In night, and on the court and guard of safety In night, and on the court and guard of safety!] Thus the old copies. Mr. Malone reads: In night, and on the court of guard and safety! Steevens. These words have undoubtedly been transposed by negligence at the press. For this emendation, of which I am confident every reader will approve, I am answerable. The court of guard was the common phrase of the time for the guard room. It has already been used by lago in a former scene; and what still more strongly confirms the emendation, Iago is there speaking of Cassio, and describing him as about to be placed in the very station where he now appears : "The lieutenant to-night watches on the court of guard." Again, in Antony and Cleopatra: "If we be not reliev'd within this hour, "We must return to the court of guard." The same phrase occurs in Sir John Oldcastle, 1600, and in many other old plays. A similar mistake has happened in the present scene, where in the original copy we find : "Have you forgot all place of sense and duty?" instead of all sense of place and duty? I may venture to assert with confidence, that no editor of Shakspeare has more sedulously adhered to the ancient copies than I have done, or more steadily opposed any change grounded merely on obsolete or unusual phraseology. But the error in the present case is so apparent, and the phrase, the court of guard, so established by the uniform usage of the poets of Shakspeare's time, that not to have corrected the mistake of the compositor in the present instance, would in my apprehension have been unwarrantable. If the phraseology of the old copies had merely been unusual, I should not have ventured to make the slightest change but the frequent occurrence of the phrase, the court of guard, in all our old plays, and that being the word of art, leave us not room to entertain a doubt of its being the true reading. Mr. Steevens says, a phraseology as unusual occurs in A Midsummer Night's Dream; but he forgets that it is supported by the usage of contemporary writers. When any such is produced in support of that before us, it ought certainly to be attended to. I may add, that the court of safety may in a metaphorical sense be understood; but who ever talked of the guard [i. e. the safety of safety? Malone. As a collocation of words, as seemingly perverse, occurs in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and is justified there, in the following instance : "I shall desire you of more acquaintance;" I forbear to disturb the text under consideration. If Safety, like the Roman Salus, or Recovery in King Lear, be personified, where is the impropriety of saying-under the guard of Safety? Thus, Plautus, in his Captivi: Neque jam servare Salus, si vult, me potest." Mr. Malone also appears to forget that, on a preceding occa 'Tis monstrous.7-Iago, who began it? Mon. If partially affin'd, or leagu'd in office," Thou dost deliver more or less than truth, Thou art no soldier. Iago. Touch me not so near: I had rather have this tongue cut from my mouth,1 There comes a fellow, crying out for help; The town might fall in fright: he, swift of foot, More of this matter can I not report : sion, he too has left an unexemplified and very questionable phrase, in the text of this tragedy, hoping, we may suppose, (as I do) that it will be hereafter countenanced by example. See p. 272, n. 1. Steevens. 7 'Tis monstrous.] This word was used as a trisyllable, as if it were written monsterous. Malone. 8 If partially affin'd,] Affin'd is bound by proximity of relationship; but here it means related by nearness of office. In the first scene it is used in the former of these senses: 9 "If I, in any just term, am affin'd "To love the Moor." Steevens. leagu'd in office,] Old copies-league. Corrected by Mr. Pope. Malone. 1 cut from my mouth,] Thus the folio. The quarto, 1622, reads-this tongue out from my mouth. Malone. 2 And Cassio following him-] The word him in this line seems to have crept into it from the compositor's eye glancing on that below. Malone. But men are men; the best sometimes forget:- From him that fled, some strange indignity, Oth. I know, Iago, Thy honesty and love doth mince this matter, Enter DESDEMONA, attended. Look, if my gentle love be not rais'd up;— I'll make thee an example. Des. What's the matter, dear? Oth. All's well now, sweeting;3 Come away to bed. Sir, for your hurts, Myself will be your surgeon: Lead him off.4 [To MON. who is led off. Iago, look with care about the town; And silence those whom this vile brawl distracted.— To have their balmy slumbers wak'd with strife. [Exeunt all but IAGO and CASSIO. Iago. What, are you hurt, lieutenant ? Cas. Ay, past all surgery. Iago. Marry, heaven forbid! Cas. Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part, sir, of myself, and what remains is bestial.