Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch | I am hitherto your daughter. But here's my husheaven, It was my hint to speak, such was the process; to hear, band; And so much duty as my mother show'd These things Due to the Moor, my lord. Would Desdemona seriously incline: "Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful : She wish'd, she had not heard it; yet she wish'd me; And bade me, if I had a friend that lov'd her, Enter DESDEMONA, IAGO, and Attendants. Duke. I think, this tale would win my daughter too. Good Brabantio, Take up this mangled matter at the best: Bra. My noble father, I do perceive here a divided duty: iii. p. 14.—I have followed the suggestion of Mr. Gifford, and restored the reading of the second folio; convinced by his reasoning, and believing that idle might easily be substituted for wilde, in the earlier copies, by a mere typographical error. 1 Nothing excited more universal attention than the accounts brought by Sir Walter Raleigh, on his return from his celebrated voyage to Guiana, in 1595, of the cannibals, amazons, and especially of the nationwhose heads Do grow beneath their shoulders.' See his Narrative in Hackluyt's Voyages, vol. iii. ed. 1600, fol. p. 652, et seq. and p. 677, &c. A short extract of the more wonderful passages was also published in Latin and in several other languages, in 1599, adorned with copper-plates, representing these cannibals, amazons, and headless people, &c. A copy of one of the plates is given in the variorum editions of Shakspeare. These extraordinary reports were universally credited and Othello therefore assumes no other character but what was very common among the celebrated commanders of the poet's time. 2 Intention and attention were once synonymous. 'Intentive, which listeneth well and is earnestly bent to a thing,' says Bullokar, in his Expositor, 1616. 3 To aver upon faith or honour was considered swearing, equally with a solemn appeal to God. See Whitaker's Vindication of Mary, Queen of Scots, vol. ii. p. 487. 4i. e. let me speak as yourself would speak, were you not too much heated with passion.'-Sir J. Reynolds Bra. I here do give thee that with all my heart, Which as a grise, or step, may help these lovers When remedies are past, the griefs are ended," He robs himself, that spends a bootless grief. He bears the sentence well, that nothing bears I humbly beseech you, proceed to the affairs of state. Duke. The Turk with a most mighty preparation makes for Cyprus :-Othello, the fortitude of the place 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, word occurs again in Timon of Athens:5 Grise or greese is a step; from gres, French. The for every grize of fortune Is smooth'd by that below.' Ben Jonson, in his Sejanus, has degrees in the same sense : 'Whom when we saw lie spread on the degrees.' 6 This is expressed in a common proverbial form, in Love's Labours Lost :- 'Past cure is still past care.' by the words of consolation.' Pierced is here used for 7 i. e. ' that the wounds of sorrow were ever cured penetrated. Spenser has employed the word in the same figurative sense, Faerie Queene, b. vi. c. 9: 'Whose senseful words empierst his hart so neare That he was rapt with double ravishment.' nimo, 1605, first part :— 8 To slubber here means to obscure. So in Jero The latter part of this metaphor has already occurred 'The evening too begins to slubber the day.' in Macbeth : golden opinions Which should be worn now in their newest gloss.' 9 A driven bed is a bed for which the feathers have the light from the heavy. been selected by driving with a fan, which separates Thus in a Summarie Report, &c. of the Speaker rela 10 To agnize is to acknowledge, confess, or avow convert agnizing her Majesty's great mercie,' &c. It tive to Mary Queen of Scots, 4to. 1586:-A repentar sometimes signified 'to know by some token, to admit, or allow.' A natural and prompt alacrity, I find in hardness; and do undertake 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. Duke. What would you, Desdemona ? Des. That I did love the Moor to live with him, I saw Othello's visage in his mind; And to his honours, and his valiant parts, The rites, for which I love him, are bereft me, By his dear absence; Let me go with him. Oth. Your voices, lords-'beseech you, let her will Have a free way. Vouch with me, heaven; I therefore beg it not, And heaven defend your good souls, that you think 1 'I desire that proper disposition be made for my wife, that she may have a fit place appointed for her residence, and such allowance, accommodation, and attendance as befits her rank. Exhibition for allow ance has already occurred in King Lear, and in The Two Gentlemen of Verona. 