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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. I do beseech you,

Iago.

Though I, perchance, am vicious in my guess,

"When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

"I summon up remembrance of things past."

"A leet," says Bullokar, in his English Expositor, 1616, "is a court or law-day, holden commonly every half year." To keep a leet was the verbum juris; the title of one of the chapters in Kitchin's book on Courts, being, "The manner of keeping a court-leet." The leet, according to Lambard, was a court or jurisdiction above the wapentake or hundred, comprehending three or four hundreds. The jurisdiction of this court is now in most places merged in that of the County Court. Malone.

I do beseech you,

Though I, perchance, am vicious in my guess,] Not to mention that, in this reading, the sentence is abrupt and broken, it is likewise highly absurd. I beseech you give yourself no uneasiness from my unsure observance, though I am vicious in my guess. For his being an ill guesser was a reason why Othello should not be uneasy: in propriety, therefore, it should either have been, though I am not vicious, or because I am vicious. It appears then we should read:

1 do beseech you,

Think, I perchance, am vicious in my guess,

Which makes the sense pertinent and perfect. Warburton. That abruptness in the speech which Dr. Warburton complains of, and would alter, may be easily accounted for. Iago seems desirous by this ambiguous hint, Though I-to inflame the jealousy of Othello, which he knew would be more effectually done in this manner, than by any expression that bore a determinate meaning. The jealous Othello would fill up the pause in the speech, which Iago turns off at last to another purpose, and find a more certain cause of discontent, and a greater degree of torture arising from the doubtful consideration how it might have concluded, than he could have experienced had the whole of what he enquired after been reported to him with every circumstance of aggravation.

We may suppose him imagining to himself, that Iago mentally continued the thought thus, Though I--know more than I choose to speak of.

Vicious in my guess does not mean that he is an ill guesser, but that he is apt to put the worst construction on every thing he attempts to account for.

Out of respect for the subsequent opinions of Mr. Henley and Mr. Malone, I have altered my former regulation of this passage; though I am not quite convinced that any change was needful. Steevens.

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,

I believe nothing is here wanting, but to regulate the punctuation:

Iago. I do beseech you

Though I, perchance, am vicious in my guess,

As, I confess, it is my nature's plague

To spy into abuses; and, oft, my jealousy

Shapes faults that are not, &c. Henley.

The reader should be informed, that the mark of abruption which I have placed after the word you, was placed by Mr. Steevens after the word perchance: and his note, to which I do not subscribe, is founded on that regulation. think the poet intended that Iago should break off at the end of the first hemistich, as well as in the middle of the fifth line. What he would have added, it is not necessary very nicely to examine..

The adversative particle, though, in the second line, does not indeed appear very proper; but in an abrupt and studiously clouded sentence like the present, where more is meant to be conveyed than meets the ear, strict propriety may well be dispensed with. The word perchance, if strongly marked in speaking, would sufficiently show that the speaker did not suppose himself vicious in his guess.

By the latter words, Iago, I apprehend, means only, "though I perhaps am mistaken, led into an error by my natural disposition, which is apt to shape faults that have no existence."

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Malone.

I entreat you then, &c.] 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. Malone.

To conject, i. e. to conjecture, is a word used by other writers. So, in Acolastus, a comedy, 1540:

Again:

"Now reason I, or conject with myself."

"I cannot forget thy saying, or thy conjecting words."

Steevens.

Is the immediate jewel of their souls:

Who steals my purse, steals trash; 'tis something, no

thing;1

'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands; 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;

It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mock
The meat it feeds on:2 That cuckold lives in bliss,

1 Good name, in man, and woman, dear my lord,

Is the immediate jewel of their souls:

Who steals my purse, steals trash; &c.] The sacred writings were here perhaps in our poet's thoughts: "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour than silver and gold." Proverbs, ch. xxii, v. 1. Malone.

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The meat it feeds on;] i. e. loaths that which nourishes and sustains it. This being a miserable state, Iago bids him beware of it. The Oxford editor reads:

which doth make

The meat it feeds on.

Implying that its suspicions are unreal and groundless, which is the very contrary to what he would here make his general think, as appears from what follows:

That cuckold lives in bliss, &c.

In a word, the villain is for fixing him jealous: and therefore bids him beware of jealousy, not that it was an unreasonable, but a miserable state; and this plunges him into it, as we see by his reply, which is only:

"O misery!" Warburton.

