Still as the grave. Shall she come in? Were't good? Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse EMIL. [Within.] I do beseech you I may speak with you, O, good my lord! OTH. I had forgot thee: O, come in, Emilia :i Soft, by and by:-Let me the curtains draw.Where art thou? What's the matter with thee now? [Unlocks the Door. Enter EMILIA. EMIL. O, good my lord, yonder's foul murder done. Отн. What? now? EMIL. But now, my lord! OTH. It is the very error of the moon; She comes more near the earth than she was wont; 5 My wife! ! my wife ! what wife? I have no wife:] "Filium unicum adolescentulum habeo: ah! quid dixi habere me? imo habui, Chreme." Ter. Heautont. STEEVENS. O heavy hour!] In the first scene of this act we have - a heavy night." This epithet likewise occurs in a sense somewhat unusual in Letters from the Paston Family, Vol. II. p. 193: "it is demyd y' my Lady wolde herafter be the rather myn hevy Lady for yt delyng-." STEEVENS. And makes men mad." EMIL. Cassio, my lord, has kill'd a young Ve S OTH. Not Cassio kill'd? Then murder's out of tune, And sweet revenge grows harsh. DES. O, falsely, falsely murder'd! It is the very error of the moon ; 8 She comes more near the earth than she was wont ; And makes men mad.] So, in The Play of the Wether, by John Heywood, 4°. bl. 1: "On my fayth I thynke the moone be at the full, STEEVENS. O, falsely, falsely murder'd!] It cannot be supposed that a person who had been effectually strangled or smothered, could speak again; for if the power of breathing returned after the instrument of suffocation was removed, no act of violence had in reality taken place by which the conclusion of life could be brought.on. But such is the peculiar fate of Desdemona, that she is supposed to be smothered, revives to acquaint us that she smothered herself, and then dies without any ostensible cause of death. I am of opinion that some theatrical direction has been omitted; and that when Othello says 66 Not dead? not yet quite dead? " I, that am cruel, am yet merciful; " I would not have thee linger in thy pain:--- He then stabs her, repeating the two last words, as he repeats the blow. Thus, Virgil: sic, sic juvat ire sub umbras." • After the repetition of wounds, Desdemona might speak again, with propriety, and yet very soon expire; as says Cassio of Roderigo: EMIL. OTH. That! what? Alas! what cry is that? EMIL. Out, and alas! that was my lady's voice: 'Help! help, ho! help! - lady, speak again! Sweet Desdemona! O, sweet mistress, speak! DES. A guiltless death I die. EMIL. This deed? O, who hath done DES. Nobody; I myself; farewell: Commend me to my kind lord; O, farewell. Отн. Why, how should she be murder'd? [Dies. Alas, who knows? OTH. You heard her say herself, it was not I. EMIL. She said so; I must needs report the truth. even but now he spake, "After long seeming dead." The first resolution of Othello was to poison her, but from this measure he is dissuaded by the policy of Iago. He is next determined to use the poniard; but, his tenderness awaking, he cannot bear to deform those beauties which he had so often approached with other sensations, and for different purposes. Therefore, says he, "I'll not shed her blood, "Nor scar that whiter skin of her's than snow, And this resolution we are to imagine he would have kept, but that he was averse to employing those means again, which had already appeared to be uncertain in their effect. If this apparent want of a play-house direction had occasioned any absurdity in the original representation of the play, probably it is glanced at by Ben Jonson in The Alchemist, Act V: "Didst hear a cry, said'st thou? Yes, sir, like unto a man that had been strangled an hour, and could not speak." STEEVENS. The Alchemist was first represented in the year 1610, and this passage is found in the original copy printed in that year. MALONE. OTH. She's, like a liar, gone to burning hell; 'Twas I that kill'd her. EMIL. O, the more angel she, And you the blacker devil! 1 OTH. She turn'd to folly, and she was a whore. EMIL. Thou dost belie her, and thou art a devil. OTH. She was false as water.2 EMIL. Thou art rash as fire, to say That she was false; O, she was heavenly true! EMIL. My husband? OTH. Thy husband. 9 She's, like a liar, gone to burning hell; Here is nothing faulty in this passage, but it may be read She's, like a liar, gone to burn in hell. The vulgar denunciation of future vengeance is, I think, you'll burn in hell for this. WHALLEY. So, in King Richard II : "That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire," STEEVENS. She turn'd to folly, and she was a whore.] Folly, signifies here, as in the sacred writings, depravity of mind. So, in our author's Rape of Lucrece: "Her sad behaviour feeds his vulture folly." MALONE. So, in Deuteronоту, ххіі. 21 : " - she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore" &c. STEEVENS. * false as water.] As water that will support no weight, nor keep any impression. JOHNSON. 3-this extremity;] Perhaps our author wrote to this extreme. The measure demands a shorter word than the former. Thus, in Romeo and Juliet : ""Twixt my extremes and me this bloody knife EMIL. That she was false to wedlock? Nay, had she been true, Ay, with Cassio. If heaven would make me such another world Of one entire and perfect chrysolite, I'd not have sold her for it. EMIL. My husband? Отн. Ay, 'twas he that told me first; An honest man he is, and hates the slime That sticks on filthy deeds. EMIL. My husband? Отн. What needs this iterance, woman? I say, thy husband. EMIL. O mistress, villainy hath made mocks with love!" My husband say, that she was false ? He, woman; Отн. I say, thy husband; Dost understand the word? My friend, thy husband, honest, honest Iago. EMIL. If he say so, may his pernicious soul * that told me first;] The folio reads that told me on her first. STEEVENS. * -iterance,] Thus the folio. The quarto reads-iteration. STEEVENS. 7 * Emil.] The first quarto omits this and the following speech. STEEVENS. villainy hath made mocks with love!] Villainy has taken advantage to play upon the weakness of a violent passion. JOHNSON. I have sometimes thought that these words might mean, that "villainy hath play'd on its object under a pretence of kindness." So, in Macbeth: the surfeited grooms "Do mock their charge with snores." But in this I have very little confidence. MALONE. |
