Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whofe heads touch

heaven,

It was my hint to speak,' fuch was the process;

of the Characteristicks, who more obliquely fneers at it, only expose their own ignorance. WARBURTON.

Whoever ridicules this account of the progress of love, shows his ignorance, not only of hiftory, but of nature and manners. It is no wonder that, in any age, or in any nation, a lady, reclufe, timorous, and delicate, fhould defire to hear of events and scenes which she could never fee, and should admire the man who liad endured dangers, and performed actions, which, however, great, were yet magnified by her timidity. JOHNSON.

antres-] French, grottos. PoPE.

Caves and dens. JOHNSON.

2 — and defarts idle,] Every mind is liable to absence and inadvertency, elfe Pope [who reads-defarts wild,] could never have rejected a word fo poetically beautiful. Idle is an epithet used to exprefs the infertility of the chaotick ftate, in the Saxon tranflation of the Pentateuch. JOHNSON.

So, in The Comedy of Errors:

"Ufurping ivy, briar, or idle moss.”

Mr. Pope might have found the epithet wild in all the three last

folios. STEEVENS.

The epithet, idle, which the ignorant editor of the fecond folio did not understand, and therefore changed to wild, is confirmed by another paffage in this act: " either to have it steril with

idleness, or manured with induftry." MALONE.

Virgil applies ignavus to woods in the fame way:

66

Iratus fylvam devexit arator,

"Et nemora evertit multos ignava per annos."

Georg. II. v. 207. HOLT WHITE. 3 It was my hint to speak,] This implies it as done by a trap laid for her: but the old quarto reads hent, i. e. use, cuftom. [Hint is the reading of the folio.] WARBURTON.

any other au

Hent is not use in Shakspeare, nor, I believe, in thor. Hint, or cue, is commonly used for occafion of fpeech, which is explained by, fuch is the process, that is, the courfe of the tale required it. If bent be restored, it may be explained by handle. I had a handle, or opportunity, to speak of cannibals.

JOHNSON. Hent occurs at the conclufion of the 4th act of Meafure for Mea

And of the Cannibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders.

to hear,

Would Defdemona feriously incline:

These things

But ftill the houfe affairs would draw her thence; Which ever as fhe could with hafte despatch, She'd come again, and with a greedy ear

fure. It is derived from the Saxon Hentan, and means, to take kald of, to feize:

the graveft citizens

"Have bent the gates."

But in the very next page Othello fays:

Upon this bint I fpake."

It is certain therefore that change is unneceffary. STEEVEYS men whofe heads

Do grow beneath their shoulders.] Of thefe men there is account in the interpolated travels of Mandeville, a book of the time. JOHNSON.

The Cannibals and Anthropophagi were known to an

audience before Shakspeare introduced them. In The Hima Orlando Furic, played for the entertainment of Queen Elimites, they are mentioned in the very firft fcene; and Raleigh spec f people whofe heads appear not above their shoulders.

Again, in the tragedy of Locrine, 1595:

"Or where the bloody Anthropophagi,

"With greedy jaws devour the wandring wights," The poet might likewife have read of them in Pliny s Nam Hiftory, tranflated by P. Holland, 1601, and in Stowe's Chris

STET'T

Hiftories favs Bernard Gilpin, in a fermon before Edward make mention of a "people called Anthropophagi, caters of

Our poet has again in The Tempest mentioned “men winė Aus ftood in their breasts." He had in both places probably

yager, 1598, in view :-" On that branch which is called are a nation of people tohol beades appeare not above thris -they are reported to have their eyes in their shoulders, zn mouthes in the middle of their breasts."

Raleigh also has given an account of men whofe hears &. beneath their shoulders, in his Dfcription of Gwars, profile 1598, a book that without doubt Shakspeare had read."

Devour up my discourse: Which I observing,
Took once a pliant hour; and found good means
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart,
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,
Whereof by parcels fhe had fomething heard,
But not intentively: I did consent;

s—and with a greedy ear

Devour up my difcourfe:] So, in Marlowe's Luft's Dominion, written before 1593:

Hang both your greedy ears upon my lips; "Let them devour my speech."

Again, in Spenfer's Faery Queene, B. VI. c. ix :

Why left thus he talkt, the knight with greedy eare
Hong ftill upon his melting mouth attent.'

MALONE.