I have received Hanmer's emendation; because to mock, does not signify to loath; and because, when Iago bids Othello beware of jealousy, the green-ey'd monster, it is natural to tell why he should beware, and for caution he gives him two reasons, that jealousy often creates its own cause, and that, when the causes are real, jealousy is misery. Johnson.

In this place, and some others, to mock seems the same with to mammock. Farmer.

If Shakspeare had written—a green-ey'd monster, we might have supposed him to refer to some creature existing only in his particular imagination; but the green-ey'd monster seems to have reference to an object as familiar to his readers as to himself.

It is known that the tiger kind have green eyes, and always

Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger;

play with the victim to their hunger, before they devour it. So, in our author's Tarquin and Lucrece:

"Like foul night-waking cat, he doth but dally,

"While in his hold-fast foot the weak mouse panteth -" Thus, a jealous husband, who discovers no certain cause why he may be divorced, continues to sport with the woman whom he suspects, and, on more certain evidence, determines to punish. There is no beast that can be literally said to make its own food, and therefore I am unwilling to receive the emendation of Sir Thomas Hanmer, especially as I flatter myself that a glimpse of meaning may be produced from the old reading.

One of the ancient senses of the verb-to mock, is to amuse, to play with. Thus, in A Discourse of Gentlemen lying in London that were better keep House at Home in their Country, 1593: "A fine deuise to keepe poore Kate in health, "A pretty toy to mock an ape withal."

i. e. a pretty toy to divert an ape, for an ape to divert himself with. The same phrase occurs in Marston's Satires, the ninth of the third Book being intitled " Here's a toy to мOCKE an ape," &c. i. e. afford an ape materials for sport, furnish him with a plaything, though perhaps at his own expense, as the phrase may in this instance be ironically used.

In Antony and Cleopatra, the contested word-mock, occurs again:

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"He mocks the pauses that he makes."

i. e. he plays wantonly with those intervals of time which he should improve to his own preservation.

Should such an explanation be admissible, the advice given by fago will amount to this ;-Beware, my lord, of yielding to a passion which as yet has no proofs to justify its excess. Think how the interval between suspicion and certainty must be filled. Though you doubt her fidelity, you cannot yet refuse her your bed, or drive her from your heart; but, like the capricious savage, must continue to sport with one whom you wait for an opportunity to destroy. A similar idea occurs in All's Well that Ends Well:

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But, O, what damned minutes tells he o'er,

but yet

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what damned minutes tells he o'er," &c. is the best illustration of my attempt to explain the passage. To produce Sir Thomas Hanmer's meaning, a change in the text is necessary. I am counsel for the old reading. Steevens.

It is so difficult, if not impossible, to extract any sense from this passage as it stands, even by the most forced construction of it, and the slight amendment proposed by Hanmer, renders it so clear, elegant, and poetical, that I am surprized the editors should hesitate in adopting it, and still more surprized they should reject it. As for Steevens's objection, that the definite article is used, not the indefinite, he surely need not be told in the very last of these plays, that Shakspeare did not regard such minute inaccuracies, which may be found in every play he wrote.

When Steevens compares the jealous man, who continues to sport with the woman he suspects, and is determined to destroy, to the tiger who plays with the victim of his hunger, he forgets that the meat on which jealousy is supposed to feed, is not the woman who is the object of it, but the several circumstances of suspicion which jealousy itself creates, and which cause and nourish it. So Emilia, at the end of the third Act in answer to Desdemona, who, speaking of Othello's jealousy, says: "Alas the day! I never gave him cause;"

replies,

"But jealous fools will not be answer'd so,

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They are not jealous ever for the cause,

"But jealous, for they are jealous; 'tis a monster
"Begot upon itself, born on itself."

This passage is a strong confirmation of Hanmer's reading. The same idea occurs in Massinger's Picture, where Matthias, speaking of the groundless jealousy he entertained of Sophia's possible inconstancy, says:

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but why should I nourish,

"A fury here, and with imagin'd food,

"Holding no real ground on which to raise

"A building of suspicion she was ever,
"Or can be false ?"

Imagin'd food, is food created by imagination, the food that jealousy makes and feeds on. M. Mason.

In order to make way for one alteration, Mr. M. Mason is forced to foist in another; or else poor Shakspeare must be arraigned for a blunder of which he is totally guiltless. This gentleman's objections both to the text in its present state, and to Mr. Steevens's most happy illustration of it, originate entirely in his own misconception, and a jumble of figurative with literal expressions. To have been consistent with himself he should have charged Mr. Steevens with maintaining, that it was the property of a jealous husband, first to mock his wIFE, and afterwards to eat her.

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