With fuch accommodation, and befort, As levels with her breeding. DES. Nor I; I would not there refide, To put my father in impatient thoughts, By being in his eye. Moft gracious duke, To my unfolding lend a gracious ear;" And let me find a charter in your voice," To affift my fimpleness. 8 DUKE. What would you, Desdemona? DES. That I did love the Moor to live with him, My downright violence and storm of fortunes 66 -Moft gracious duke, To my unfolding lend a gracious ear;] Thus the quarto, 1622. The folio, to avoid the repetition of the fame epithet, reads: your profperous ear; i. e. your propitious ear. STEEVENS. 7 —a charter in your voice,] Let your favour privilege me. JOHNSON To affift my fimpleness.] The first quarto reads this as an un finished fentence: And if my fimpleness — STEEVENS. 9 My downright violence and ftorm of fortunes-] Violence is not violence fuffered, but violence acted. Breach of common rules and obligations. The old quarto has scorn of fortune, which is perhaps the true reading. JOHNSON. I would rather continue to read-form of fortunes, on account of the words that follow, viz. " May trumpet to the world." So, in King Henry IV. Part I: "Doth play the trumpet to his purposes.” Again, in Troilus and Creffida: "Doth valour fhow, and valour's worth, divide May trumpet to the world; my heart's fubdu'd So, in King Henry VIII: "An old man broken with the forms of fate." The expreffion in the text is found in Spenfer's Faery Queen, Book VI. c. ix: "Give leave awhile, good father, in this shore And Bacon, in his Hiftory of King Henry the Seventh, has used the fame language: "The king in his account of peace and calms did much overcaft his fortunes, which proved for many years together full of broken feas, tides, and tempefts." Mr. M. Mafon objects, that Mr. Steevens has not explained thefe words. Is any explanation wanting? or can he, who has read in Hamlet, that a judicious player " in the tempeft and whirlwind of his paffion fhould acquire and beget a temperance;" who has heard Falstaff with for a tempeft of provocation; and finds in Troilus and Creffida-" "in the wind and tempeft of her frown," be at a lofs to understand the meaning of a form of fortunes? By her downright violence and storm of fortunes, Desdemona without doubt means, the bold and decifive measure the had taken, of following the dictates of paffion and giving herfelf to the Moor; regardless of her parent's difpleasure, the forms of her country, and the future inconvenience fhe might be fubject to, by "tying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes, in an extravagant and wheeling ftranger, of here and every where." On looking into Mr. Edwards's remarks, I find he explains thefe words nearly in the fame manner. "Downright violence, (fays he,) means, the unbridled impetuofity with which her paffion hurried her on to this unlawful marriage; and form of fortunes may fignify the hazard fhe thereby ran, of making shipwreck of her worldly intereft. Both very agreeable to what the fays a little lower to his honours, and his valiant parts “Did I my foul and fortunes confecrate." MALONE. Even to the very quality of my lord:] The first quarto reads, Even to the utmost pleasure, &c. STEEVENS. Quality here means profeffion. "I am so much enamoured of Othello, that I am even willing to endure all the inconveniencies incident to a military life, and to attend him to the wars."—" I cannot mervaile, (faid Lord Effex to Mr. Afhton, a Puritan preacher who was fent to him in the Tower,) though my proteftations are not believed of my enemies, when they fo little prevailed with a man of your quality." See alfo p. 128, n. 9. I faw Othello's vifage in his mind; ' By his dear abfence: Let me go with him. OTн. Your voices, lords: +-'befeech you, let her will Have a free way. Vouch with me, heaven,' I therefore beg it not, That this is the meaning, appears not only from the reading of the quarto," my heart's fubdued, even to the utmost pleasure of my lord, i. e. fo as to prompt me to go with him wherever he wishes I fhould go," but alfo from the whole tenour of Defdemona's fpeech; the purport of which is, that as fhe had married a foldier, fo fhe was ready to accompany him to the wars, and to confecrate her foul and fortunes to his honours, and his valiant parts; i. e. to attend him wherever his military character and his love of fame fhould call him. MALONE. That quality here fignifies the Moorish complexion of Othello, and not his military profeffion, is obvious from what immediately follows: "I faw Othello's vifage in his mind:” and alfo from what the Duke fays to Brabantio: "If virtue no delighted beauty lack, "Your fon-in-law is far more fair than black.” Defdemona, in this fpeech afferts, that the virtues of Othello had fubdued her heart, in fpite of his vifage; and that, to his rank and accomplishments as a foldier, fhe had confecrated her foul and her fortunes. HENLEY. 