BRA. What tell'st thou me of robbing? this is Venice; My house is not a grange." ROD. Most grave Brabantio, In simple and pure soul I come to you. IAGO. Zounds,* sir, you are one of those that will not serve God, if the devil bid you. Because we come to do you service, and you think we are ruffians, you'll have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse; you'll have your nephews neigh to you; you'll have coursers for cousins, and gennets for germans. BRA. What profane wretch art thou? IAGO. I am one, sir, that comes to tell you, your daughter and the Moor are now† making the beast with two backs. beseech you, If 't be your pleasure and most wise consent That, from the sense of all civility, (*) First folio omits, Zounds. a (t) First folio omits, now. this is Venice; My house is not a grange.) Grange, Warton remarks, is strictly and properly the farm of a monastery. But in Lincolnshire, and in other northern counties, they call every lone house, or farm which stands solitary, a grange. What Brabantio means, then, is,-I am in a populous city, not in a place where robbery can be easily committed. bruffians,-] Here ruffian is employed in its secondary sense of roisterer, swash-buckler, and the like, though its primary meaning undoubtedly was, pander; the Latin, leno," the Italian, "roffiano." It seems not meet, nor wholesome to my place, I must show out a flag and sign of love, Lead to the Sagittary (1) the raised search; [Exit. Enter, below, BRABANTIO, and Servants with torches. BRA. It is too true an evil: gone she is! And what's to come of my despised time Is nought but bitterness.-Now, Roderigo, Where didst thou see her?-O, unhappy girl!With the Moor, say'st thou ?-Who would be a father! How didst thou know 't was she?-0, she deceives me Past thought-What said she to you?-Get more tapers; Raise all my kindred.-Are they married, think you? ROD. Truly, I think they are. BRA. O, heaven!-How got she out?-0. treason of the blood!Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters' minds By what you see them act.-Are there not charms By which the property of youth and maidhood May be abus'd? Have you not read, Roderigo, Of some such thing? Yet do I hold it very stuff o' the conscience, Отн. 'Tis better as it is. Nay, but he prated, And spoke such scurvy and provoking terms Against your honour, That, with the little godliness I have, I did full hard forbear him. But, I pray you, sir, As double as the duke's: he will divorce you; Отн. Let him do his spite: My services, which I have done the signiory, Shall out-tongue his complaints. know, 'Tis yet to May speak, unbonneted, to as proud a fortune Demerit now signifies only ill desert; in Shakespeare's day it was used indiscriminately for good or ill deserving. In the present instance it is ap; arently employed in the good sense, for Othello could hardly mean that his blemishes might stand without concealment beside the dignity he had achieved. The import we take to be, my services when revealed (unbonneted), may aspire or lay claim to (may speak to) as proud a fortune as this which I Enter CASSIO, and certain Officers with torches. Отн. The servants of the duke! and my lieutenant! The goodness of the night upon you, friends! CAS. The duke does greet you, general ; This very night at one another's heels; Are at the duke's already. You have been hotly call'd for; When, being not at your lodging to be found, Отн. "T is well I am found by you. I will but spend a word here in the house, CAS. [Exit. Ancient, what makes he here? IAGO. Faith, he to-night hath boarded a land carack; c If it prove lawful prize, he's made for ever. CAS. I do not understand. IAGO. Marry, to-Come, captain, will you go? CAS. Here comes another troop to seck for you. have attained. Mr. Fuseli, however, has given another explanation, founded on the fact that at Venice the bonnet has always been a badge of patrician honours:-I am his equal or superior in rank; and were it not so, such are my demerits, that, unbonacted, without the addition of patrician or senatorial dignity, they may speak to as proud a fortune, &c. But here, too, it is indispensable for the integrity of the passage that "speak to" be understood in the sense just mentioned of aspire, or lay claim to. ca land-carack;] A carack was a ship of large burden. like the Spanish galleon; but the compound in the text appears to have been a dissolute expression, the meaning of which may be gathered from the following: "Here to his Land-Friggat hee's ferried by Charon, BRA. O, thou foul thief, where hast thou stow'd my daughter? Damn'd as thou art, thou hast enchanted her; on; (2) 'Tis probable, and palpable to thinking. Отн. Hold your hands! Both you of my inclining, and the rest : Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it Without a prompter.-Where* will you that I go To answer this your charge? BRA. Отн. 1 OFF. 'Tis true, most worthy signior, The duke's in council, and your noble self, I am sure is sent for. BRA. How the duke in council In this time of the night!-Bring him away: Mine 's not an idle cause: the duke himself, Or any of my brothers of the state, Cannot but feel this wrong as 't were their own; For if such actions may have passage free, Bond-slaves and pagans shall our statesmen be. (*) First folio, Whether. [Exeunt. (†) First folio omits, I. * If she in chains of magic were not bound,-] A line not found in the quarto 1622. bcurled darlings-] "Curled was an epithet characteristic of gentility. Thus D'Avenant, in "The Just Italian," Act III. Sc. 1, the curl'd and silken Nobles of the Town." The folio reads, "dearlings." e That waken motion:-] So Hanmer; the original having, “That wrokens motion," &c. The upholders of the old reading contend that Brabantio's accusation is that the Moor, by magical devices and the administering of drugs or minerals, had weakened those natural impulses of youth and maidhood in his daughter, which, uncontrolled, would have inclined to those of her own clime, complexion, and degree; but this is expressly contradicted by what be has himself just said, a maid so tender, fair, and happy, So opposite to marriage, that she shunn'd We therefore readily accept the easy emendation Hanmer offers. Brabantio's grievance, it is plain, was not that Othello had, by charms and medicines, abated the motions of Desdemona's sense, but that he had aroused and stimulated them. d and do attach thee-] The passage beginning,-"Judge me the world," to the above words inclusive, is not in the quarto 1622. e - where the aim reports,-] To aim is to conjecture or surmise. f I do not so secure me in the error,-] I do not so over-confidently build on the discrepancy, but that, &c. So may he with more facile question bear it,] The remainder of the speech, after this line, is found only in the folio 1623 and the quarto 1630. |