Upon my soul, a lie; a wicked lie.-
She false with Cassio :-did you say, with Cassio?
Iago. With Cassio, mistress. Go to, charm your
tongue.

Emil. I will not charm my tongue; I am bound

to speak :

My mistress here lies murdered in her bed.
All. O heavens forefend!

Emil. And your reports have set the murder on.
Oth. Nay, stare not, masters: it is true, indeed.
Gra. 'Tis a strange truth.

Mon. O monstrous act!
Emil.

Villany, villany, villany!

I think upon 't,—I think,—I smell 't. O villany! I thought so then.-I'll kill myself for grief.— O villany, villany!

Iago. What, are you mad? I charge you, get you home.

Emil. Good gentlemen, let me have leave to speak:

'Tis proper I obey him, but not now.-
Perchance, Iago, I will ne'er go home.
Oth. O! O! O!
Emil.

Nay, lay thee down, and roar: For thou hast killed the sweetest innocent

That e'er did lift up eye.

Thy match was mortal to him, and pure grief
Shore his old thread in twain: did he live now,
This sight would make him do a desperate turn
Yea, curse his better angel from his side,
And fall to reprobation.

Oth. 'Tis pitiful: but yet Iago knows
That she with Cassio hath the act of shame
A thousand times committed. Cassio confessed it:
And she did gratify his amorous works
With that recógnizance and pledge of love
Which I first gave her: I saw it in his hand :
It was a handkerchief; an antique token
My father gave my mother.

Emil. O heaven! O heavenly powers!
Iago. Come, hold your peace.

Emil. "Twill out, 't will out!-I hold my peace,
sir? no:

No, I will speak as liberal as the air:

Let heaven, and men, and devils, let them all,
All, all, cry shame against me, yet I'll speak.
Iago. Be wise, and get you home.
Emil. I will not.

[IAGO offers to stab his Wife. Gra. Fie! your sword upon a woman!

Oth.

:-

[Exeunt MONTANO and GRATIANO. I am not valiant neither, But every puny whipster gets my sword:But why should honour outlive honesty? Let it go all. Emil. What did thy song bode, lady? Hark, canst thou hear me? I will play the swan, And die in music:-"Willow, willow, willow."Moor, she was chaste: she loved thee, cruel Moor: So come my soul to bliss as I speak true: So speaking as I think, I die ;-I die.

[Dies.

Oth. I have another weapon in this chamber: It is a sword of Spain; the ice-brook's temper:O, here it is.-Uncle, I must come forth.

Gra. [within]. If thou attempt it, it will cost

thee dear:

Thou hast no weapon, and perforce must suffer. Oth. Look in upon me, then, and speak with me; Or, naked as I am, I will assault thee.

Re-enter GRATIANO.

Gra. What is the matter?
Oth.

Behold, I have a weapon:
A better never did itself sustain

Upon a soldier's thigh. I have seen the day
That with this little arm, and this good sword,
I have made my way through more impediments
Than twenty times your stop:-but, O vain boast!
Who can control his fate? 't is not so now.-
Be not afraid, though you do see me weaponed:

Here is my journey's end, here is my butt,
And very seamark of my utmost sail.
Do you go back dismayed? 't is a lost fear:
Man but a rush against Othello's breast,
And he retires-where should Othello go?-
Now, how dost thou look now? O ill-starred
wench,

Pale as thy smock! When we shall meet at compt,
This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven,
And fiends will snatch at it! Cold, cold, my girl?
Even like thy chastity.-

O curséd, curséd slave!-Whip me, ye devils,
From the possession of this heavenly sight!
Blow me about in winds! roast me in sulphur!
Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire !—
O Desdemona! Desdemona! dead?
Dead?-O! O! O!

Enter LODOVICO, MONTANO; CASSIO, carried in a chair; and Officers, with IAGO, prisoner.

Lod. Where is this rash and most unfortunate man?

Oth. That's he that was Othello:-here I am. Lod. Where is that viper? bring the villain forth.

Oth. I look down towards his feet;-but that's a fable :

If that thou beest a devil I cannot kill thee.
[OTHELLO wounds IAGO.
Lod. Wrench his sword from him.
Iago.

I bleed, sir; but not killed.

Oth. 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, Fallen in the practice of a curséd slave, What shall be said to thee?

Your power and your command is taken off,
And Cassio rules in Cyprus. For this slave,
If there be any cunning cruelty

That can torment him much and hold him long,
It shall be his. You shall close prisoner rest,
Till that the nature of your fault be known
To the Venetian state.-Come, bring him away.

