Enter LODOVICO, MONTANO, CASSIO, carried in a chair, and LOD. Where is this rash and most unfortunate man? LOD. Where is that viper? bring the villain forth. ОTH. I look down towards his feet;-but that's a fable: If that thou be'st a devil I cannot kill thee. LOD. Wrench his sword from him. [OTHELLO wounds IAGO. I bleed, sir; but not kill'd. Отн. I am not sorry neither; I'd have thee live ; For, in my sense, 't is happiness to die. LOD. O thou Othello, that was once so good, Fall'n in the practice of a cursed slave, What shall be said to thee? Отн. Why, any thing: An honourable murtherer, if you will; For nought I did in hate, but all in honour. LOD. This wretch hath part confess'd his villainy: Did you and he consent in Cassio's death? Отн. Ау. CAS. Dear general, I never gave you cause. Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil, IAGO. Demand me nothing: What you know, you know: From this time forth I never will speak word. LOD. What? not to pray? GRA. Отн. Well, thou dost best. Torments will ope your lips. LOD. Sir, you shall understand what hath befall'n, And here, another: the one of them imports By Roderigo. Отн. O villain ! CAS. Most heathenish and most gross! LOD. Now here's another discontented paper, Found in his pocket too; and this, it seems, Came in and satisfied him. Отн. How came you, Cassio, by that handkerchief That was my wife's ? CAS. O thou pernicious caitiff! I found it in my chamber ; And he himself confess'd, but even now, That there he dropp'd it, for a special purpose, Отн. O fool! fool! fool! CAS. There is, besides, in Roderigo's letter,— Iago set him on. LOD. You must forsake this room, and go with us; That can torment him much, and hold him long, ОтH. Soft you; a word or two, before you go. I have done the state some service, and they know 't; Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak Of one that lov'd not wisely, but too well; Of one, not easily jealous, but, being wrought, Richer than all his tribe; of one, whose subdu'd eyes, Albeit unused to the melting mood, Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees Their medicinable gum: Set you down this: And say, besides,—that in Aleppo once, LOD. O bloody period! [Stabs himself. All that is spoke is marr'd. OTH. I kiss'd thee, ere I kill'd thee;-No way but this, Killing myself, to die upon a kiss. [Dies. CAS. This did I fear, but thought he had no weapon; For he was great of heart. O Spartan dog! LOD. [To IAGO. [Exeunt. 66 VARIOUS READINGS. "Laying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes, The originals have : Tying her duty, beauty, wit and fortunes, In an extravagant and wheeling stranger." Some of the commentators proposed "laying" and "in." Mr. Collier's corrected folio has "wheed ling." ACT I., Sc. 1. We say "wrapped in him." Why not then "tied in him?" As to wheedling, it is wholly inappropriate as applied to Othello. Roderigo says she is gone off with a stranger- —an erratic and shifting man, that will have no fit home for her. "I tremble at it. Nature would not invest herself in such shuddering passion, without some instruction."—Act IV., Sc. 1. Mr. Collier's folio thus changes the "shadowing passion" of the original. Mr. Collier thinks that "shadowing" has "no meaning but that fancifully suggested by Warburton, where he supposes Othello, in the height of his grief and fury, to illustrate his own condition by reference to an eclipse." Mr. Collier has surely forgotten Johnson's beautiful note on this passage. "There has always prevailed in the world an opinion, that when any great calamity happens at a distance, notice is given of it to the sufferer by some dejection or perturbation of mind, of which he discovers no external cause. This is ascribed to that general communication of one part of the universe with another, which is called sympathy and antipathy; or to the secret monition, instruction, and influence of a Superior Being, which superintends the order of nature and of life. Othello says, Nature could not invest herself in such shadowing passion without instruction. It is not words that shake me thus. This passion, which spreads its clouds "A fixed figure for the hand of scorn Acknow, from the Latin agnosco, is to confess or acknowledge. "You will not be acknown, sir;" and Sir John Harrington in his translation of the 'Life of Ariosto,' 1667, writes-"Some say he was married to her privily, but durst not be acknown of it." AGNIZE. Act I., Sc. 3. 66 'I do agnize a natural and prompt alacrity." Agnize is to acknowledge, to confess. AIM. Act I., Sc. 3. "As in these cases where the aim reports." Aim is used in the sense of conjecture. CARACK. Act I., Sc. 2. "He to-night hath boarded a land carack." A carack was a ship of heavy burthen; the term was frequently applied to Spanish and Portuguese vessels. VOL. VI. KK |