What he'll do with it, heaven knows, not I; Enter IAGO. Iago. How now! what do you here alone? Iago. To have a foolish wife. Emil. O, is that all? What will you give me now For that same handkerchief? Iago. Emil. What handkerchief? What handkerchief? Why, that the Moor first gave to Desdemona; Emil. No, 'faith; she let it drop by negligence; And, to the advantage 49, I, being here, took't up. Look, here it is. Iago. so earnest A good wench; give it me. To have me filch it? Iago. Emil. If it be not for some purpose of import, Give't me again: Poor lady! she'll run mad, When she shall lack it. Iago. Be not acknown on't 50; I have use for it. Go, leave me. [Exit EMILIA. 49 That is, I being opportunely here, took it up. 50 i. e. Seem as if you knew nothing of the matter. The quarto reads, "Be not you known on't."-This word acknown occurs in the Life of Ariosto, subjoined to Sir John Harington's translation of the Orlando Furioso, p. 418, ed. 1607:-"Some say he was married to her privilie, but durst not be acknowne of it." Again in Cornelia, a tragedy, by Thomas Kyd, 1594 : I will in Cassio's lodging lose this napkin, As proofs of holy writ. This may do something. 51 Burn like the mines of sulphur.-I did say so :— Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep Enter OTHELLO. Oth. To me ? Ha ha! false to me? Iago. Why, how now, general? no more of that. Oth. Avaunt! be gone! thou hast set me on the rack : I swear, 'tis better to be much abus'd, "Our friend's misfortune doth increase our own. Cic. But ours of others will not be acknown." 51 The quarto, 1622, reads art instead of act, and in the next line mindes for mines. Iago first ruminates on the qualities of the passion which he is labouring to excite; and then proceeds to comment on its effects. "Jealousy," says he, "with the smallest operation on the blood, i. e. disposition, flames out with all the violence of sulphur," &c. "I did say so; Look where he comes!" 1. e. "I knew the least touch of such a passion would not permit the Moor a moment of repose:-I have just said that jealousy is a restless commotion of the mind; and look where Othello approaches, to confirm the propriety and justice of my observation." Steevens. 52 The mandrake has a soporifick quality, and the ancients used it when they wanted an opiate of the most powerful kind. See Antony and Cleopatra, Act i. Sc. 6. 53 i. e. possessedst. Than but to know't a little. Iago. How now, my lord? Oth. What sense had I of her stolen hours of lust 54 ? I saw't not, thought it not, it harm'd not me: I slept the next night well, fed well, was free and merry55; He that is robb'd, not wanting what is stolen, Oth. I had been happy, if the general camp, 54 A similar passage to this, and what follows it, is found in The Witch, by Middleton. In the same drama there is also a scene between Francisca and her brother Antonio, when she first excites his jealousy, which has several circumstances in common with the dialogue which passes between Iago and Othello on the same subject. It is more than probable that Middleton was the imitator, as it is certain he was in the incantations in The Witch. 55 Thus the folio: the words "fed well," are omitted in the quarto. 56 i. e. the vilest of the camp. Pioneers were generally degraded soldiers. According to the old ordinances of war, a soldier who lost any part of his arms by negligence or play, was to be dismissed with punishment, or to be made "some abject pioneer." 57 There are some points of resemblance between this speech and the following lines in a poem by George Peele, "A Farewell to the Famous and Fortunate Generals of our English Forces, Sir John Norris and Sir Francis Drake, 1589: "Change love for armes; gyrt to your blades, my boyes; The roaring cannon, and the brazen trumpe, The angry-sounding drum, the whistling fife, The shriekes of men, the princelie courser's ney.” Malone thought that Shakespeare might have received the hint for this speech from another passage in the old drama of Comon Conditions, 1576. To which Steevens replies, I know not why we should suppose that Shakespeare borrowed so common a re Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump, The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife 58, The royal banner; and all quality, Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious wara! petition as these diversified farewells from any preceding drama. A string of adieus is perhaps the most tempting of all repetitions, because it serves to introduce a train of imagery, as well as to solemnify a speech or composition. Wolsey, like Othello, indulges himself in many farewells; and the "Valete, aprica montium cacumina ! Valete, opaca vallium cubilia!" &c. are common to poets of different ages and countries. In Cavendish's Metrical Visions there is a similar valedictory address to a variety of objects and circumstances. And Steevens instances another in which sixteen succeeding verses begin with the word farewell. 58 In mentioning the fife joined to the drum, Shakespeare, as usual, paints from life; those instruments, accompanying each other, being used in his age by the English soldiery. The fife, however, as a martial instrument, was afterwards entirely discontinued among our troops for many years; but at length revived in the war before the last by the British guards under order of the Duke of Cumberland, when they were encamped before Maestricht in 1747, and thence soon adopted into other English regiments of infantry. They took it from the allies with whom they served. This instrument accompanying the drum is of considerable antiquity in the European armies, particularly the German. In a curious picture, painted 1525, in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, representing the siege of Pavia by the French king, we see fifes and drums. In the diary of King Henry's siege of Bolloigne, 1544 (Rymer, Fod. xv. p. 53), mention is made of drommes and viffleurs marching at the head of the king's army. The drum and fife were also much used at shows and processions. At a stately masque on Shrove Tuesday, 1510, in which Henry VIII. was an actor, Holinshed mentions the entry of "a drum and fife, apparelled in white damaske and grene bonnettes;" and at the Inner Temple celebration of Christmas (described by Leigh in his Accidence of Armory, 1576), "We entered the prince his hall, where anon we heard the noise of drum and fife.” It will hardly be necessary to state that this note is abridged from one by Thomas Warton, whose passion for the spirit-stirring instruments to which it relates is upon record. The remainder of his note is an attempt to derive the word whiffler from viffleur, a fifer; but it is probable that it had another origin. See vol. v. p. 400, note 2. a Davenant in his Albovine, and Fletcher in his Prophetess, have each of them imitated this passage of Othello. And, O you mortal engines, whose rude throats Oth. Villain, be sure thou prove my love a whore ; Be sure of it; give me the ocular proof; [Taking him by the Throat. Or, by the worth of mine eternal soul 59, Iago. Is't come to this? Oth. Make me to see't; or (at the least) so prove it, That the probation bear no hinge, nor loop, To hang a doubt on: or, woe upon thy life! Iago. My noble lord, Oth. If thou dost slander her, and torture me, Never pray more: abandon all remorse 60; On horror's head horrors accumulate : Do deeds to make heaven weep, all earth amaz'd; For nothing canst thou to damnation add, Greater than that. Iago. 61 O grace! O heaven, defend 61 me! Are you a man? have you a soul, or sense?— God b' wi' you; take mine office.-O wretched fool! That liv'st to make thine honesty, a vice!— O monstrous world! Take note, take note, O world, I thank you for this profit; and, from hence, 59 The quarto of 1622 reads, "man's eternal soul." Perhaps an opposition was designed between man and dog. 60 i. e. all tenderness of nature, all pity; the sense in which remorse is most frequently used by Shakespeare. 61 The folio reads, "forgive me," and three lines lower misprints lov'st for liv'st. |