Both these phrases occur in Tully. "Non femper implet aures meas, ita funt avida & capaces." Orat. 104.

"Nos hinc vora

mus literas—.” Ad. Attic. iv. 14. Auribus avidis captare, may also be found in Ovid, De Ponto. STEEVENS.

"Iliacofque iterum demens audire labores

"Expofcit, pendetque iterum narrantis ab ore." Virg.

M. MASON.

6 But not intentively:] Thus the eldest quarto. The first folio reads-inflinctively; the second,—diftin&tively.

The old word, however, may ftand. Intention and attention were once fynonymous. So, in a play called The Ifle of Gulls, 1606: "Grace! at fitting down, they cannot intend it for hunger." i. e. attend to it. Defdemona, who was often called out of the room on the score of houfe-affairs, could not have heard Othello's tale intentively, i. e. with attention to all its parts.

Again, in Chapman's version of the Iliad, B. VI:

"Hector intends his brother's will; but first" &c. Again, in the tenth Book:

all with intentive ear

"Converted to the enemies' tents

Again, in the eighth Book of the Odyfey:

"For our fhips know th' expreffed minds of men;
"And will fo moft intentively retaine
"Their scopes appointed, that they never erre."

STEEVENS.

Shakspeare has already ufed the word in the fame fenfe in his Merry Wives of Windjør: fhe did courfe over my exteriors with fuch a greedy intention." See alfo Vol. XI. p. 528, n. 4.

And often did beguile her of her tears,
When I did speak of some distressful stroke,
That my youth fuffer'd. My ftory being done,
She gave me for my pains a world of fighs: "
She fwore,-In faith, 'twas ftrange, 'twas paffing
ftrange;

'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful :

She wifh'd, fhe had not heard it; yet fhe wifh'd That heaven had made her fuch a man: fhe thank'd

me;

And bade me, if I had a friend that lov'd her,
I fhould but teach him how to tell my ftory,
And that would woo her. Upon this hint, I fpake:
She lov'd me for the dangers I had pafs'd;
And I lov'd her, that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have us'd;
Here comes the lady, let her witness it.

Enter DESDEMONA, IAGO, and Attendants.

DUKE. I think, this tale would win my daughter

too.

Good Brabantio,

Take up this mangled matter at the best:
Men do their broken weapons rather use,
Than their bare hands.

BRA.

I pray you, hear her speak; If the confefs, that she was half the wooer, Deftruction on my head,' if my bad blame

6

-

Diftinctively was the conjectural emendation of the editor of the fecond folio, who never examined a fingle quarto copy. MALONE. a world of fighs:] It was kiffes in the later editions: but this is evidently the true reading. The lady had been forward indeed to give him a world of kifles upon a bare recital of his ftory; nor does it agree with the following lines. POPE.

Sighs is the reading of the quarto, 1622; kiffes of the folio.

MALONE. Deftruction &c.] The quartos read-Deftruction light on me. STERVENS.

Light on the man!-Come hither, gentle mistress;
Do you perceive in all this noble company,
Where most you owe obedience?

DES.

My noble father,

I do perceive here a divided duty:

To you I am bound for life, and education;
My life, and education, both do learn me
How to refpect you; you are the lord of duty,
I am hitherto your daughter: But here's my huf,
band;

And fo much duty as my mother show'd
To you, preferring you before her father,"
So much I challenge that I may profess
Due to the Moor, my lord.

BRA. God be with you!-I have done:→→
Please it your grace, on to the state affairs;
I had rather to adopt a child, than get it.—
Come hither, Moor:

I here do give thee that with all my heart,
Which,' but thou haft already, with all my heart
I would keep from thee.-For your fake, jewel,
I am glad at foul I have no other child;
For thy escape would teach me tyranny,
To hang clogs on them.-I have done, my lord.
DUKE. Let me fpeak like yourself;3 and lay a
fentence,

8 -you are the lord of duty,] The first quarto reads—you are lord of all my duty. STEEVENS.

9 And fo much duty as my mother show'd

To you, preferring you before her father, &c.] Perhaps Shakfpeare had here in his thoughts the anfwer of the youngest daughter of Ina, king of the Weft Saxons, to her father, which he seems to have copied in King Lear. See Vol. XIV. p. 2. MALONE. 2 Which, &c.] This line is omitted in the first quarto.

STEEVENS.

3 Let me speak like yourself;] The duke feems to mean, when