ner, do; I will gyve' thee in thine own courtship. guard:-First, I must tell thee this-Desdemona You say rue; 'tis so indeed: if such tricks as these is directly ir. love with him. strip you out of your lieutenantry, it had been better you had not kissed your three fingers so oft, which now again you are most apt to play the sir in. Very good; well kissed! an excellent courtesy ! 'tis so, indeed. Yet again your fingers to your lips? 'would, they were clyster-pipes for your sake! [Trumpet.] The Moor, I know his trumpet. Cas. "Tis truly so. Des. Let's meet him, and receive him. Enter OTHELLO, and Attendants. Oth. O, my fair warrior.2 Des. My dear Othello! Rod. With him! why, 'tis not possible. Iago. Lay thy finger-thus, and let thy soul be instructed. Mark me with what violence she first loved the Moor, but for bragging, and telling her fantastical lies: And will she love him still for prating? let not thy discreet heart think it. Her eye must be fed; and what delight shall she have to look on the devil? When the blood is made dı:ll with the act of sport, there should be,-again to inflame it, and to give satiety a fresh appetite,— loveliness in favour; sympathy in years, manners, and beauties; all which the Moor is defective in: Now, for want of these required conveniences, her delicate tenderness will find itself abused, begin to heave the gorge, disrelish and abhor the Moor. very nature will instruct her in it, and compel her to some second choice. Now, sir, this granted, (as it is a most pregnant and unforced position,) who stands so eminently in the degree of this fortune, as Cassio does? a knave very voluble, no further conscionable, than in putting on the mere form of civil and humane seeming, for the better compassing of his salt and most hidden loose affection? why, none; why, none: A slippery and subtle knave; a finder out of occasions; that has an eye can stamp and counterfeit advantages, though true advantage never present itself: A devilish knave! besides, the knave is handsome, young; and hath all those powers!-requisites in him, that folly and green minds1o look after: A pestilent complete knave; and the woman hath found him already. Oth. It gives me wonder great as my content, .3 As hell's from heaven! If it were now to die, Des. The heavens forbid, Oth. [Kissing her. How do our old acquaintance of this isle ?- I have found great love amongst them. O, my sweet, 6 In mine own comforts.-I pr'ythee, good Iago, [Exeunt OTHELLO, DESDEMONA, and Iago. Do thou meet me presently at the harbour. Come hither. If thou be'st valiant as (they say) hase men, being in love, have then a nobility in their natures more than is native to them,-list me. The lieutenant to-night watches on the court of 1 To gyve is to fetter, to shackle. The first quarto reads-I will catch you in your own courtsies.' It may be as well to observe that courtship is the same as courtesy, i. e. complimentary or courtly behaviour. To play the sir, is to show good breeding and gallantry. 2 This phrase was introduced by our copiers of the French sonnetteers. Ronsard frequently calls his misresses guerrieres; and Southern, his imitator, is not less prodigal of the same appellation. Thus in his fifth sonnet : And my fair warrior, my light shines in thy fair eyes.' 3 So Cherea in The Eunuch of Terence, Act iii. Sc. 5: Proh Jupiter! Nunc tempus profecto est, cum perpeti me possum in- Ne vita aliqua hoc gaudium contaminet ægritudine.' 5 i. e. much solicited by invitation. So in The Letters of the Paston Family, vol. i. p. 299:- At the which Rod. I cannot believe that in her; she is full o' most blessed condition.11 lago. Blessed fig's end! the wine she drinks is made of grapes: if she had been blessed, she would never have loved the Moor; Blessed pudding! Didst thou not see her paddle with the palm of his hand? didst not mark that? Rod. Yes, that I did; but that was but courtesy. Iago. Lechery, by his hand; an index,12 and obscure prologue to the history of lust and foul thoughts. They met so near with their lips, that their breaths embraced together. Villanous thoughts, Roderigo! when these mutualities so marshal the way, hard at hand comes the master and main exercise, the incorporate conclusion: Pish!-But, sir, be you ruled by me: I have brought you from Venice. Watch you to-night; for the command, I'll lay't upon you: Cassio knows you not ;--I'll not be far from you: Do you find some occasion to anger Cassio, either by speaking too loud, or tainting13 his discipline; or from what other course you please, which the time shall more favourably minister. Rod. Well. Jago. Sir, he is rash, and very sudden14 in choler; and, haply, with his truncheon may strike at you: Provoke him, that he may: for, even out of that, will I cause these of Cyprus to mutiny; whose qualification' shall come into no true taste again, | SCENE III. A Hall in the Castle. Enter Sut by the displanting of Cassio. So shall you have OTHELLO, Desdemona, CASSIO, and Attera shorter journey to your desires, by the means I dants. shall then have to prefer them; and the impediment most profitably removed, without the which there were no expectation