, that by the storm of fortune, "the injuries of fortune" are not meant, "but Desdemona's high-spirited braving of her." Steevens.

8 my heart's subdued,

Even to &c.] So, in one of the Letters falsely imputed to Mary Queen of Scots: "- and my thoghtes are so willyngly subduit unto yours" &c. Steevens.

9 Even to the very quality of my lord:] The first quarto readsEven to the utmost pleasure, &c. Steevens.

Quality here means profession. "I am so much enamoured of Othello, that I am even willing to endure all the inconveniencies incident to a military life, and to attend him to the wars."-"I cannot mervaile, (said Lord Essex to Mr. Ashton, a Puritan preacher who was sent to him in the Tower,) though my protestations are not believed of my enemies, when they so little prevailed with a man of your quality."

That this is the meaning, appears not only from the reading of the quarto," my heart 's subdued, even to the utmost pleasure of my lord, i. e. so as to prompt me to go with him wherever he wishes I should go," but also from the whole tenour of Desdemoua's speech; the purport of which is, that as she had married a soldier, so she was ready to accompany him to the wars, and to consecrate her soul and fortunes to his honours, and his valiant part; i. e. to attend him wherever his military character and his love of fame should call him. Malone.

That quality here signifies the Moorish complexion of Othello, and not his military profession, is obvious from what immediately follows:

"I saw Othello's visage in his mind:"

and also from what the Duke says to Brabantio:

"If virtue no delighted beauty lack,

"Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.”

Desdemona, in this speech asserts, that the virtues of Othello had subdued her heart, in spite of his visage; and that, to his rank and accomplishments as a soldier, she had consecrated her soul and her fortunes. Henley.

I saw Othello's visage in his mind;1
And to his honours, and his valiant parts,
Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.
So that, dear lords, if I be left behind,
A moth of peace, and he go to the war,

The rites, for which I love him, are bereft me,
And I a heavy interim shall support

By his dear absence: Let me go with him.

Oth. Your voices, lords :2-beseech you, let her will

Have a free way.

Vouch with me, heaven,3 I therefore beg it not,

To please the palate of my appetite;

Nor to comply with heat, the young affects,

In my distinct and proper satisfaction;4

I saw Othello's visage in his mind;] It must raise no wonder, that I loved a man of an appearance so little engaging; I saw his face only in his mind; the greatness of his character reconciled me to his form. Johnson.

2 Your voices, lords:] The folio reads,-Let her have your voice.

Steevens. 3 Vouch with me, heaven,] Thus the second quarto and the folio.

These words are not in the original copy, 1622. 4 Nor to comply with heat, the young affects,

Steevens.

Malone.

In my distinct and proper satisfaction;] [Old copies-defunct.] As this has been hitherto printed and stopped, it seems to me a period of as stubborn nonsense as the editors have obtruded upon poor Shakspeare throughout his works. What a preposterous creature is this Othello made, to fall in love with and marry a fine young lady, when appetite and heat, and proper satisfaction, are dead and defunct in him! (For, defunct signifies nothing else, that I know of, either primitively or metaphorically:) But if we may take Othello's own word in the affair, he was not reduced to this fatal state:

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"Into the vale of years; yet that's not much."

Again, Why should our poet say, (for so he says as the passage has been pointed) that the young affect heat? Youth, certainly, has it, and has no occasion or pretence of affecting it. And, again, after defunct, would he add so absurd a collateral epithet as proper? But affects was not designed here as a verb, and defunct was not designed here at all. I have by reading distinct for defunct, rescued the poet's text from absurdity; and this I take to be the tenor of what he would say: "I do not beg her company with me, merely to please myself; nor to indulge the heat and affects (i. e. affections) of a new-married man, in my own distinct and proper satisfaction; but to comply with her in her request, and

But to be free and bounteous to her mind:

desire, of accompanying me." Affects for affections, our author in several other passages uses. Theobald.

Nor to comply with heat, the young affects

In my defunct and proper satisfaction:] i. e. with that heat and new affections which the indulgence of my appetite has raised and created. This is the meaning of defunct, which has made all the difficulty of the passage. Warburton.

I do not think that Mr. Theobald's emendation clears the text from embarrassment, though it is with a little imaginary improvement received by Sir Thomas Hanmer, who reads thus:

Nor to comply with heat affects the young

In my distinct and proper satisfaction.

Dr. Warburton's explanation is not more satisfactory: what made the difficulty will continue to make it. I read:

I beg it not,

To please the palate of my appetite,

Nor to comply with heat (the young affects
In me defunct) and proper satisfaction;

But to be free and bounteous to her mind.

Affects stands here, not for love, but for passions, for that by which any thing is affected. I ask it not, says he, to please appetite, or satisfy loose desires, the passions of youth which I have now outlived, or for any particular gratification of myself, but merely that I may indulge the wishes of my wife.

Mr. Upton had, before me, changed my to me; but he has printed young effects, not seeming to know that affects could be a noun. Johnson.

Mr. Theobald has observed the impropriety of making Othello confess, that all youthful passions were defunct in him; and Sir Thomas Hanmer's reading [distinct] may, I think, be received with only a slight alteration. I would read:

I beg it not,

To please the palate of my appetite,

Nor to comply with heat, and young affects,

In my distinct and proper satisfaction;

But to be &c.

Affects stands for affections, and is used in that sense by Ben Jonson, in The Case is Altered, 1609:

66 I shall not need to urge

"The sacred purity of our affects."

Again, in Love's Labour's Lost:

"For every man with his affects is born.”

Again, in The Wars of Cyrus, 1594:

"The frail affects and errors of my youth."

Again, in Middleton's Inner Temple Masque, 1619:

"No doubt affects will be subdu'd by reason."

There is, however, in The Bondman, by Massinger, a passage which seems to countenance and explain

the young affects

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