DES. I thank you, valiant Caffio. What tidings can you tell me of my lord?

Cas. He is not yet arriv'd; nor know I aught But that he's well, and will be shortly here.

DES. O, but I fear;-How loft you company? CAS. The great contention of the sea and skies Parted our fellowship: But, hark! a fail.

[Cry within. A fail, a fail! Then guns heard. 2. GENT. They give their greeting to the citadel; This likewife is a friend.

CAS

See for the news.4

[Exit Gentleman.

[TO EMILIA.

Good ancient, you are welcome;-Welcome, mif

trefs:—

Let it not gall your patience, good lago,
That I extend my manners; 'tis my breeding
That gives me this bold fhow of courtefy.

[Kiffing her. LAGO. Sir, would fhe give you so much of her lips, As of her tongue fhe oft beftows on me,

You'd have enough.

DES.

Alas, fhe has no fpeech.

IAGO. In faith, too much;

I find it ftill, when I have lift to fleep:
Marry, before your ladyfhip, I grant,
She puts her tongue a little in her heart,
And chides with thinking.

EMIL.

You have little caufe to fay fo. IAGO. Come on, come on; you are pictures out

of doors,

4 See for the news.] The firft quarto reads-So speaks this voice. STERVENS.

s In faith, too much ;] Thus the folio. The first quarto thus : I know too much;

I find it, I; for when, &c. STEEVENS,

Bells in your parlours, wild cats in your kitchens, Saints in your injuries," devils being offended, Players in your housewifery, and housewives in your

beds.

DES. O, fie upon thee, flanderer!"

IAGO. Nay, it is true, or else I am a Turk; You rife to play, and go to bed to work.

EMIL. You fhall not write my praise.

IAGO.

No, let me not.

DES. What would'ft thou write of me, if thou fhould'ft praise me?

LAGO. O gentle lady, do not put me to't; For I am nothing, if not critical.8

6 Saints in your injuries, &c.] When you have a mind to do injuries, you put on an air of fanctity. JOHNSON.

In Puttenham's Art of Poefie, 1589, I meet with almost the fame thoughts: "We limit the comely parts of a woman to confiit in four points; that is, to be, a fhrew in the kitchen, a faint in the church, an angel at board, and an ape in the bed; as the chronicle reports by miftrefs Shore, paramour to King Edward the Fourth."

Again, in a play of Middleton's, called Blurt Mafter Confiable; or, The Spaniard's Night-walk, 1602: "according to that wile faying of you, you be faints in the church, angels in the street, devils in the kitchen, and apes in your beds."

Again, in The Miseries of inforc'd Marriage, 1607: Women are in churches faints, abroad angels, at home devils."

Puttenham, who mentions all other contemporary writers, has not once fpoken of Shakspeare; fo that it is probable he had not produced any thing of fo early a date.

The truth is, that this book appears to have been written feveral years before its publication. See p. 115, 116, where the author refers to Sir Nicholas Bacon, who died in 1579, and recounts 2 circumftance, from his own knowledge, that happened in 1553. STEEVENS.

See alfo Meres's Wit's Treafury, p. 48. REED.

70, fie upon thee, flanderer!] This fhort fpeech is, in the quarto, unappropriated; and may as well belong to Æmilia as to Dejdemina.

8

critical.] That is, cenforious. JOHNSON.

STEEVENS

DES. Come on, affay :-There's one gone to the

harbour?

IAGO. Ay, madam.

DES. I am not merry; but I do beguile The thing I am, by feeming otherwife.Come, how would'ft thou praise me?

IAGO. I am about it; but, indeed, my invention Comes from my pate, as birdlime does from frize, It plucks out brains and all: But my mufe labours, And thus fhe is deliver'd.

If the be fair and wise,-fairness, and wit,
The one's for ufe, the other useth it.

DES. Well prais'd! How if she be black and witty? LAGO. If the be black, and thereto have a wit, She'll find a white that fhall her blackness fit." DES. Worse and worse.

EMIL. How, if fair and foolish?

IAGO. She never yet was foolish that was fair;3 For even her folly help'd her to an heir.

"To critick and to flatterer flopped are." MALONE.

my invention

Comes from my pate, as birdlime does from frize,] A fimilar thought occurs in The Puritan: "The excufe ftuck upon my tongue, like hip-pitch upon a mariner's gown." STEEVENS.