2 Thus in the quarto 1622. The folio, to avoid the repetition of the same epithet, reads: Most gracious duke, To my unfolding lend a prosper.nus ear.' i e. a propitious ear. 3 That is, 'let your favour privilege me.' 4 By her downright violence and storm of fortunes' Desdemona means, the bold and decisive measure she had taken, of following the dictates of passion, and giving herself to the Moor, regardless of her parent's displeasure, the forms of her country, and the future inconveniences she might be subject to, by tying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes, in an extravagant and wheeling stranger, of here and every where.' This was truly taking her fortunes by storm. 5 Quality here, as in other passages of Shakspeare, means profession. 'My heart is so entirely devoted to Othello, that I will even encounter the dangers of his military profession with him.' The quarto reads, My heart's subdued even to the utmost pleasure of my 6 Steevens reads, at the suggestion of Sir T. Han lord.' mer : 'Nor to comply with heat, the young affects, In my distinct and proper satisfaction.' Malone reads disjunct instead of distinct. In the Bondman of Massinger we have a passage evidently copied from this speech of Othello: Let me wear Your colours, lady, and though youthful heats, That my disports corrupt and taint my business, Duke. Be it as you shall privately determine, With all my heart Duke. At nine i' the morning here we'll meet Othello, leave some officer behind, And he shall cur commission bring to you: Please your grace, my ancient; To be sent after me. Let it be so.— Good night to every one.-And, noble signior, If virtue no delighted1o beauty lack, 1 Sen. Adieu, brave Moor! use Desdemona well. She has deceiv'd her father, and may thee. [Exeunt Duke, Senators, Officers, &c. I pr'ythee, let thy wife attend on her; Rod. Iago. Rod. I will incontinently drown myself. 'An eye whose judgment none affect could blinde, Dr. Johnson's explanation is:-'I ask it not (says Frendes to allure, and foes to reconcile.' Othello) to please appetite, or satisfy loose desires, for any particular gratification of myself, but merely the passions of youth which I have now outlived, or that I may indulge the wishes of my wife. Upton had previously changed my, the reading of the old copy. to me; but he has printed effects, not seeming to know that affects could be a noun. 8 Thus the folio; except that, instead of active in. struments, it has offic'd instrument. The quarto reads ' And feather'd Cupid foils,' &c. Speculative instru ments, in Shakspeare's language, are the eyes; and active instruments, the hands and feet. To see is to close up. The meaning of the passage appears to be, "When the pleasures and idle toys of love make me unfit either for seeing the duties of my office, or for the ready performance of them.' 9 The quarto reads reputation lago. Well, if thou dost, I shall never love thee | she must; therefore put money in thy purse.-If after it. Why, thou silly gentleman! Rod. It is silliness to live, when to live is a torment: and then have we a prescription to die, when death is our physician. Iago. O, villanous! I have looked upon the world for four times seven years! and since I could distinguish between a benefit and an injury, I never found a man that knew how to love himself. Ere I would say, I would drown myself for the love of a Guinea-hen, I would change my humanity with a baboon. Rod. What should I do? I confess, it is my sname to be so fond; but it is not in virtue to mend it. Iago. Virtue? a fig! 