Oth. Soft you; a word or two before you go. I have done the state some service, and they know it:

No more of that :-I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am: nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice: then must you
speak

Of one that loved not wisely, but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Júdean, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe; of one whose súbdued
eyes,

Albeit unuséd to the melting mood,
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their médicinal gum.-Set you down this:-
And say, besides, that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turbaned Turk
Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,

Look on the tragic loading of this bed: [To IAGO.
This is thy work.-The object poisons sight:
Let it be hid.-Gratiano, keep the house,
And seize upon the fortunes of the Moor,
For they succeed to you. -To you, lord governor,
Remains the censure of this hellish villain;
The time, the place, the torture,-O enforce it!
Myself will straight aboard; and, to the state,
This heavy act with heavy heart relate. [Exeunt.

"One Michael Cassio, a Florentine,

A fellow almost damned in a fair wife."

Act I., Scene 1. If the text in the second line is correct, Iago probably means that Cassio is likely to ruin himself by a marriage with Bianca. On a subsequent occasion (act iv., scene 1), he acquaints Cassio himself that such a report is in circulation.

"What tell'st thou me of robbing? This is Venice: My house is not a grange."-Act I., Scene 1. That is, we are in a populous city, not in a lone house where a robbery might easily be committed. A grange is, strictly, the farm of a monastery; but in some counties every lone house or farm which stands solitary is called a grange.

"You'll have your nephews neigh to you."-Act I., Scene 1.

Nephew, in this instance, has the power of the Latin word nepos, and signifies a grandson or any lineal descendant.

"Tying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes,
In an extravagant and wheeling stranger."
Act I., Scene 1.

The word "in" is here used in the sense of "to." This is one of the many obsolete peculiarities of ancient phraseology. "Extravagant" has its Latin signification of "wandering." As in "HAMLET:"-"The extravagant and erring spirit hies to his confine."

"I fetch my life and being

From men of royal siege; and my demerits
May speak unbonneted to as proud a fortune
As this that I have reached."-Act I., Scene 2.

The term "men of royal siege" signifies men who have sat upon royal seats or thrones. "Siege" is used for "seat" by many other writers. "Demerits" has here the signification of "merits." As in "CORIOLANUS:"

"Opinion, that so sticks on Martius, may
Of his demerits rob Cominius."

Mereo and demereo had the same meaning in the Latin.

Mr. Fuseli has given the best explanation yet offered of the term "unbonneted: "-" I am his equal or superior in rank and were it not so, such are my merits, that unbonneted, without the addition of patrician or senatorial dignity, they may speak to as proud a fortune," &c.

"Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you Against the general enemy Ottoman."-Act I., Scene 3. It was part of the policy of the Venetian state never to entrust the command of an army to a native. "By land (says Thomas), they are served of strangers, both for generals, for captains, and for all other men of war; because their law permitteth not any Venetian to be captain over an army by land: fearing, I think, Cæsar's example."

"Send for the lady to the Sagittary."-Act I., Scene 3.

"Sagittary" was the name applied to a fictitious being, compounded of man and horse. As used in the text, it has been generally supposed to be the sign of an inn; but it now appears that it was the residence of the commanding officers of the republic. It is said that the figure of an archer, over the gate, still indicates the spot.

"The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads

Do grow beneath their shoulders."-Act I., Scene 3. Legends of this description had long been popular: the allusion in the text is probably directed in a particular manner to a passage in Raleigh's narrative of his voyage to Guiana :-"Next unto the Arvi are two rivers, Atoica and Caova; and on that branch which is called Caova are a nation of people whose heads appear not above their shoulders: which, though it may be thought a mere fable, yet for mine own part I am resolved it is true, because every child in the province of Arromaia and Cauuri affirm the same. They are called Ewaipanoma; they are reported to have their eyes in their shoulders and their mouths in the middle of their breasts, and that a long train of hair groweth backward between their shoulders."

devils mean to instigate men to commit the most atrocious crimes, they prompt or tempt at first with appearances of

virtue.

"I humbly thank you for 't.-I never knew

A Florentine more kind and honest.".

Act III., Scene 1.

Cassio was undoubtedly a Florentine; and, as Iago was a Venetian, what Cassio means to say, in the quoted passage, is, that he never knew one of his own countrymen more kind and honest.

"(Save that they say the wars must make examples
Out of their best)."-Act III., Scene 3.

That is, the severity of military discipline must not spare the best men of the army, when their punishment may afford a wholesome example.

"Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul
But I do love thee !'-Act III., Scene 3.

