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As Dian's vifage, is now begrim'd and black
As mine own face.-If there be cords, or knives,
Poison, or fire, or fuffocating ftreams,

I'll not endure it,-Would, I were fatisfied!

Iago. I fee, fir, you are eaten up with paffion : I do repent me, that I put it to you.

You would be fatisfied?

Oth. Would nay, I will.

Lago. And may: But, how? how fatisfied, my lord? Would you, the fupervifor, grofsly gape on? Behold her tupp'd "?

Qth. Death and damnation! O!

Iago. It were a tedious difficulty, I think,
To bring 'em to that prospect: Damn them then,
If ever mortal eyes do fee them bolster,

More than their own! What then? how then?
What shall I fay? Where's fatisfaction ?

It is impoffible, you should fee this,

Were they as prime as goats, as hot as monkeys,
As falt as wolves in pride, and fools as grofs
As ignorance made drunk. But yet, Ï say,
If imputation, and ftrong circumftances,
Which lead directly to the door of truth,—
Will give you fatisfaction, you may have it.

Oth. Give me a living reafon that she's difloyal 7.
Iago.

ing to the ufual unjust determination of the world, would be fullied by the infidelity of his wife. Befides, how could either trranfcriber or printer have fubftituted My for Her. MALONE.

5 Bebeld ber tupp'd?] A ram in Staffordshire and fome other counties is called a tup. So, in the first act :

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"Is tupping your white ewe." STEEVENS.

The old copies have-topp'd. Mr. Theobald made the correction.

MALONE. Were they as prime as goats,] Prime is prompt, from the Celtic . or British prim. HANMER.

So, in the Vow-breaker, or the Faire Maid of Clifton, 1636:

"More prime than goats or monkies in their prides." STEEV. 7 Give me a living reafon that he's difloyal.] Thus the quarto, 1622. The folio omits the word that, probably for the fake of the metre; but our poet often ufes fuch words as reason, as a monofyllable.

Fago. I do not like the office:

But, fith I am enter'd in this cause so far,-
Prick'd to it by foolish honefty and love,-
I will go on. I lay with Caffio lately;
And, being troubled with a raging tooth,
I could not fleep.

There are a kind of men fo loose of soul,
That in their fleeps will mutter their affairs;
One of this kind is Caffio:

In fleep I heard him fay,-" Sweet Desdemona,
Let us be wary, let us hide our loves!"

And then, fir, would he gripe, and wring my hand,
Cry,-Ofweet creature! and then kiss me hard,
As if he pluck'd up kiffes by the roots,

That grew upon my lips: then lay'd his leg

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Over my thigh, and figh'd, and kiss'd; and then
Cry'd, Curfed fate! that gave thee to the Moor!
Oth. O monftrous! monftrous!

Iago. Nay, this was but his dream.

Oth. But this denoted a foregone conclufion";
'Tis a fhrewd doubt, though it be but a dream'.
Iago. And this may help to thicken other proofs,
That do demonftrate thinly.

Oth. I'll tear her all to pieces.

Iago. Nay, but be wife: yet we fee nothing done 2;

A living reafon is a reafon founded on fact and experience, not on furmile or conjecture: a reafon that convinces the understanding as perfectly as if the fact were exhibited to the life. MALONE.

8 and figh'd, and kifs'd; and then

Cry'd, Thus the quarto, 1622. The folio reads:
then lay'd his leg o'er my thigh,

And figh, and kifs, and then cry, curfed fate, &c.

The omillion of the perfonal pronoun before lay'd is much in our authour's manner. See Vol. VIII. p. 560, n. 8. MALONE.

9- a foregone conclufion;] A conclufion in Shakspeare's time meant an experiment or trial. See Vol. VII. p. 384, n. 3. MALONE.

Othel. 'Tis a shrewd doubt, &c.] The old quarto gives this line, with the two following, to Iago; and rightly. WARBURTON. In the folio this line is given to Othello. MALONE.

2—

I think it more naturally fpoken by Othello, who, by dwelling fo long upon the proof, encouraged Iago to enforce it. JOHNSON. yet we fee nothing done;] This is an oblique and fecret mock at Othello's faying, Give me the ocular proof. WARBURTON VOL. IX.

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She

She may be honeft yet. Tell me but this,-
Have you not fometimes feen a handkerchief,
Spotted with ftrawberries, in your wife's hand?

Oth. 1 gave her fuch a one; 'twas my first gift.
Iago. I know not that: but such a handkerchief,
(I am fure, it was your wife's,) did I to-day
See Caffio wipe his beard with.

Oth. If it be that,

Iago. If it be that, or any that was her's 3,
It speaks against her, with the other proofs.
Oth. O, that the flave had forty thousand lives;
One is too poor, too weak for my revenge!
Now do I fee 'tis true 4.-Look here, Iago;
All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven 5:
'Tis gone.

Arife, black vengeance, from thy hollow cell"!

Yield

3 that was ber's,] The only authentick copies, the quarto, 1622, and the folio, read-or any, it was hers. For the emendation I am anfwerable. The mistake probably arose from yt only being written in the manufcript. The modern editors, following an amendment made by the editor of the fecond folio, read-if 'twas her's. MALONE. Now do I fee 'tis true.-] The old quarto reads,

Now do I fee 'tis time.