'tis in ourselves, that we Are thus, or thus. Our bodies are our gardens; to the which, our wills are gardeners: so that if we will plant nettles, or sow lettuce; set hyssop, and weed up thyme; supply it with one gender of herbs, or distract it with many; either to have it steril with idleness, or manured with industry: why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills. If the balance3 of our lives had not one scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us to most preposterous conclusions: But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted+ lusts; whereof I take this, that you call-love, to be a sect," or scion. Rod. It cannot be. A thou wilt needs damn thyself, do it a more delicate 0 Iago. Thou art sure of me ;-Go, make money; I have told thee often, and I retell thee again and again, I hate the Moor: My cause is hearted :' thine hath no less reason: Let us be conjunctive in our revenge against him: if thou canst cuckold him, thou dost thyself a pleasure, and me a sport. There are many events in the womb of time, which will be delivered. Traverse; go: provide thy money. We will have more of this to-morrow Adieu Rod. Where shall we meet i' the morning? Rod. I'll be with thee betimes lago. Go to; farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo? Iago. No more of drowning, do you hear. Iago. It is merely a lust of the blood, and a per-Thus do I ever make my fool my purse: mission of the will. Come, be a man: Drown For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane, thyself? drown cats, and blind puppies. I have If I would time expend with such a snipe,12 professed me thy friend, and I confess me knit to But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor; thy deserving with cables of perdurable toughness; And it is thought abroad, that 'twixt my sheets I could never better stead thee than now. Put He has done my office: I know not if 't be true money in thy purse; follow these wars; defeat thy But I, for mere suspicion in that kind, favour with an usurped beard; I say, put money Will do, as if for surety.13 He holds me well in thy purse. In cannot be, that Desdemona should The better shall my purpose work on him. long continue her love to the Moor,-put money in Cassio's a proper man: Let me see now; thy purse; nor he his to her: it was a violent To get his place, and to plume14 up my will; commencement, and thou shalt see an answerable A double knavery,-How? how?-Let me see:sequestration ;-put but money in thy purse. After some time, to abuse Othello's ear, These Moors are changeable in their wills:-fill That he is too familiar with his wife : thy purse with money: the food that to him now is He hath a person; and a smooth dispose as luscious as locusts, shall be to him shortly as To be suspected; fram'd to make women false, bitter as coloquintida. She must change for The Moor is of a free and open nature, youth; when she is sated with his body, she will That thinks men honest, that but seem to be so, find the error of her choice.-She must have change, 8 8 The quarto reads 'as acerb as coloquintida.' The poet had the third chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel in 1 That Iago means to say he was but twenty-eight his thoughts, in which we are told that John the Bapyears old, is clearly ascertained by his marking parti-tist lived in the wilderness on locusts and wild honey cularly, though indefinitely, a period within that time, Mr. Douce observes, that there is another phrase of ['and since I could distinguish,' &c.] when he began the same kind, viz. to exchange herb John for coloto make observations on the characters of men. Wal quintida. It is used in Osborne's Memoirs of James I. ler, on a picture which was painted for him in his youth and elsewhere. The pedantic Tomlinson, in his transby Cornelius Jansen, and which is now in the posses-lation of Renodæus's Dispensatory, says, that many sion of his heir, has expressed the same thought: superstitious persons call mugwart St. John's herb, 'Anno ætatis 23; vitæ vix primo.'-In the novel, on wlierewith he circumcinged his loins on holidays. Shakwhich Othello is founded, lago is described as a young speare, who was extremely well acquainted with pohandsome man. pular superstitions, might have recollected this circumstance, when, for reasons best known to himself, he chose to vary the phrase by substituting the luscious locusts of the Baptist. Whether these were the fruit of the tree so called, or the well known insect, is not likely to be determined. It is said that the insect locusts are considered a delicacy at Tonquin. Bullein says that 'coloquintida is most bitter.”