a mind to do injuries, you put on an air of sanctity. JOHNSON. 124. O, fie upon thee, slanderer !] This short speech is, in the quarto, unappropriated; and may as well belong to Emilia as to Desdemona. STEEVENS. 131. -critical.] That is, censorious. JOHNSON. 145. —her blackness fit.] The first quarto reads hit. STEEVENS. 148. She never yet was foolish, &c.] The law makes the power of cohabitation a proof that a man is not a natural; therefore, since the foolishest woman, if pretty, may have a child, no pretty woman is ever foolish. JOHNSON. 156. But what praise couldst thou bestow on a deserving woman indeed?] The hint for this question, and the metrical reply of Iago is taken from a strange pamphlet, called Choice, Chance, and Change, or Conceits in their Colours, 1606; when after Tidero has described many ridiculous characters in verse, Arnofilo asks him, "But, I pray thee, didst thou write none in commendation of some worthy creature?" Tidero then proceeds like Iago to repeat more verses. 158. STEEVENS. -put on the vouch.] To put on is to pro voke, to incite. So in Macbeth: 167. To change the cod's head for the salmon's tail;] ¿e. to exchange a delicacy for coarser fare. STEEVENS. 169. See suitors following, and not look behind;] The first quarto omits this line. STEEVENS. 172. To suckle fools, and chronicle small beer.] After enumerating the perfections of a woman, Iago adds, that if ever there was such a one as he had been describing, she was at the best, of no other use, than to suckle children, and keep the accounts of a household. The expressions to suckle fools, and chronicle small beer, 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. STEEVENS. 175. profane-] Gross of language, of expres sion broad and brutal. So Brabantio, in the first act, calls Iago profane wretch. JOHNSON. Ben Jonson, in describing the characters in Every Man out of his Humour, styles Carlo Buffone, a publick, scurrilous, and profane jester. STEEVENS. 176. liberal counsellor ?] Liberal for licentious. WARBURTON. How say you, Cassio, is he not a most profane and liberal counsellor?] But in what respect was Iago a counsellor? He caps sentences, indeed: but they are not by way of advice, but description: what he says, is, reflections on character and conduct in life. For this reason, I am very apt to think, our author wrote THEOBALD. - censurer. Counsellor seems to mean, not so much a man that gives counsel, as one that discourses fearlesly and volubly. A talker. 3 JOHNSON. Counsellor Counsellor is here used in the common acceptation. Desdemona refers to the answers she had received from Iago, and particularly her last. HENLEY. 182. I will gyve thee-] i. e. catch, shackle. POPE. The first quarto reads, "I will catch you in your own courtesies;" the second quarto, "I will catch you in your own courtship." The folio as it is in the text. STEEVENS. 186. To play the sir in.] That is to shew your good breeding and gallantry. HENLEY. 187. —well kiss'd and excellent courtesy;-] This I think should be printed, well kiss'd! an excellent courtesy! Spoken when Cassio kisses his hand, and Desdemona courtesies. JOHNSON. The old quarto confirms Dr. Johnson's emendation. STEEVENS. 198. calmness, ] The folio reads calmes. 202. -If it were now to die, MALONE. 'Twere now to be most happy.] So Cherea, in The Eunuch of Terence, act iii. sc. 3. “ Proh, Jupiter! "Nunc tempus profecto est, cum perpeti me possum interfeci, “Ne vitâ aliquâ hoc gaudium contaminet ægritu dine." MALONE. 213. And this, and this, &c. Kissing her.] So, in Marlow's Lust's Dominion: "I pr'ythee "I pr'ythee chide if I have done amiss, "[Kissing the Moor." MALONE. Marlow's play was written before that of Shakspere, who might possibly have acted in it. STEEVENS. 219. News, friends;] The modern editors read (after Mr. Rowe) Now, friends. I would observe once for all, that (in numberless instances in this play, as well as in others) where my predecessors had silently and without reason made alterations, I have as silently restored the old readings. STEEVENS. 223. I prattle out of fashion.-] Out of method, any settled order of discourse. JOHNSON. without 226. the master-] The pilot of the ship. JOHNSON. 234. the guard musters. 238. Lay thy finger thus-] On thy mouth, to stop it while thou art listening to a wiser man. JOHNSON. 241. And will she love him still for prating?] The folio reads-To love him still for prating. STEEVENS. the court of guard—] i. e. the place where STEEVENS. 244. When the blood is made dull with the act of sport, there should be a game to inflame it, and to give satiety a fresh appetite; loveliness in favour, sympathy in years, manners, and beauties ;-] This, it is true, is the reading of the generality of the copies: but, methinks, it is a very peculiar experiment, when the blood and spirits are dulled and exhausted with sport, to raise and recruit them by sport: for sport and game are but twa two words for the same thing. I have retrieved the pointing and reading of the elder quarto, which certainly gives us the poet's sense; that when the blood is dulled with the exercise of pleasure, there should be proper incentives on each side to raise it again, as the charms of beauty, equality of years, and agreement of manners and disposition; which are wanting in Othello to rekindle Desdemona's passion. 245. THEOBALD. again to inflame it,] Thus the quarto 1622. STEEVENS.' It is the folio reads—a game. 265. green minds-] Minds unripe, minds not yet fully formed. JOHNSON. 269. -condition.] Qualities, disposition of mind. JOHNSON. 276. -an index and obscure prologue, &c.] That indexes were formerly prefixed to books, appears from a passage in Troilus and Cressida. MALONE. 287. cipline. tainting-] Throwing a slur upon his disJOHNSON. 288. other course- -] The first quarto reads, cause. STEEVENS. 291. sudden in choler ;-] Sudden, is precipitately violent. JOHNSON. 295. -whose qualification shall come, &c.] Whose resentment shall not be so qualified or tempered, as to be well tasted, as not to retain some bitterness. The phrase is harsh, at least to our ears. JOHNSON. Perhaps qualification means fitness to preserve good order, or the regularity of military discipline. STEEVENS. |