-My reputation, Iago, my reputation. Iago. As I am an honest man, I thought you had received some bodily wound; there is more offence in that, than in reputation.5 Reputation is an idle and most false 3 sweeting;] This surfeiting vulgar term of fondness originates from the name of an apple distinguished only by its insipid sweetness. Steevens. 4 Lead him off] I am persuaded, these words were originally a marginal direction. In our old plays all the stage-directions were couched in imperative terms:-Play musick-Ring the Bell. -Lead him off. Malone. 5 there is more offence &c.] Thus the quartos. The folio reads-there is more sense, &c. Steevens. imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving: You have lost no reputation at all, unless you repute yourself such a loser. What, man! there are ways to recover the general again: You are but now cast in his mood, a punishment more in policy than in malice; even so as one would beat his offenceless dog, to affright an imperious lion: sue to him again, and he 's yours, Cas. I will rather sue to be despised, than to deceive so good a commander, with so slight, so drunken, and so indiscreet an officer. Drunk? and speak parrot? and squabble? swagger? swear? and discourse fustian with one's own shadow?-O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call theedevil! Iago. What was he that you followed with your sword? What had he done to you? Cas. I know not. Iago. Is it possible? Cas. I remember a mass of things, but nothing distinctly; a quarrel, but nothing wherefore.-O, that men should put an enemy in their mouths, to steal away their brains! that we should, with joy, revel, pleasure, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts! Iago. Why, but you are now well enough; How came you thus recovered? Cas. It hath pleased the devil, drunkenness, to give place to the devil, wrath: one unperfectness shows me another, to make me frankly despise myself. Iago. Come, you are too severe a moraler: As the 6 cast in his mood,] Ejected in his anger. Johnson. 7 so slight,] Thus the folio. The quarto, 1622, reads— so light. Malone. 8 and speak parrot?] A phrase signifying to act foolishly and childishly. So, Skelton: “These maidens full mekely with many a divers flour, So, in Lyly's Woman in the Moon, 1597: "Thou pretty parrot, speak a while." These lines are wanting in the first quarto. Steevens. From Drunk, &c. to shadow, inclusively, is wanting in the quarto, 1622. By "speak parrot," surely the poet meant, "talk idly," and not, as Dr. Warburton supposes, 66 act foolishly." Malone. time, the place, and the condition of this country stands, I could heartily wish this had not befallen; but, since it is as it is, mend it for your own good. Cas. I will ask him for my place again; he shall tell me, I am a drunkard! Had I as many mouths as Hydra, such an answer would stop them all. To be now a sensible man, by and by a fool, and presently a beast! O strange! -Every inordinate cup is unblessed, and the ingredient is a devil. Iago. Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well used; exclaim no more against it. And, good lieutenant, I think, you think I love you. Cas. I have well approved it, sir.—I drunk! Iago. You, or any man living, may be drunk at some time, man. I'll tell you what you shall do. Our general's wife is now the general;-I may say so in this respect, for that he hath devoted and given up himself to the contemplation, mark, and denotement of her parts and graces-confess yourself freely to her; importune her; she 'll help to put you in your place again: she is of so free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition, that she holds it a vice in her goodness, not to do more than she is requested: This broken joint, between you and her husband, entreat her to splinter; and, my fortunes against any lay2 worth naming, this crack of your love shall grow stronger than it was before. 9 for that he hath devoted and given up himself to the contemplation, mark, and denotement of her parts and graces:] [Old copies-devotement.] I remember, it is said of Antony, in the beginning of his tragedy, that he who used to fix his eyes altogether on the dreadful ranges of war: 66 now bends, now turns, "The office and devotion of their view "Upon a tawny front." This is finely expressed; but I cannot persuade myself that our poet would ever have said, any one devoted himself to the devotement of any thing. All the copies agree; but the mistake certainly arose from a single letter being turned upside down at press. Theobald. The same mistake has happened in Hamlet, and in several other places. See Vol. III, p. 140, n. 5. Malone. 1 This broken joint,] Thus the folio. The original copy reads-This brawl. Malone. 2 any lay] i. e. any bet, any wager. Ritson. So, in Cymbeline: "I will have it no lay." Steevens. |