And this is Shakspeare's, and has in it much more force, and folem nity, and preparation for what follows: as alluding to what he had faid before:

No, Iago!

I'll fee before I doubt, when I doubt, prove;
And, on the proof, there is no more but this,
Away at once with love or jealousy.

This time was now come. WARBURTON.

5 All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven :] So, in Marlowe's Luft's Dominion, 1657:

thus blow them into air." MALONE. Thus the quarto, 1622. The folio Hollow, Dr. Warburton confiders as

"Are thefe your fears? 6 -from thy hollow cell!] reads from the bollow bell. "a poor unmeaning epithet." MALONE.

I do not perceive that the epithet bollow is at all unmeaning, when applied to hell, as it gives the idea of what Milton calls

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the void profound

"Of uneffential night." STEEVENS.

And in Paradife Loft, B. I. ver. 314, the fame epithet and fubject

occur

He

Yield up, O love, thy crown, and hearted throne 7, To tyrannous hate! fwell, bofom, with thy fraught, For 'tis of afpicks' tongues !

Iago. Pray, be content.

Oth. O, blood, Iago, blood!

lago. Patience, I fay; your mind, perhaps, may

change.

Oth. Never, Iago 9. Like to the Pontick fea1, Whose icy current and compulfive courfe

Ne'er feels retiring ebb 2, but keeps due on

"He call'd fo loud, that all the bollow deep
"Of bell refounded." H. T. W.

Το

Milton was a great reader and copier of Shakspeare, and he undoubtedly read his plays in the folio, without thinking of examining the more ancient quartos. In the first book of Paradife Loft, we find

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the univerfal hoft up fent

"A fhout that tore bell's concave." MALONE.

- hearted throne,] Hearted throne, is the heart on which thou waft enthroned. JOHNSON.

So, in Twelfth Night:

"It gives a very echo to the feat,

"Where love is thron'd."

See alfo Romeo and Juliet, p. 154, n. 5. MALONE.

8 — fwell, bofom, &c.] i. e. fwell, because the fraught is of poifon.

WARBURTON.

9 Never, Iago.] From the word Like to marble beaven, inclufively, is not found in the quarto, 1622. MALONE.

Like to the Pontick fea, &c.] This fimile is omitted in the first edition: I think it should be fo, as an unnatural excurfion in this place. POPE.

Every reader will, I durft fay, abide by Mr. Pope's cenfure on this paffage. When Shakspeare grew acquainted with fuch particulars of knowledge, he made a difplay of them as foon as opportunity offered. He found this in the fecond book and 97th Chapter of Pliny's Nat. Hift. as tranflated by Philemon Holland, 1601: "And the fea Pontus evermore floweth and runneth out into Propontis, but the fea never retireth backe againe within Pontus."

Mr. Edwards, in his MSS. notes, conceives this fimile to allude to Sir Philip Sidney's device, whofe imprefs, Camden, in his Remains, fays, was the Cafpian fea, with this motto, SINE REFLUXU.

STEEVENS.

2 Ne'er feels retiring ebb,] The folio, where alone this paffage is found, reads-Ne'er keeps retiring ebb, &c. Many fimilar mistakes have 002 happened

To the Propontick, and the Hellefpont ;

Even fo my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,
Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love,
Till that a capable and wide revenge 3

Swallow them up.-Now, by yond marble heaven 4,
In the due reverence of a facred vow

I here engage my words.

Iago. Do not rife yet.

Witness, you ever-burning lights above!

You elements that clip us round about!
Witness, that here lago doth give up
The execution of his wit, hands, heart,

[kneels

[kneels.

To wrong'd Othello's fervice! let him command,
And to obey fhall be in me remorse,

happened in that copy, by the compofitor's repeating a word twice in the fame line. So, in Hamiet:

“My news shall be the news [r. fruit] to that great feast.” Again, ibidem:

"The fpirit, upon whofe Spirit depend and rest," &c.

inftead of-upon whofe weal. The correction was made by Mr. Pope. MALONE. 3-a capable and wide revenge-] Cap ableperhaps fignifies ample, capacious. So, in As you like it?

"The cicatrice and capable impreffure."

Again, in Pierce Penniless bis Supplication to the Devil, by Nashe, 1592: "Then belike, quoth I, you make this word, Dæmon, a Capable name, of Gods, of men, and of devils."

It may however mean judicious. In Hamlet the word is often used in the fenfe of intelligent. What Othello fays in another place feems to favour this latter interpretation:

4

"Good; good-the juftice of it pleases me." MALONE. by yond marble beaven,] In Soliman and Perfeda, 1599, I find the fame expreflion:

"Now by the marble face of the welkin," &c.

So, in Marston's Antonio and Mellida, 1602:

"And pleas'd the marble heavens." MALONE.

5 be execution-] The first quarto reads excellency.

STEEVENS,

STEEVENS.

By execution Shakspeare meant employment or exercise. So, in Love's Labour's Loft:

"Full of comparisons and wounding flouts, "Which you on all eftates will execute," The quarto, 1622, reads-band. MALONE.

What

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