I found not Cassio's kisses on her lips: Oth. I had been happy, if the general camp, Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!4 Iago. Is it possible !--My lord, I think my wife be honest, and think she is not, Would you, the supervisor, grossly gape on? Oth. Death and damnation! O! 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. That the probation bear no hinge, nor loop, Oth. If thou dost slander her, and torture me, Do deeds to make heaven weep, all earth amaz'd, Iago. By the world, 1 The vilest of the camp. Pioneers were generally degraded soldiers. According to the old ordinances of war, a soldier who lost any part of his arms by negligence or play, was to be dismissed with punishment, or to be made some abject pioneer.' 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 :'— More than their own! What then? how then? Oth. Give me a living reason she's disloyal But, sith I am enter'd in this cause so far,- There are a kind of men so loose of soul, In sleep I heard him say,-Sweet Desdemona, 1510, in which Henry VIII. was an actor, Holinshed mentions the entry of a drum and fife, apparelled in white damaske and grene bonnettes; and at the Inner 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 vifleur, a fifer; but it is probable that it had another origin. 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 Lusi's Dominion; where the Moor says: Cardinal, this disgrace 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 instrument accompanying the drum is of considerable aniquity in the European armies, particularly the German. In a curious picture, painted 152, 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, 10 Some foregone conclusion is some former exFoed. xv. p. 53,) mention is made of drommes and perience. Conclusion is used for experiment or trial riffleurs marching at the head of the king's army. The in several other places of these plays drum and fife were also much used at shows and proressions. At a stately masque on Shrove Tuesday, 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. 11 The old quarto gives this line to lago, as well as the two which follow; in the folio it is given to Othello. Yago. And this may help to thicken other proofs, | Not with vain thanks, but with acceptance boun teous, I'll tear her all to pieces. And will upon the instant put thee to't : Iago. Nay, but be wise: yet we see nothing She may be honest yet. Tell me but this,- Oth. If it be that,- 5 Arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow cell! Iago. Pray, be content. O, blood, Iago, blood! Iago. Patience, I say; your mind, perhaps, may change. Iago. My friend is dead; 'tis done, at your request: But let her live. Oth. Damn her, lewd minx; O, damn her! Des. Do you know, sirrah, where lieutenant Clo. I dare not say, he lies any where. Des. Why, man? Clo. He is a soldier; and for me to say a soldier lies is stabbing. Des. Go to; Where lodges he? Clo. To tell you where he lodges, is to tell you where I lie.12 Des. Can any thing be made of this? Clo. I know not where he lodges; and for me to devise a lodging, and say--he lies here, or he lies there, were to lie in my own throat. Des. Can you inquire him out, and be edified by report? Clo. I will catechize the world for him; that is, make questions, and by them answer.1 13 Des. Seek him, bid him come hither: tell him. have moved my lord in his behalf, and hope, all will be well. Clo. To do this, is within the compass of man's wit; and therefore I will attempt the doing it. Do not rise yet. [Kneels. [Exit. Des. Where should I lose that handkerchief, Emilia? Witness, you ever-burning lights above! Oth. I greet thy love, Emil. I know not, madam. Des. Believe me, I had rather have lost my purse prehensive. Nashe, in his Pierce Pennilesse, 1592, employs the word in the same manner :-Then belike, quoth I, you make this word, Dæmon, a capable name, of gods, of men, of devils.' 9 This expression occurs in Soliman and Perseda, 1599: 'Now by the marble face of the welkin,' &c 10 The first quarto reads excellency. By execution Shakspeare meant employment or exercise. So in Love's Labour's Lost: 'Full of comparisons and wounding flouts, Which you on all estates will execute.' And in Troilus and Cressida :- 'In fellest manner execute your arms.' 11 Shakspeare always uses remorse for pity or com miseration. 'Let him command whatever bloody business, and in me it shall be an act not of cruelty but of 5 The heart on which thou wast enthroned. So in pity or commiseration to obey him.' The quarto reads, Twelfth Night : 'It gives a very echo to the seat Where love is thron'd. See Romeo and Juliet, Act v. Sc. 1, ab init. 6 i. e. swell, because the fraught thou art charged with is of poison. 