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IAGO. Do; with like timorous accent, and dire

yell,

As when, by night and negligence, the fire
Is fpied in populous cities.3

ROD. What ho! Brabantio! fignior Brabantio, ho!

LAGO. Awake! what, ho! Brabantio! thieves! thieves thieves!

Look to your house, your daughter, and your bags! Thieves! thieves!

BRABANTIO, above, at a window.

BRA. What is the reafon of this terrible fummons?

What is the matter there?

ROD. Signior, is all your family within?

IAGO. Are your doors lock'd?

BRA.

Why? wherefore afk you this?

LAGO. 'Zounds, fir, you are robb'd; for shame, put on your gown;

3 As when, by night and negligence, the fire

Is fpied in populous cities.] The particle is ufed equivocally; the fame liberty is taken by writers more correct:

"The wonderful creature! a woman of reafon!

"Never grave out of pride, never gay out of feafon."

JOHNSON.

By night and negligence means, during the time of night and negligence. M. MASON.

The meaning, as Mr. Edwards has obferved, is, "not that the fire was fpied by negligence, but the fire, which came by night and negligence, was fpied. And this double meaning to the fame word is common to Shakspeare with all other writers, especially where the word is fo familiar a one, as this in queftion. Ovid feems even to have thought it a beauty instead of a defect." MALONE.

4 Are your doors lock'd?] The first quarto reads, Are all doors lock'd? STEEVENS.

Your heart is burft,' you have loft half your foul; Even now, very now, an old black ram

Is tupping your white ewe.

Arife, arife;
Awake the fnorting citizens with the bell,
Or elfe the devil will make a grandfire of you:
Arife, I fay.

BRA.

What, have you loft your wits?

ROD. Moft reverend fignior, do you know my

voice?

BRA. Not I; What are you?

ROD. My name is-Roderigo.

BRA.

The worse welcome:

I have charg'd thee, not to haunt about my doors:
In honeft plainness thou haft heard me say,
My daughter is not for thee; and now, in mad-
nefs,

Being full of fupper, and diftempering draughts,"
Upon malicious bravery, doft thou come

To start my quiet.

is burst,] i. e. is broken. Burft for broke is used in our author's King Henry IV. Part II: "—and then he burst his head for crowding among the marshal's men." See Vol. IX. p. 147, n. 6. STEEVENS.

See alfo Vol. VI. p. 386, n. 6;
tupping your white ewe.
e.]

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is called a tup. MALONE.

and p. 494, n. 4. MALONE.

In the north of England a ram

I had made the fame observation in the third act of this play, fcene iii.

your white ewe.] It appears from a paffage in Decker's O per fe O, 4to. 1612, that this was a term in the cant language ufed by vagabonds: "As the men haue nicke-names, fo likewife haue the women: for fome of them are called the white ere, the lambe," &c. STEEVENS.

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diftempering draughts,] To be distempered with liquor, was, in Shakspeare's age, the phrafe for intoxication. In Hamlet, the King is faid to be "marvellous diftempered with wine."

MALONE.

See Vol. IX. p. 321, n. 3.

STEEVENS.

ROD. Sir, fir, fir, sir,

BRA.

My fpirit, and my place, have in them power
To make this bitter to thee.

ROD.

But thou must needs be fure,

Patience, good fir.

BRA. What tell'ft thou me of robbing? this is

Venice;

My house is not a grange.

8

ROD. Most grave Brabantio, In fimple and pure foul I come to you.

IAGO. 'Zounds, fir, you are one of those, that will not ferve God, if the devil bid you. Because we come to do you fervice, you think we are ruffians: You'll have your daughter cover'd with a Barbary horfe; you'll have your nephews neigh to you: you'll have courfers for coufins, and gennets for germans.

grange.] This is Venice;

My houfe is not a grange.

That is, 66 you are in a populous city, not in a lone houfe, where a robbery might eafily be committed." Grange is ftrictly and properly the farm of a monaftery, where the religious repofited their corn. Grangia, Lat. from Granum. But in Lincolnshire, and in other northern counties, they call every lone houfe, or farm which ftands folitary, a grange. T. WARTON.

So, in T. Heywod's English Traveller, 1633:

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to abfent himfelf from home,

"And make his father's houfe but as a grange?" &c. Again, in Daniel's Complaint of Rofamond, 1599:

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foon was I train'd from court

"To a folitary grange," &c.