of our prosperity. Rod. I will do this, if I can bring it to any oppor tunity. Iago. I warrant thee. Meet me by and by at the citadel: I must fetch his necessàries ashore. Farewell. Rod. Adieu. [Exit. lago. That Cassio loves her, I do well believe it; That judgment cannot cure. Which thing to do,—- [Exit. SCENE II. A Street. Enter a Herald, with a Oth. Good Michael, look you to the guard to- Let's teach ourselves that honourable stop, Cas. Iago hath direction what to do The purchase made, the fruits are to ensue ; Cas. Welcome, Iago: We must to the watch. Iago. Not this hour, lieutenant; 'tis not yet ten o'clock: Our general cast" us thus early, for the love of his Desdemona; whom let us not therefore blame; he hath not yet made wanton the night with her and she is sport for Jove. Cas. She's a most exquisite lady. Iago. And, I'll warrant her, full of game. Cas. Indeed, she is a most fresh and delicate Iago. And, when she speaks, is it not an alarm to love? Cas. She is, indeed, perfection.10 Iago. Well, happiness to their sheets! Come, lieutenant, I have a stoup of wine and here withou: are a brace of Cyprus gallar's, that would fain have a measure to the health of black Othello. tainment. Iago. O, they are our friends; but one cup; I'll drink for you. Cas. Not to-night, good Iago; I have very poor Her. It is Othello's pleasure, our noble and valiant courtesy would invent some other custom of enterand unhappy brains for drinking; I could well wish general, that, upor certain tidings now arrived, im-courtesy porting tho mere" perdition of the Turkish fleet, every man put himself into triumph; some to dance, some to make bonfires, each man to what sport and revels his addiction leads him; for, besides these beneficial news, it is the celebration of his nuptials: So much was his pleasure should be proclaimed. All offices are open; and there is full liberty of feasting, from this present hour of five, till the bell hath told eleven. Heaven bless the Isle of Cyprus, and our, noble general Othello! [Exeunt. 1 Johnson has erroneously explained this. Qualifi. cation, in our old writers, signifies appeasement, pacification, assuagement of anger. To appease and qualifie one that is angry; tranquillum facere ex irato.' -Baret. 2 To advance them. Cas. I have drunk but one cup to-night, and that was craftily qualified11 too, and, behold, what innovation it makes here: I am unfortunate in the infirmity, and dare not task weakness with an more. my Iago. What, man! 'tis a night of revels; th gallants desire it. Cas. Where are they? Iago. Here at the door; I pray you, call them 5 'In the rank garb,' which has puzzled Steever s and Malone, is merely in the right down, or straight forward fashion.' In As You Like It, we have the right butterwoman's rank to market.' And in King Lear, Cornwall says of Kent in disguise, that he doth re-affect a saucy roughness, and constrains the garb (i. e. assumes the fashion) quite from his nature. Gower says of Fluellen, in King Henry V. :- You thought, because he could not speak English in the native garb, he could not therefore handle an English cudgel.' The folio reads-' in the right garb.' 4 If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trace "Go on and thrive, my petty tyrant's pride, Iago. If I can fasten but one cup upon him, As my young mistress' dog. Now, my sick fool, Whom love has turn'd almost the wrong side out- To Desdemona hath to-night carous'd above all; and there be souls that must be saved Cas. For mine own part,-no offence to the general, or any man of quality,-I hope to be saved. Iago. And so do I too, lieutenant. Cas. Ay, but, by your leave, not before me; the lieutenant is to be saved before the ancient. Let's have no more of this; let's to our affairs.-Forgive us our sins!-Gentlemen, let's look to our business. Do not think, gentlemen, I am drunk; this is my ancient ;-this is my right hand, and this is my lef hand:-I am not drunk now; I can stand well And they watch too. Now, 'mongst this flock of enough, and speak well enough. A life's but a span; Why, then, let a soldier drink. Some wine, boys! [Sings. [Wine brought in. Cas. Fore heaven, an excellent song. Iago. I learned it in England, where (inaeed) they are most potent in potting: your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied Hollander,-Drink, ho!-are nothing to your English. Cas. Is your Englishman so expert in his drinking 25 Iago. Why, he drinks you with facility, your Dane dead drunk; he sweats not to overthrow your Almain; he gives your Hollander a vomit, ere the next pottle can be filled. All. Excellent well. Cas. Why, very well, then; you must not think, Iago. You see this fellow, that is gone The one as long as the other: 'tis pity of him. Enter RODErigo. Iago. How now, Roderigo? · [Aros, I pray you, after the lieutenant; go. Cas. To the health of our general. Mon. I am for it, lieutenant; and I'll do you So to the Moor. justice. Iago. O, sweet England! King Stephen was a worthy peer, His breeches cost him but a crown, He held them sixpence all too dear, With that he call'd the tailor-lown. He was a wight of high renown, And thou art but of low degree: 'Tis pride that pulls the country down: Then take thine auld cloak about thee. Some wine, ho! Cas. Why, this is a more exquisite song than the other. Iago. Will you hear it again? Cas. No; for I hold him to be unworthy of his Iago. Dost thou prate, rogue? [Striking Roperigo Nay, good lieutenant, [Staying him. place, that does those things.