7 From the word Like to marble heaven, inclusively, is not found in the quarto 1622. Pope thinks that it would be better omitted, as an unnatural excursion in this place. Shakspeare probably derived his know Jedge upon this subject from the second book and ninetyseverh chapter of Pliny's Natural History, 1601 :-' And the sea Pontus evermore floweth and runneth out into Propontis; but the sea never retireth backe againe within Pontus.' Mr. Edwards conceived this simile might allude to Sir Philip Sidney's device, whose impress Camden, in his Remains, says, was the Caspian sea, with this motto, Sine refluxu. s Capable seems to be here used for capacious, com What bloody business ever,' 12 This and the following speech are wanting in the first quarto. 13 i. e. and by them, when answered, form my own answer to you. The quaintness of the answer is in character. 14 Cruzadoes were not current, as it should seem, at Venice, though they certainly were in England, in the time of Shakspeare; who has here again departed from the strict propriety of national costume. It appears from Rider's Dictionary that there were three sorts of cruzadoes: one with a long cross, one with a short cross, and the great cruzado of Portugal. They were of gold, and weighed from two pennyweights six grains, to two pen. nyweights sixteen grains, and differed in value from six shillings and eightpence to nine shillings. The sovereigns who struck these coins were. Emanuel and his son John of Portugal. Mr. Douce has given the figure of them in his Illustrations of Shakspeare. Emil. Is he not jealous? Des. Who, he? I think, the sun, where he was burn, Drew all such humours from him. Emil. Oth. Well, my good lady.-[Aside.] O, hard- How do you, Desdemona? Des. It yet has felt no age, nor known no sorrow. For here's a young and sweating devil here, Des. You may, indeed, say so; Des. Is it possible? 4 Oth. 'Tis true: there's magic in the web of it• Des. I have it not about me. You are to blame. Oth. Not? Oth. Des. No, indeed, my lord. Emil. Did an Egyptian to my other give; 'Twould make her amistic, and subdue my father me, [Exit OTHELLO. Is not this man jealous? Des. I ne'er saw this before. Emil. "Tis not a year or two shows us a man: Enter IAGO and CASSIO. Iago. There is no other way; 'tis she must do't; Cas. Madam, my former suit: I do beseech you, 2 The folio reads 'sorry.' Rider explains suilen by acerbus, Latin. 1 Warburton thought that this was a satirical allugion to the new order of baronets, created by James I. in 1611. Sir William Blackstone supports him in this supposition, and has pointed out a similar allusion in The 3 A charmer, for an enchanter, is of common occurMerry Wives of Windsor. But if the play was written rence in the Psalms. So in Perkins's Discourse en in 1602, es Malone presumes, this is a sufficient refuta-Witchcraft, 1610: By witches we understand not tation. Warburton has a further conceit, that by the only those which kill and torment, but all charmers, word hearts the poet meant to allude to the gallantry of jugglers, all wizards, commonly called wise men and the reign of Elizabeth, in which men distinguished them-wise women,' &c. selves by their steel; and that by hands those courtiers 4 The balsamic liquor running from mummies was were pointed at, wre served her inglorious successor by formerly celebrated for its anti-epileptic virtues. We their gold. This is too fanciful to require an answer. are now wise enough to know that the qualities as Steevens observes, that the absurdity of making Othello cribed to it are all imaginary; yet this fanciful medicine so familiar with British heraldry, the utter want of held a place in the druggists' shops till lately. It was consistency as well as policy in any sneer of Shakspeare much coveted by painters, as a transparent brown coat the badge of honours instituted by a prince whom he lour that threw a warmth into the shadows of a picture. was solicitous to flatter, and at whose court this very piece was acted in 1613, are strong arguments against the propriety of Warburton's explanation.' La various parts of our poet's works he has alluded to the custoin of plighting troth by the union of hands. So in The Tempest :- 'Mir. My husband then? Fer. Ay, with a heart as willing As bondage e'er of freedom. Here's my hand. The hearts of old, (says Othello,) dictated the union of hands, which formerly were joined with the hearts at the parties in them; but in our modern marriages kunds alone are united, without hearts.' 5 The quarto reads 'with the skilful conserves,' &c. So in The Microcosmos of John Davies of Hereford, 4to. 1605 'Mummy made of the mere hart of love.' 6 This and the following short speech are omitted in all the ancient editions but the first quarto. The singular phraseology, 'talk me of Cassio,' is illustrated in e note on The Taming of the Shrew, Act i. Sc. 2. 7 The folio reads 'the office of my heart: the words were, however, synonymous. Thus Baret:- Dutie, office, dutie of behaviour in honestie and reason: offi cium.' So in Antony and Cleopatra :— his goodly eyes--now turn |