Again, in Measure for Meajure:

"at the moated grange re

fides this dejected Mariana." STEEVENS.

9

your nephews neigh to you:] Nephew, in this inftance, has

the power of the Latin word nepos, and fignifies a grandfon, or any lineal defcendant, however remote. So, in Spenfer:

"And all the fons of these five brethren reign'd

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By due fuccefs, and all their nephews late,

"Even thrice eleven defcents the crown obtain'd."

BRA. What profane wretch art thou? ❜

LAGO. I am one, fir, that comes to tell yo", your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.*

Again, in Chapman's verfion of the Odyssey, Book XXIV. Laertes fays of Telemachus his grandfon:

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·to behold my son

"And nephew clofe in fuch contention."

Sir W. Dugdale very often employs the word in this fenfe; and without it, it would not be very eafy to fhow how Brabantio could have nephews by the marriage of his daughter. Ben Jonfon likewife ufes it with the fame meaning. The alliteration in

this paffage caufed Shakspeare to have recourse to it.

See Vol. X. p. 606, n. 9. MALONE.

STEEVENS.

1-gennets for germans.] A jennet is a Spanish horfe. So, in Heywood's Rape of Lucrece, 1630:

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-there ftays within my tent

"A winged jennet." STEEVENS.

3 What profane wretch art thou?] That is, what wretch of gross and licentious language? In that fense Shakspeare often uses the word profane. JOHNSON.

It is fo ufed by other writers of the fame age: "How far off dwells the house-furgeon?

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You are a profane fellow, i'faith."

Again, in Ben Jonfon's Tale of a Tub:

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By the fly juftice, and his clerk profane :”

James Howell, in a dialogue prefixed to his edition of Cotgrave's Dictionary, in 1673, has the following fentence: "J'aimerois mieux eftre trop ceremonieux, que trop prophane:" which he thus alfo anglicifes" I had rather be too ceremonious, than too prophane." STEEVENS.

-your daughter and the Moor are now making the beaft with two backs.] This is an ancient proverbial expreffion in the French language, whence Shakspeare probably borrowed it; for in the Dictionaire des Proverbes Françoifes, par G. D. B. Bruffelles, 1710, 12mo. I find the following article:" Faire la bête a deux dos," pour dire, faire l'amour. PERCY.

In the Dictionaire Comique, par le Roux, 1750, this phrafe is more particularly explained under the article Bete. "Faire la bete a deux dos.-Maniere de parler qui fignifie etre couché avec une femme; faire le deduit."-" Et faifoient tous deux fouvent en

You are a fenator.

BRA. Thou art a villain.

LAGO.

BRA. This thou fhalt anfwer; I know thee, Ro

derigo.

ROD. Sir, I will answer any thing. But I befeech you,

[If't be your pleasure,' and moft wife confent, (As partly, I find, it is,) that your fair daughter, At this odd-even and dull watch o'the night,

femble la bete a deux dos joyeusement." Rabelais, liv. i. There was a translation of Rabelais published in the time of Shakspeare. MALONE.

s If't be your pleafure, &c.] The lines printed in crotchets are not in the first edition, but in the folio of 1623. JOHNSON.

6 At this odd-even and dull avatch o'the night,] The even of night is midnight, the time when night is divided into even parts.

JOHNSON. Odd is here ambiguously ufed, as it fignifies ftrange, uncouth, or unwonted; and as it is opposed to even.

But this expreffion, however explained, is very harth.

STEEVENS.

This ODD EVEN is fimply the interval between twelve at night and one in the morning. HENLEY.

By this fingular expreffion," this odd-even of night," our poet appears to have meant, that it was juft approaching to, or juft paft, midnight; fo near, or fo recently paft, that it was doubtful whether at that moment it ftood at the point of midnight, or at fome other lefs equal divifion of the twenty-four hours; which a few minutes either before or after midnight would be.

So, in Macbeth:

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What is the night?

Lady M. Almoft at odds with morning, which is which.” Shak fpeare was probably thinking of his boyish school-play, odd

or even.

MALONE.

Surely, almoft at odds with morning" fignifies, almost entering into conflict with it. Thus, in Timon of Athens:

""Tis honour, with moft lands to be at odds,—.” In King Henry VI. Part III. we find an idea fimilar to that in Macbeth:

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like the morning's war,

"When dying clouds contend with growing light."

STEEVENS,

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