What cannot be preserved when fortune takes,
Patience her injury a mockery makes.

The robbed, that smiles, steals something from the thief; He robs himself, that spends a bootless grief.

Bra. So let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile;

We lose it not, so long as we can smile.

He bears the sentence well, that nothing bears
But the free comfort which from thence he hears;
But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow,
That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow.
These sentences, to sugar, or to gall,

Being strong on both sides, are equivocal;
But words are words; I never yet did hear
That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear.'
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,
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
My thrice-driven bed of down.3 I do agnize
A natural and prompt alacrity,

I find in hardness; and do undertake
These present wars against the Ottomites.
Most humbly therefore bending to your state,
I crave fit disposition for my wife;

Due reference of place, and exhibition,5

1 i. e." that the wounds of sorrow were ever cured by the words of consolation." Pierced is here used for penetrated.

2 To slubber here means to obscure.

3 A driven bed is a bed for which the feathers have been selected by driving with a fan, which separates the light from the heavy.

4 To agnize is to acknowledge, confess, or avow. It sometimes signified "to know by some token, to admit, or allow."

5 "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 allowance has already occurred in King Lear, and in The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

With such accommodation, and besort,

As levels with her breeding.

Des.
Nor I; I would not there reside,
To put my father in impatient thoughts,
By being in his eye. Most gracious duke,
To my unfolding lend a gracious ear;1
And let me find a charter in your voice,2
To assist my simpleness.

Duke. What would you, Desdemona?

Des. That I did love the Moor to live with him,
My downright violence and storm of fortunes 3
May trumpet to the world; my heart's subdued
Even to the very quality of my lord.

I saw Othello's visage in his mind;
And to his honors, and his valiant parts,
Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.
So that, dear lords, if I be left behind
A moth of peace, and he go to the war,
The rites, for which I love him, are bereft me,
And I a heavy interim shall support

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,

To please the palate of my appetite;

Nor to comply with heat (the young affects,

1 Thus in the quarto 1622. The folio, to avoid the repetition of the same epithet, reads:

66

Most gracious duke,

To my unfolding lend a prosperous ear."

2 That is, "let your favor privilege me."

3 By her "downright violence and storm of fortunes "Desdemona means, the bold and decisive measures she had taken in giving herself to the Moor. The old quarto reads scorn of fortune.

4 Quality here, as in other passages of Shakspeare, means profession. The quarto reads, "My heart's subdued even to the utmost pleasure of my lord."

1

In me defunct) and proper satisfaction;
But to be free and bounteous to her mind.
And Heaven defend your good souls, that you think
I will your serious and great business scant,
For 2 she is with me. No, when light-winged toys
Of feathered Cupid seel with wanton dulness
My speculative and active instruments,3

That my disports corrupt and taint my business,
Let housewives make a skillet of my helm,
And all indign and base adversities

4

Make head against my estimation! *

Duke. Be it as you shall privately determine, Either for her stay, or going: the affair cries-haste, And speed must answer it; you must hence to-night. Des. To-night, my lord?

Duke.

Oth.

This night.

With all my

heart.

Duke. At nine i' the morning here we'll meet again.

1 Steevens reads, at the suggestion of sir T. Hanmer:"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:

66

Let me wear

Your colors, lady, and though youthful heats,
That look no further than your outward form,
Are long since buried in me, while I live,

I am a constant lover of your mind," &c.

Mr. Gifford observes, that," as this shows how Shakspeare's contemporaries understood the lines, it should, I think, with us be decisive of their meaning." Affects occur incessantly in the sense of passions, affections; young affects are therefore perfectly synonymous with youthful heats. Mr. Gifford suggests that Shakspeare may have given affect in the singular to correspond with heat. Dr. Johnson's explanation is:-" I ask it not (says Othello) to please appetite or satisfy loose desires, the passions of youth, which I have now outlived, or for any particular gratification of myself, but merely that I may indulge the wishes of my wife."

2 i. e. because.

3 Thus the folio; except that, instead of active instruments, it has officed instrument. The quarto reads "And feathered Cupid foils," &c. Speculative instruments, in Shakspeare's language, are the eyes; and active instruments, the hands and feet. To seel 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."

4 The quarto reads reputation.

Othello, leave some officer behind,

And he shall our commission bring to you;
With such things else of quality and respect,
As doth import you.

Oth.

Please your grace, my ancient;

A man he is of honesty and trust;

To his conveyance I assign my wife,

With what else needful your good grace shall think
To be sent after me.

Good night to every one.-And, noble seignior,

If virtue no delighted' beauty lack,

[TO BRABANTIO.

Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.

1 Sen. Adieu, brave Moor! use Desdemona well. Bra. Look to her, Moor; have a quick eye to see; She has deceived her father, and may thee.

[Exeunt Duke, Senators, Officers, &c. Oth. My life upon her faith.-Honest Iago, My Desdemona must I leave to thee. I pr'ythee, let thy wife attend on her; And bring them after in the best advantage.' Come, Desdemona; I have but an hour Of love, of worldly matters and direction, To spend with thee; we must obey the time. [Exeunt OTHELLO and DESDEMona.

Rod. Iago

Iago. What say'st thou, noble heart?
Rod. What will I do, thinkest thou?

Iago. Why, go to bed, and sleep.

Rod. I will incontinently drown myself.

Iago. Well, if thou dost, I shall never love thee 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

1 Delighted for delighting.
2 i. e. fairest opportunity.

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,2 I would change my humanity with a baboon.

Rod. What should I do? I confess it is my shame to be so fond; but it is not in virtue to amend 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 sterile with idleness, or manured with industry; why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills. If the balance 3 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.

4

Iago. It is merely a lust of the blood, and a permission of the will. Come, be a man; drown thyself! drown cats, and blind puppies. I have professed me thy friend, and I confess me knit to thy deserving with cables of perdurable toughness; I could never better stead thee than now. Put money in thy purse; follow these wars; defeat thy favor with an usurped beard ; 5 I say, put money in thy purse. It cannot be, that Desdemona should long continue her love to the Moor, -put money in thy purse ;-nor he his to her. It was a violent commencement, and thou shalt see an an

1 In the novel, on which Othello is founded, Iago is described as a young, handsome man.

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. 4 A sect is what the gardeners call a cutting. The modern editors read

a set.

5 Defeat was used for disfigurement or alteration of features; from the French défaire. Favor means that combination of features which gives the face its distinguishing character.