-Well,-Heaven's I pray you, sir, hold your hand. Cas. Let me go, sir, 1 'As quarrelsome as the discordia semina rerum ; as | Or I'll knock you o'er the mazzard. quick in opposition as fire and water.'-Johnson. 2 Every scheme subsisting only in the imagination may be termed a dream. 3 See Hamlet, Act i. Sc. 2, note 8, p 472. 4 If Montano was Othello's predecessor in the government of Cyprus (as we are told in the Personæ Dramatis) he is not very characteristically employed in the present scene, where he is tippling with people already flustered, and encouraging a subaltern officer, who commands a midnight guard, to drink to excess. Steevens. 5 Thus the quarto 1622. The folio has exquisite. This accomplishment is likewise mentioned by Beaumeat and Fletcher in The Captain : Lad. Are the Englishmen Such stubborn drinkers? English gentry,' in which he says:--"Within these fiftie or threescore yeares it was a rare thing with us to see a drunken man, our nation carrying the name of the most sober and temperate of any other in the world. But since we had to doe in the quarrell of the Nether lands, about the time of Sir John Norris his first being there, the custom of drinking and pledging healthes was brought over into England; wherein let the Dutch be their owne judges, if we equall them not; yea, I think, rather excell them." 6 i. e. drink as much as you do. See King Henry IV. Part II. Act. v. Sc. 2. 7 If he have no drink, he'll keep awake while the clock strikes two rounds, or four and twenty hours.The word horologe is familiar to most of our ancient writers: Chaucer often uses it. So in the Devil's | Charter, 1607 : Mon Come, come, you're drunk. [They fight. [Bell rings. Enter OTHELLO, and Attendants. Oth. Hold, for your lives. Iago. Hold, hold, lieutenant, sir, Montano,— Have you forgot all sense of place and duty ? shame! Oth. Why, how now, ho! from whence ariseth this? Are we turn'd Turks; and to ourselves do that, now, la quarter,2 and in terms like bride and groom Oth. How comes it, Michael, you are thus Oth. Now, by heaven, My blood begins my safer guides to rule; Mon. If partially affin'd," or leagu'd in office Iago. Touch me not so near: I had rather have this tongue cut from my mouth More of this matter can. I not report:- Cas. I pray you, pardon me, I cannot speak. The world hath noted, and your name is great And spend your rich opinion,4 for the name Mon. Worthy Othello, I am hurt to danger; While I spare speech, which something now offends 1 The first quarto omits the words--he dies, and has zounds! at the commencement of the line. Montano may be supposed to say-he dies, i. e. he shall die, offering to renew the fight upon finding himself severely hurt. Othello, in the very next speech, says: 'He dies upon his motion.' 2 i. e. on our station. 'This short note might have saved the long disquisitions of Ritson, Henley, and Malone, about the precise meaning of a word which, in the military language of the present day at least, seems to have no very precise meaning. The meaning given above seems the leading signification, for the principal camp guard of a regiment is called the quarter guard; but a regiment in quarters has no such guard. I wonder that Mr. Stee, ens, who had been in the militia, did not exercise his judgment on this passage.'-Pye. 3 i. e. you have thus forgot yourself. 4 Throw away and squander your valuable character. Opinion for reputation of character occurs in other places. 5 Care of one's self Oth. I know, lage In night, and on the court and guard of safety.' Malone made the necessary transposition, which he justifies by irrefragable proof; but Steevens obstinately opposed the emendation, and retained the old mumpsimus in the text out of a spirit of contradiction! 9 Monstrous is here used as a trisyllable, as it is again in Macbeth, Act iii. Sc. 6. 10 Affined is bound by proximity of relationship,' but here it means related by nearness of office.' In the first scene it is used in the first of these senses · 'If I, in any just term, am affin'd To love the Moor.' 11 The old copy reads: 'And Cassio following him with determin'd sword.' The word him seems to have crept in from the compo sitor's eye glancing on the word in the next line. 12 Malone thinks that the words' Lead hir off were originally a marginal stage direction, as it was common to express them in imperative term-Play music-Ring the bell.-Lead him off,' &c Come, Desdemona, 'tis the soldiers' life, Cas. Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have ost the immortal part, sir, of myself, and what remains is bestial.My reputation, Iago, my reputation. Iago. As I am an honest man, I thought you had received some bodily wound; there is more offence in that, than in reputation. Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving: You have lost no reputation at all, unless you repute yourself such a loser. What, man! there are ways to recover the general again: You are but now cast in his mood,' a punishment more in policy than in malice; even so as one would beat his offenceless dog, to affright an imperious lion: sue to him again, and he's yours. Cas. I will rather sue to be despised, than to deceive so good a commander, with so slight, so drunken, and so indiscreet an officer. Drunk? and speak parrot ?2 and squabble? swagger? swear? and discourse fustian with one's own shadow ?-O, thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee-devil! Iago. What was he that you followed with your sword? What had he done to you? Cas. I know not. yourself freely to her; importune her; she tip to put you in your place again; she is of so free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition, that she holds it a vice in her goodness, not to do more than she is requested: This broken joint4 between you and her husband, entreat her to splinter; and, my fortunes against any lays worth naming, this crack of your love shall grow stronger than it was before Cas. You advise me well. Iago. I protest, in the sincerity of love, and honest kindness. Cas. I think it freely; and betimes in the morn、 ing, I will beseech the virtuous Desdemona to undertake for me: I am desperate of my fortunes, if they check me here. Iago. You are in the right. Good night, lieute nant; I must to the watch. Cas. Good night, honest Iago. [Exit CASE:O. Iago. And what's he, then, that says,-I play the villain? When this advice is free, I give, and honest, Probal to thinking, and (indeed) the course To win the Moor again? For, 'tis most easy The inclining" Desdemona to subdue In any honest suit: she's fram'd as fruitful® As the free elements. And then for her To win the Moor,-were't to renounce his baptism All seals and symbols of redeemed sin,— His soul is so enfetter'd to her love, That she may make, unmake, do what she list, Even as her appetite shall play the god With his weak function. How am I then a villain To counsel Cassio to this parallel course, Directly to his good? Divinity of hell! When devils will their blackest sins put on, They do suggest at first with heavenly shows As I do now: For while this honest fool Plies Desdemona to repair his fortunes, And she for him pleads strongly to the Moor, I'll pour this pestilence11 into his ear,That she repeals12 him for her body's lust; Cas. It hath pleased the devil drunkenness, to And, by how much she strives to do him good give place to the devil, wrath: one unperfectness | She shall undo her credit with the Moor. shows me another, to make me frankly despise my-So will I turn her virtue into pitch; .elf. Iago. Is it possible? Cas. I remember a mass of things, but nothing distinctly; a quarrel, but nothing wherefore.-O, that men should put an enemy in their mouths, to steal away their brains! that we should, with joy, revel, pleasure, and applause, transform ourselves into beasts! Iago. Why, but you are now well enough: How came you thus recovered? Iago. Come, you are too severe a moraler: As the time, the place, and the condition of this country stands, I could heartily wish this had not befallen; but, since it is as it is, mend it for your own good. A And out of her own goodness make the net, hound that hunts, but one that fills up the cry. Rod. I do follow here in the chase, not like Cas. I will ask him for my place again; he shall My money is almost spent; I have been to-night tell me I am a drunkard! Had I as many mouths exceedingly well cudgelled; and, I think, the issue as Hydra, such an answer would stop them all. To will be--I shall have so much experience for my be now a sensible man, by and by a fool, and pre-pains: and so, with no money at all, and a little sently a beast! O, strange!-Every inordinate cup more wit, return to Venice. is unblessed, and the ingredient is a devil. Iugo. Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well used; exclaim no more against it. And, good lieutenant, I think, you think I love you. Cas. I have well approved it sir,-I drunk! Iago. You, or any man living, may be drunk at some time, man. I'll tell you what you shall do. Our general's wife is now the general;-I may say so in this respect, for that he hath devoted and given up himself to the contemplation, mark, and denotement of her parts and graces:confess Iago. How poor are they, that have not patience! craft? And wit depends on dilatory time. Pleasure, and action, make the hours seem short.- 8 Corresponding to benigna. Liberal, bountiful as 10 When devils mean to instigate men to commit the most atrocious crimes, they prompt or tempt at first with heavenly shows, &c. 11 Pestilence for poison. 12 i. e. recalls him, from the Fr. rappeler. 13 The blossoming or fair appearance of things, to which Iago alludes, is the removal of Cassio. As their plan had already blossomed, so there was good ground for expecting that the fruits of it would soon be ripe. 14 The folio reads-In troth, an alteration made in the play-house copy by the interference of the master of the revels. آنا |