—Bulwarke of Defence, 1579. 2 A Guinea-hen was a cant term for a woman of easy virtue. 3 The folio reads ' if the brain;' probably a mistake for beam. + So in A Knack to Know an Honest Man, 1596:'Virtue never taught thee that, She sets a bit upon her bridled lusts.' See also As You Like It, Act ii. Sc. 4:'For thou thyself hast been a libertine, As sensual as the brutish sting itself.' A sect is what the gardeners call a cutting. 6 I have already observed that defeat was used for lisfigurement or alteration of features: from the French defaire. Favour means that combination of features which gives the face its distinguishing cha racter. 7 Sequestration is defined to be a putting apart, a separation of a thing from the possession of both those that contend for it. It is not therefore necessary to suppose any change requisite in the text In another passage of this play we have a sequester from liberty.' So in Romeo and Juliet : 'These violent delights have violent ends, And in their triumph die.' 9 Erring is the same as erraticus in Latin. So in Hamlet: 'Th' extravagant and erring spirit.' '-- how brief the life of man 10 This adjective occurs again in Act iii. :~—' hearted throne.' 11 i. e. march. 12 Woodcock was the general term for a foolish fel. low. Iago is more sarcastic, and compares his dupe to a smaller and meaner bird of almost the same shape 13 That is, I will act as if I were certain of the fact. 'He holds me well,' is, he entertains a good opinion of 14 The first quarto reads 'to make up.' SCENE I. A Seaport Town in Cyprus.' Platform. Enter MONTANO and Two Gentlemen. Mon. What from the cape can you discern at sea? 1 Gent. Nothing at all: it is a high-wrought flood; cannot 'twixt the heaven2 and the main, Descry a sail. Man. I am glad on't: 'tis a worthy governor. 3 Gent. But this same Cassio,-though he speak of comfort, Touching the Turkish loss, yet he .ooks sadly, And prays the Moor be safe; for they were parted With foul and violent tempest. Mon. 'Pray heaven, he be, For I have serv'd him, and the man commands Like a full" soldier. Let's to the seaside, ho! As well to see the vessel that's come in, As to throw out our eyes for brave Othello; Even till we make the main, and the aerial blue, An indistinct regard. 3 Gent. Come, let's do so; For every minute is expectancy Mon. Methinks, the wind hath spoke aloud at of more arrivance. land: the sea, A fuller blast ne'er shook our battlements : Seems to cast water on the burning bear," On the enchafed flood. Mon. If that the Turkish fleet Be not enshelter'd and embay'd, they are drown'd; It is impossible they bear it out. Enter a third Gentleman. 3 Gent. News, lords! our wars are done : The desperate tempest hath so bang'd the Turks, That their designment halts: A noble ship Venice Hath seen a grievous wreck and sufferance, On most part of their fleet. Mon. How is this true? 3 Gent. The ship is here put in, A Veronese : Michael Cassio, Lieutenant to the warlike Moor, Othello, Is come on shore: the Moor himself 's at sea, And is in full commission here for Cyprus. of Enter CASSIO. Cas. Thanks to the valiant of this warlike isle, That so approve the Moor; O, let the heavens Give him defence against the elements, For I have lost him on a dangerous sea! Mon. Is he well shipp'd? Cas. His bark is stoutly timber'd, and his pilot of very expert and approv'd allowance ;8 Therefore my hopes, not surfeited to death, Stand in bold cure.o [Within.] A sail, a sail, a sail ! Cas. What noise? 4 Gent. The town is empty; on the brow o' the sea Stand ranks of people, and they cry-a sail. Cas. My hopes do shape him for the governor. 2 Gent. They do discharge their shot of courtesy ; [Guns heard. Our friends, at least. Cas. I pray you, sir, go forth, And give us truth who 'tis that is arriv'd. 2 Gent. I shall. [Exit. Mon. But, good lieutenant, is your general wiv'd? Cas. Most fortunately: he hath achiev'd a maid That paragons description, and wild fame; One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens,10 And in the essential vesture of creation, Does bear all excellency."