The meaning of the word wretch is not generally understood. It is now, in some parts of England, a term of the softest and fondest tenderness. It expresses the utmost degree of amiableness, joined with an idea, which perhaps all tenderness includes, of feebleness, softness, and want of protection.-JOHNSON.

"Who has a breast so pure

But some uncleanly apprehensions
Keep leets and law-days, and in session sit

With meditations lawful."—Act III, Scene 3.

That is, who has so virtuous a breast that some uncharitable surmises will not sometimes enter into it; hold a session there as in a regular court, and “ bench by the side" of authorised and lawful thoughts?

"O beware, my lord, of jealousy:

It is the green-eyed monster which doth make
The meat it feeds on."-Act III., Scene 3.

The old copies have "mock." The correction was made by Sir T. Hanmer. I have not the smallest doubt that Shakspere wrote "make," and have, therefore, inserted it in the text. The words "make" and "mocke" (for such was the old spelling) are often confounded in these plays.— MALONE.

I have received Hanmer's emendation: because, "to mock" does not signify "to loathe;" and because, when Iago bids Othello “ beware of jealousy, the green-eyed monster," it is natural to tell why he should beware; and, for caution, he gives him two reasons:-that jealousy often creates its own cause, and that, when the causes are real, jealousy is misery. -JOHNSON.

Various passages, both from Shakspere and other writers, are quoted in support of this reading. The chief is what Emilia says of jealousy, in the last scene of this Act:-""T is a monster begot upon itself, born on itself."

"She did deceive her father, marrying you:
And when she seemed to shake and fear your looks,
She loved them most."-Act III., Scene 3.

This and the following argument of Othello ought to be deeply impressed on every reader. Deceit and falsehood, whatever conveniences they may for a time promise or produce, are in the sum of life obstacles to happiness. Those who profit by the cheat distrust the deceiver, and the act by which kindness was sought, puts an end to confidence. The same objection may be made, with a lower degree of strength, against the imprudent generosity of disproportionate marriages. When the first heat of passion is over, it is easily succeeded by suspicion that the same violence of inclination which caused one irregularity, may stimulate to another: and those who have shewn that their passions are too violent

for their prudence, will, with very slight appearances against them, be censured as not very likely to restrain them by their virtue.-JOHNSON.

"To seel her father's eyes up close as oak."-Act III., Scene 3. "To scel" is an expression from falconry. To seel a hawk was to subject it to the barbarous operation of sewing up its eyelids." Close as oak" means, as close as the grain of

the oak.

Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings,
I'd whistle her off, and let her down the wind,

To prey at fortune."-Act III, Scene 3.

"Jesses" are short straps of leather tied about the foot of a hawk, by which she is held on the fist.

"The falconers always let fly the hawk against the wind: if she flies with the wind behind her, she seldom returns. If, therefore, a hawk was for any reason to be dismissed, she was 'let down the wind,' and from that time shifted for herself, and 'preyed at fortune.'"-JOHNSON.

"I'll have the work ta'en out,

And give it Iago."-Act III., Scene 3.

By having the "work ta'en out," Emilia means that she will have it copied. This is her first thought; but the sudden coming in of Iago, in a surly humour, makes her alter her resolution. The same phrase afterwards occurs between Cassio and Bianca, in the last scene of this Act.

It is impossible not to regret the execrable conduct which the poet (most likely from inadvertence) has assigned to Emilia in this matter of the handkerchief.-In Cinthio's novel, while Desdemona is caressing the child of the Iago of the play, the villain steals the handkerchief, which hung at her girdle, without the knowledge of his wife.

"OTH. But this denoted a fo: egone conclusion. IAGO. 'Tis a shrewd doubt, though it be but a dream." Act III., Scene 3.

The last of these lines is usually given to Othelle, on the authority of the folio: the quarto ascribes it to Iago; and we coincide with Warburton in thinking the latter arrangement preferable. Othello believes that the dream leaves no ambiguity about the matter: in his judgment, it "denoted a foregone conclusion." Iago, with affected reluctance, merely admits it "a shrewd doubt."

"Marry, I would not do such a thing for a joint-ring." Act IV., Scene 3. A joint-ring was anciently a common token between lovers. Their nature will be best understood by a passage from Dryden's "DON SEBASTIAN:"

"A curious artist wrought them,
With joints so close as not to be perceived:
Yet are they both each other's counterpart.

Her part had 'Juan' inscribed, and his had 'Zayda'
(You know those names are theirs); and, in the midst,
A heart divided in two halves was placed:-
Now if the rivets of those rings enclosed
Fit not each other, I have forged this lie:
But if they join, you must for ever part."