2

her blackness fit.] The first quarto reads-hit. So, in King Lear: "I pray you, let us hit together." I believe hit, in the prefent inftance alfo, to be the true reading, though it will not bear, as in Love's Labour's Loft, explanation. STEEVENS.

3 She never yet was foolish &c.] We may read:

She ne'er was yet foolish that was fair,

But even her folly help'd her to an heir.

Yet, I believe, the common reading to be right: the law makes the power of cohabitation a proof that a man is not a natural; therefore, fince the foolifheft woman, if pretty, may have a child, no pretty woman is ever foolish. JOHNSON.

DES. These are old fond paradoxes, to make fools laugh i'the alehoufe. What miserable praise haft thou for her that's foul and foolish?

LAGO. There's none fo foul, and foolish thereunto, But does foul pranks which fair and wife ones do. DES. O heavy ignorance!-thou praiseft the worst best. But what praife could't thou bestow on a deferving woman indeed? one, that, in the authority of her merit, did juftly put on the vouch of very malice itself?4

LAGO. She that was ever fair, and never proud; Had tongue at will, and yet was never loud; Never lack'd gold, and yet went never gay; Fled from her wifh, and yet faid,-now I may; She that, being anger'd, her revenge being nigh, Bade her wrong ftay, and her displeasure fly; She that in wifdom never was fo frail,

To change the cod's head for the falmon's tail;'

3 But what praife couldst thou beflow on a deferving woman indeed?] The hint for this question, and the metrical reply of Iago, is taken from a ftrange pamphlet, called Choice, Chance, and Change, or Conceits in their Colours, 1606; when after Tidero has defcribed many ridiculous characters in verse, Arnofilo asks him, “ But, I pray thee, didst thou write none in commendation of fome worthy creature?" Tidero then proceeds, like Iago, to repeat more verses. STEEVENS.

4-one, that, in the authority of her merit, did justly put on the vouch of very malice itself?] The fenfe is this, one that was fo confcious of her own merit, and of the authority her character had with every one, that the durft venture to call upon malice itself to vouch for her. This was fome commendation. And the character only of cleareft virtue; which could force malice, even against its nature, to do juftice. WARBURTON.

To put on the vouch of malice, is to affume a character vouched by the testimony of malice itself. JOHNSON.

To put on is to provoke, to incite. So, in Macbeth:

66

the powers above

“Put on their inftruments." STEEVENS.

She that could think, and ne'er difclofe her mind,
See fuitors following, and not look behind;
She was a wight,-if ever fuch wight were,-
DES. To do what?

IAGO. To fuckle fools, and chronicle fmall beer." DES. O moft lame and impotent conclufion!— Do not learn of him, Emilia, though he be thy hufband.-How fay you, Caffio? is he not a most profane a 8 and liberal counsellor??

5 To change the cod's head for the falmon's tail;] i. e. to exchange a delicacy for coarfer fare. See Queen Elizabeth's Household Book for the 43d year of her reign: "Item, the Mafter Cookes have to fee all the falmon's tailes" &c. p. 296. STEEVENS.

Surely the poet had a further allufion, which it is not neceffary to explain. The word frail in the preceding line fhews that viands were not alone in his thoughts. MALONE.

A frail judgement, means only a weak one. I suspect no equivoque. STEEVENS.

See fuitors following, and not look behind;] The first quarto omits. this line. STEEVENS.

7 To fuckle fools, and chronicle small beer.] After enumerating the perfections of a woman, Iago adds, that if ever there was fuch a one as he had been defcribing, fhe was, at the beft, of no other ufe, than to fuckle children, and keep the accounts of a household. The expreffions to fuckle fools, and chronicle small beer, are only instances of the want of natural affection, and the predominance of a critical cenforiousness in Iago, which he allows himself to be poffefed of, where he fays, O! I am nothing, if not critical. STEEVENS.

8 profane ] Grofs of language, of expreffion broad and brutal. Šo Brabantio, in the first act, calls Iago profane wretch. JOHNSON.

Ben Jonfon in defcribing the characters in Every Man out of his Humour, ftyles Carlo Buffone, a publick, fcurrilous, and profane jefter. STEEVENS.

9

·liberal counsellor?] Liberal for licentious. WARBURTON. So, in The Fair Maid of Brifow, 1605, bl. 1:

"But Vallenger, moft like a liberal villain,

"Did give her fcandalous, ignoble terms." STEEVENS.