3 I farw Othello's visage in his mind;] It must raise no wonder, that I loved a man of an appearance fo little engaging; I saw his face only in his mind; the greatness of his character reconciled me to his form. JOHNSON. • Your voices, lords:] The folio reads,—Let her have your voice. 5 Vouch with me, heaven,] Thus the fecond quarto Thefe words are not in the original copy, 1622. STEEVENS. and the folio. STEEVENS. MALONE. To please the palate of my appetite; Nor to comply with heat, the young affects, my diftinct and proper fatisfaction;" In 6 Nor to comply with heat, the young affects, In my diftinct and proper fatisfaction;] [Old copies-d‹ fun?] As this has been hitherto printed and ftopped, it feems to me a period of as ftubborn nonfenfe as the editors have obtruded upon poor Shakspeare throughout his works. What a prepofterous creature is this Othello made, to fall in love with and marry a fine young lady, when appetite and heat, and proper fatisfaction, are dead and defunct in him! (For, defunct fignifics nothing elfe, that I know of, either primitively or metaphorically:) But if we may take Othello's own word in the affair, he was not reduced to this fatal ftate: or, for I am declin'd "Into the vale of years; yet that's not much." Again, Why fhould our poet fay, (for fo he fays as the paffage has been pointed) that the young affect heat? Youth, certainly, has it, and has no occafion or pretence of affecting it. And, again, after defunct, would he add fo abfurd a collateral epithet as proper? But affects was not defigned here as a verb, and defunct was not defigned here at all. I have by reading diftin&t for defunct, rescued the poet's text from abfurdity; and this I take to be the tenor of what he would fay; "I do not beg her company with me, merely to please myself; nor to indulge the heat and affects (i. e. affections) of a new-married man, in my own diftinct and proper fatisfaction; but to comply with her in her requeft, and defire, of accompanying me." Affects for affections, our author in feveral other paffages ufcs. THEOBALD. Nor to comply with heat, the young affects In my defunct and proper fatisfaction:] i. e. with that heat and new affections which the indulgence of my appetite has raised and created. This is the meaning of defunct, which has made all the difficulty of the paffage. WARBURTON. I do not think that Mr. Theobald's emendation clears the text from embarraffment, though it is with a little imaginary improvement received by Sir T. Hanmer, who reads thus: Nor to comply with heat affects the young, In my distinct and proper fatisfaction. Dr. Warburton's explanation is not more fatisfactory: what made the difficulty will continue to make it. I read, I beg it not, To please the palate of my appetite, Nor to comply with heat (the young affects But to be free and bounteous to her mind: In me defun&) and proper fatisfaction; But to be free and bounteous to her mind. Affects ftands here, not for love, but for passions, for that by which any thing is affected. I ask it not, fays he, to please appetite, or fatisfy loofe defires, the paffions of youth which I have now outlived, or for any particular gratification of myself, but merely that I may indulge the wishes of my wife. Mr. Upton had, before me, changed my to me; but he has printed young effects, not seeming to know that affects could be a noun. JOHNSON, Mr. Theobald has obferved the impropriety of making Othello confefs, that all youthful paffions were defunct in him; and Sir T. Hanmer's reading [diftinct] may, I think, be received with only a flight alteration. I would read, I beg it not, To pleafe the palate of my appetite, Nor to comply with heat, and young affects, In my distinct and proper fatisfaction; But to be &c. Affes ftands for affections, and is used in that sense by Ben Jonson in The Cafe is Altered, 1609: 66 - I fhall not need to urge "The facred purity of our affects.” Again, in Love's Labour's Loft: "For every man with his affects is born." Again, in The Wars of Cyrus, 1594: "The frail affects and errors of my youth." Again, in Middleton's Inner Temple Mafque, 1619: "No doubt affects will be fubdu'd by reafon." There is, however, in The Bondman, by Maffinger, a passage which seems to countenance and explain "That look no further than your outward form, Timoleon is the fpeaker. STEEVENS. I would venture to make the two last lines change places. To please the palate of my appetite, Nor to comply with heat, the young affe&ts; |