-How now? who has put in ? line alludes to the star Arctophylax, which literally sup-signifies the guard of the hear. The 4to. 1622 reads ever-fired pole.' 1 All the modern editors, following Rowe, have posed the capital of Cyprus to be the place where the scene of Othello lies during four Acts: but this could not have been Shakspeare's intention; Nicosia, the capital city of Cyprus, being situated nearly in the centre of the island, and thirty miles distant from the sea. The principal seaport town of Cyprus is_Famagusta; where there was formerly a strong fort and commodious haven, neare which (says Knolles) standeth an old castle, with four towers, after the ancient manner of building.' To this castle we find that Othello presently repairs. Centhis, in the novel, makes no mention of any attack on Cyprus by the Turks; but they took the island from the Venetians in 1570. By mentioning Rhodes as likely to be attacked by the Turks, the historical fact is disregarded; for they were in quiet possession of that island, and had been masters of it since the year 1522; and from 1473, when the Venetians first became possessed of Cyprus, to 1522, they had not been molested by any Turkish armament. 2 The quarto reads :'twixt the haven and the main ;' and Malone adopts that reading. Perhaps the poet wrote the heavens.' A subsequent passage may serve to show that the folio affords the true reading :Let's to the seaside, ho! As well to see the vessel that's come in, 3 The quarto of 1622 reads 'when the huge mountaine meslt,' the letter s, which perhaps belongs to mountaine, having wandered at press from its place. In a subsequent scene we have: 'And let the labouring bark climb hills of seas 6 The old copy reads 'a Veronessa;' whether this signified a ship fitted out by the people of Verona, who were tributary to the Venetian republic, or designated some particular kind of vessel, is not yet fully esta blished. But as Veronessa has not hitherto been met with elsewhere, the former is most probably the true explanation. 7 A full soldier is a complete one. See Act i. Sc. 1, 8 i. e. of allowed and approved expertness. 9 The meaning seems to be, "Therefore my hopes, not surfeited to death, by excess of apprehension, stand in confidence of being cured. A parallel expression occurs in Lear : "This rest might yet have balm'd his broken senses Which if conveniency will not allow Stand in hard cure.' 10 Thus in Shakspeare's 103d Sonnet: That over-goes my blunt invention quite, 11 This is the reading of the quartos: the folio has : By the essential vesture of creation the poet means her outward form, which he in another place calls 'the muddy vesture of decay.' If the reading of the folic be adopted, the meaning would be this: She is one who excels all description, and in real beauty, or outward form, goes beyond the power of the inventive pencil o the artist.-Fleckno, in his discourse on the English Stage, 1664, speaking of painting, mentions' the stu pendous works of your great ingeniers.' And Ber Jonson, in his Sejanus, Act iv. Sc. 4: 'No, Silius, we are no good ingeniers, And in Troilus and Cressida : "The strong ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cuts.' An ingenier or ingeniuer undoubtedly means an artis 4 The elder quarto reads 'the banning shore.' or painter; and is perhaps only another form of engi 5 The constellation near the polar star. The next neer The next neer anciently used for any kind of wist or artificer Re-enter second Gentleman. 2 Gent. "Tis one Iago, ancient to the general. Cas. He has had most favourable and happy speed: Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling winds, Then mortal natures, letting go safely by Mon. What is she? Saints in your injuries, devils being offended, Players in your housewifery, and housewives in your beds. Des. O, fie upon thee, slanderer! Iago. Nay, it is true, or else I am a Turk You rise to play, and go to bed to work. Emil. You shall not write my praise. Iago. Des. What would'st thou write of me, if thou should'st praise me? No, let me not. Iago. O, gentle lady, do not put me to't; Cas. She that I spake of, our great captain's For I am nothing, if not critical. captain, Left in the conduct of the bold Jago; The riches of the ship is come on shore !3 Des. Des. O, but I fear;-How lost you company? Cas. The great contention of the sea and skies Parted our fellowship: But, hark! a sail. [Cry within, A sail, a sail! Then guns heard. 