Re-enter Gratiano. Gra. What is the matter? Oth. Lo! I have a weapon: Upon a foldier's thigh. I've feen the day, Do you go, back difmay'd? 'tis a loft fear: Man but a rush against Othello's breast, And he retires. Where should Othello go? Now how doft thou look now ? oh ill-starr'd wench! Whip me, ye devils, From the poffeffion of this heav'nly fight; Enter Lodovico, Caffio led in wounded, Montano, and lago prifoner, with Officers. Lod. Where is this rath and moft unfortunate man? Oth. That's he, that was Othello: here I am. Lod. Where is that viper? bring the villain forth. Oth. I look down tow'rds his feet; but that's a fable.(54) If that thou be'ft a devil, I cannot kill thee. [Othello wounds Iago. (54) I look down tow'rds his feet: but that's a fable.] I won't pretend to affirm, but Ben Johnson feems to me to be fneering at Shakefpeare, for hinting at a notion, inculcated, by the foppery of painters, and fuperftition of zealots, into the vulgar, that the devil has cloven feet. I look'd o' your feet afore, you cannot cozen me; Devil's an Afs. Lod. Lod. Wrench his fword from him. Oth. I am not forry, neither: I'd have thee live; Lod. Oh thou, Othello, that waft once fo good, Oth. Why, any thing; An honourable murd'rer, if you will: Caf. Dear General, I never gave you caufe. Gra. Torments will ope your lips. Oth. Well, thou dost best. Lo. Sir, you fhall understand what hath befall'n, By Roderige. Oth. Oh villain! Caf. Moft heathenish and most grofs! Lol. Now, here's another difcontented paper, Found in his pocket too; and this, it feems, Rodorigo meant t'have fent this damned villain; But that, belike, lago in the interim Came in and fatisfy'd him. Ob. Oh thou pernicious caitiff? How came you, Caffio, by that handkerchief Caf. I found it in my chamber ; And he himfelf confeft it but ev'n now, . 'That there he dropt it for a special purpose, Caf. There is, befides, in Rodorigo's letter, Lod. You must forfake this room, and go with us; That can torment him much, and hold him long, Richer than all his tribe; of one, whose eyes, Like the bafe Indian, threw a pearl away, Albeit Ricker than all his tribe.] I have reftor'd, Judian, from the elder quarto, as the genuine and more eligible reading. Mr. Pope thinks, this was occafion'd probably by the word tribe just after: I have many reasons to oppofe to this opinion. In the first place, the moft ignorant Indian, I believe, is fo far the reverse of the dungbil cock in the fable, as to know the eftimation of a pearl, beyond that of a barley-corn. So that, in that refpect, the thought itself would not be juft. Then, if our Author had defign'd to reflect on the ignorance of the Indian without any farther reproch, he would have call'd him rude, and not, base. Again, I am perfuaded, as my friend Mr. Warburton long ago obfer'd, the phrafe is not here literal, but metopbo Albeit unused to the melting mood, metaphorical: and, by his pearl, our Author very properly means a fine woman. To inftance only in two paffages from his Troilus, of the like ufage Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl ; Is the worth keeping? why, fhe is a pearl, Dog Toy Whose price hath launch'd above a thousand hips, br And turn'd crown'd Kings to merchants. But Mr. Pope objects farther to reading Judian, becaufe, to make fenfe of this, we must presuppose some particular ftory of a few alluded to, which is much lefs obvious: but has Shakespeare never done this, but in this fingle inftance Let us turn back, for proof, to his Twelfth Night; Why should I not, had I the heart to do't, Nadrol Like to th' Egyptian thief, at point of death, Here is a particular fory hinted at, (which I have explain'd in the proper place) much lefs obvious than the flory above presuppos'd. But this we are to obferve of Shakespeare, that tho' both his stories are introduc'tacito nomine, his allufion and fimilie are as clear, as if he had given us the exprefs hiftory. Ben Jonson, I am fure, does not always convey his allufions in the fame clearness. I have a husband, and a two-legg'd one, But fuch a moonling, as no wit of man, Here is a flory presuppos'd, but fo darkly couch'd, that, I dare warrant, fcarce one reader in five hundred of this poet ever guess'd at it.'Nor can any one know what he would be at, who has not read either Lucian or Apuleius: and obferv'd, that when Lucius by a magical unguent was converted into an afs, the only means of recovering his own form was for him to broufe on fresh rofes. I hope, the explication of this obfcure paffage will compenfate for the digreffion. But, to return to my Author. am fatisfied, in his Judian, he is alluding to Herod; who, in a fit of blind jealousy, threw away fuch a jewel of a wife as Mariamne was to him. What can be more parallel in circumftance, than the conduct of Herod and Othello? Nor was the ftory fo little obvious, as Mr. Pope feems to imagine: for, in the year 1613, the lady Elizabeth Carew publish'd a tragedy call'd MARIAM, the fair Queen of JEWRY. I fhall only add, that our Author might write Judian, or Judean, (if that should be alledg'd as any objection) inftead of Judaan, with the fame licenfe and change of accent, as, in his Antony and Cleopatra, he fhortens the fecond fyllable of Euphutes in pronunciation, 3 Beat : Beat a Venetian, and traduc'd the State, I took by the throat the circumcised dog, Lod. Oh bloody period! Gra. All, that is fpoke, is marr'd. [Stabs himself. Oth. I kift thee, ere I kill'd thee.-No way but this, Killing myself, to die upon a kifs. [To Defdem. (Dies Caf. This did I fear, but thought he had no weapon, For he was great of heart. Lod. Oh Spartan dog! [To Iago. More fell than anguish, hunger, or the sea! [Exeunt. |