Bra. O thou foul thief, where hast thou stow'd my daughter? Damn'd as thou art, thou hast enchanted her: с That weaken motion:a—I'll have it disputed on; 'Tis probable, and palpable to thinking: Oth. Hold your hands, Both you of my inclining, and the rest : Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it Without a prompter.-Where will you that I go To answer this your charge? Bra. : To prison till fit time Oth. Off. Bra. How the duke in council? In this time of the night ?-Bring him away: Mine's not an idle cause: the duke himself, Or any of my brothers of the state, Cannot but feel this wrong as 't were their own: For if such actions may have passage free, Bond-slaves and pagans shall our statesmen be. [Exeunt. a This line is wanting in the quarto. b Dearling. So in the folio, using the old Saxon word dearling in a plural sense. The quarto has darlings. To fear. Brabantio calls Othello, a thing to terrify, not to delight d So the folio. The passage in which the word weaken occurs, beginning at "Judge me the world," and ending at "palpable to thinking," is not found in the quarto. The commentators, therefore, change weaken to waken, which they elucidate by three pages of notes, which are neither satisfactory in a critical point of view, nor edifying in a moral one. a Marcus Luccicos. Both the folio and the quarto give this proper name thus. Capell changed it to Marcus Lucchesé, saying that such a termination as Luccicos is unknown in the Italian. But who is the duke inquiring after? Most probably a Greek soldier of Cyprus-an Estradiot-one who from his local knowledge was enabled to give him information. Is it necessary that the Greek should bear an Italian name? And does not the termination in cos better convey the notion which we believe the poet to have had ? b This is ordinarily printed after the quarto"Write from us; wish him post-post-haste despatch." c This line is wanting in the quarto.. . All. We are very sorry for 't. Duke. What, in your own part, can you say to this? [TO OTHELLO. Bra. Nothing, but this is so. My very noble and approv'd good masters,— speech, phrase of peace; had seven years' Till now some nine moons wasted," they have us'd I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver Of my whole course of love: what drugs, what charms, с What conjuration, and what mighty magic, That with some mixtures powerful o'er the blood, Or with some dram conjur'd to this effect, Duke. Did you by indirect and forced courses Duke. с [Exeunt IAGO and Attendants. And, till she come, as truly as to heaven I do confess the vices of my blood, So justly to your grave ears I'll present How I did thrive in this fair lady's love, And she in mine. a Wider. The quarto certain. b This line is wanting in the quarto. c This line is also wanting in the quarto. d The reading of the folio is-battle. sieges, fortune. • Traveller's history. Othello modestly, and somewhat jocosely, calls his wonderful relations, a traveller's history— a term by which the marvellous stories of the Lithgows and Coryats were wont to be designated in Shakspere's day. This is enfeebled by the quarto into travel's history. We have ventured to change the punctuation of the text, for the ordinary reading is certainly unintelligible We subjoin that reading as it is found in the current editions: "Of my redemption thence, And portance in my travel's history: (Wherein of antres vast, and deserts idle," Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven, It was my hint to speak,) such was my process ;— Would Desdemona seriously incline: But still the house affairs would draw her thence; d Idle. Sterile, barren. Pope reads wild, which he found in the second folio; and Gifford somewhat peevishly defends that reading, in a note on Ben Jonson's 'Sejanus.' b Do grow, as in the quarto. The folio, grew. o Intentively. So the quarto; the folio reads instinctively -a decided typographical error. This, and a few other errors of the same sort which are corrected by reference to the text of the quarto, prove that the folio was printed from a manuscript copy: and printed most probably before the publication of the quarto: for had it been consulted these mistakes would not have occurred. d So in the quarto; the folio, kisses. She swore. Steevens has a most extraordinary note upon this expression. He discovered in Whitaker's Vindication of Mary Queen of Scotts,' that to aver upon faith and honour was called swearing. He had previously considered that Desdemona had come out with a good round oath-a bold and masculine oath, as he calls it-and, having this impression, he had often condemned the passage as one among many proofs of Shakspere's inability to exhibit the delicate graces of female conversa. tion!" Tieck says that Eschenburg has fallen into the mistakeof translating this passage as if Desdemona had wished that heaven had made such a man for her, instead of wishing that heaven had created her as brave as the hero to whose story she had given "a world of sighs." We are not sure that Eschenburg is wrong. I do perceive here a divided duty: And so much duty as my mother show'd Bra. God be with you!—I have done :- I here do give thee that with all my heart, 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 ear.a 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 more 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, I find in hardness; and do undertake Duke. Why; at her father's. Bra. I will not have it so. Oth. Nor I. "the a Pierced. Steevens, accepting this literally, says consequence of a bruise is sometimes matter collected, and this can no ways be cured without piercing-letting it out." Warburton proposed to read pieced. Spenser has,― "Her words Which passing through the ears would pierce the heart." (Spenser-Fairy Queen, Book iv. C. 8.) Pierced is not here used by Spenser in the sense of wounded -but simply penetrated, which is probably the meaning of the text. b Agnize. Confess, acknowledge. So the quarto. The folio, "Nor would I there reside." d Your prosperous ear. The quarto reads, a gracious ear. • The quarto reads, That I did love the Moor. But her love remains, and the word did, though it assists the rhythm, enfeebles the sense. My downright violence and storm of fortunes I saw Othello's visage in his mind; I will your serious and great business scant, toys d Of feather'd Cupid seel with wanton dulness 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. a Storm in the folio; scorn in the quarto, which Mr. Dyce thinks right. b So the folio. The quarto reads, "Your voices, lords, besee th you let her will Have a free way, I therefore beg it not," &c. The modern editions give us a made-up text of the folio and the quarto, altogether one of the worst modes of emendation. c This passage, Steevens says, will prove a lasting source of doubt and controversy. In the original it stands thus: "Nor to comply with heats the young affects Upton suggested the change of my to me, and the parenthetical punctuation. d The reading of the quarto is "No, when light-wing'd toys, And feather'd Cupid foils with wanton dulness, My speculative and active instruments." The modern editors have made up a text between the quarto and the folio. They reject the foils of the quarto, and adopt the seel of the folio; while they substitute the active of the quarto for the offic'd of the folio. Having accomplished this hocus pocus, they tell us that speculative instruments are the eyes, and active instruments the hands and feet; that to secl is to close the eyelids of a bird, which applies very probably to the speculative instruments, but that foils better suits the active. It is their own work that they are quarrelling with, and not that of the author. Either reading is good, if they had let it alone. The speculative and active instruments, which are foiled, are the thoughts and the senses; the speculative and offic'd instrument, which is seeled, is the whole man in meditation and in action. When the poet adopted the more expressive word seel, he did not leave |