2 Gent. They give their greeting to the citadel ; This likewise is a friend. Cas. 4 See for the news.4 [Exit Gentleman. Good ancient, you are welcome;--Welcome, mis[To EMILIA. tress : Let it not gall your patience, good Iago, Des. Alas, she has no speech. Iago. In faith, too much; I find it still, when I have list to sleep: Emil. You have little cause to say so. Iago. Come on, come on; you are pictures out of doors, Bells in your parlours, wild cats in your kitchens, 1 'Traitors ensteéped' are merely traitors concealed under the water. 2 Mortal is deadly, destructive. 3 The riches of the ship is come on shore.' Shak. speare uses riches as a singular in his eighty-seventh Sonnet :- 'And for that riches, where is my deserving? 4 The first quarto reads, ' So speaks this voice.' 5 That is, When you have a mind to do injuries, you put on an air of sanctity. In Puttenham's Art of Poesie, 1589, we have almost the same thoughts :- We limit the comely parts of a woman to consist in four points; that is, to be a shrew in the kitchen, a saint in the church, an angel at board, and an ape in the bed; as the chronicle reports by mistress Shore, paramour to King Edward the Fourth.' There is something simi.ar in Middleton's Blurt Master Constable, 1602; and it is alluded to in the Miseries of Inforc'd Marriage, 1607. 6 i. e. censorious. 7 A similar thought occurs in The Puritan: The excuse stuck upon my tongue like ship-pitch upon a mariner's gown.' 8 The quarto reads--hit. Iago. I am about it; but, indeed, my invention Comes from my pate, as birdlime does from frize," It plucks out brains and all: But my muse labours, And thus she is deliver'd. If she be fair and wise,-fairness, and wit, Des. Well prais'd! How if she be black and witty? Emil. How, if fair and foolish? Iago. She never yet was foolish that was fair, For even her folly help'd her to an heir. Des. These are old fond paradoxes, to make fools laugh i' the alehouse. What miserable praise hast thou for her that's foul and foolish? Iago. There's none so foul, and foolish thereunto, But does foul pranks which fair and wise ones do. Des. O, heavy ignorance!--thou praisest the worst best. But what praise couldst thou bestow on a deserving woman indeed!" one, that, in the authority of her merit, did justly put on the vouch of very malice itself?10 Iago. She that was ever fair, and never proud; Had tongue at will, and yet was never loud; Never lack'd gold, and yet went never gay; Fled from her wish, and yet said,—now I may; She that, being anger'd, her revenge being nigh, Bade her wrong stay, and her displeasure fly: She, that in wisdom never was so frail, To change the cod's head for the salmon's tail;'1 She that could think, and ne'er disclose her mind, See suitors following, and not look behind ; She was a wight,-if ever such wight were,Des. To do what? Iago. To suckle fools, and chronicle small beer.1 Des. O, most lame and impotent conclusion!Do not learn of him, Emilia, though he be thy husband. How say you, Cassio? is he not a most profane and liberali3 counsellor? Cas. He speaks home, madam; you may relish him more in the soldier, than in the scholar. Iago. [Aside.] He takes her by the palm: Ay, well said, whisper with as little a web as this, will I ensnare as great a fly as Cassio. Ay, smile upon Iago, is taken from a strange pamphlet, called Choice, Chance, and Change, or Conceits in their Colours, 1606. 10 The sense is this-one that was so conscious of her own merit, and of the authority her character had with every one, that she durst call upon malice itself to vouch for her. This was some commendation. And the character only of clearest virtue; which could force malice, even against its nature, to do justice.-Warbur ton. To put on is to provoke, to incite. 11 That is to exchange a delicacy for coarser fare See Queen Elizabeth's Household Book for the fortythird year of her reign :- Item, the master cookes have to fee all the salmons' tailes,' &c. p. 296. 12 i. e. 'to suckle children and keep the accounts of the household.' These expressions are only instances of the want of natural affection, and the predominance of a critical censoriousness in Iago, which he allows himself to be possessed of, where he says 'O! I am nothing, if not critical.' The hint for this question, and the metrical reply of 13 Liberal is licentious |