As, I confefs, it is my nature's plague You'd take no notice; nor build yourself a trouble Отн. What doft thou mean? IAGO. Good name, in man, and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls: that Iago fhould break off at the end of the first hemistich, as well as in the middle of the fifth line. What he would have added, it is not neceffary very nicely to examine. The adverfative particle, though, in the fecond line, does not indeed appear very proper; but in an abrupt and ftudiously clouded fentence like the prefent, where more is meant to be conveyed than meets the ear, ftrict propriety may well be difpenfed with. The word perchance, if ftrongly marked in fpeaking, would fufficiently fhew that the fpeaker did not fuppofe himself vicious in his guess. By the latter words, Iago, I apprehend, means only, "though I perhaps am mistaken, led into an errour by my natural difpofition, which is apt to fhape faults that have no existenee." folio reads: MALONE. I entreat you then, &c.] Thus the quarto, 1622. The and of, my jealousy Shapes faults that are not) that your wisdom Would take no notice. MALONE. To conjec, i. e. to conjecture, is a verb ufed by other writers. So, in colaftus, a comedy, 1540: Again: "Now reafon I, or conject with myself." "I cannot forget thy faying, or thy conjeding words." STEEVENS. Who steals my purse, steals trash; 'tis fomething, nothing;' 'Twas mine, tis his, and has been flave to thou fands; But he, that filches from me my good name, OTн. By heaven, I'll know thy thought. IAGO. You cannot, if my heart were in your hand; Nor fhall not, whilft 'tis in my cuftody. OTH. Ha! O, beware, my lord, of jealoufy; It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mock The meat it feeds on:" That cuckold lives in blifs, Good name, in man, and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their fouls: Who fteals my purse, steals trash; &c.] The facred writings were here perhaps in our poet's thoughts: "A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour than filver and gold." Proverbs, ch. xxii. v. 1. MALONE. which doth mock The meat it feeds on: ] i. e. loaths that which nourishes and fuftains it. This being a miferable state, lago bids him beware of it. The Oxford editor reads: which doth make The meat it feeds on: Implying that its fufpicions are unreal and groundlefs, which is the very contrary to what he would here make his general think, as appears from what follows: That cuckold lives in blifs, &c. In a word, the villain is for fixing him jealous: and therefore bids him beware of jealoufy, not that it was an unreasonable, but a miferable ftate; and this plunges him into it, as we fee by his reply, which is only, O mifery!" WARBURTON. I have received Hanmer's emendation; because to mock, does not fignify to leath; and because, when Iago bids Othello beware Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger; of jealoufy, the green-ey'd morfer, it is natural to tell why he should beware, and for caution he gives him two reafons, that jealousy often creates its own caufe, and that, when the causes are real, jealoufy is mifery. JOHNSON. In this place, and fome others, to mock feems the fame with to mammock. FARMER. If Shakspeare had written-a green-ey'd monfter, we might have fuppofed him to refer to fome creature exifting only in his particular imagination; but the green-ey'd monfter feems to have reference to an object as familiar to his readers as to himself. It is known that the tiger kind have green-eyes, and always play with the victim to their hunger, before they devour it. So, in our author's Tarquin and Lucrece: "Like foul night-waking cat, he doth but dally, "While in his hold-fait foot the weak mouse panteth ;-." Thus, a jealous hufband, who difcovers no certain caufe why he may be divorced, continues to fport with the woman whom he suffpects, and, on more certain evidence, determines to punish. There is no beast that can be literally faid to make its own food, and therefore I am unwilling to receive the emendation of Sir T. Hanmer, especially as I flatter myself that a glimpse of meaning may be produced from the old reading. One of the ancient fenfes of the verb-to mock, is to amuse, to play with. Thus, in A Difcourfe of Gentlemen lying in London that were better keep House at home in their Country, 1593: "A fine deuife to keepe poore Kate in health, "A pretty toy to mock an ape withal." i. e. a pretty toy to divert an ape, for an ape to divert himself with. The fame phrafe occurs in Marston's Satires, the ninth of the third book being intitled "— Here's a toy to MOCKE an ape," &c. i. e. afford an ape materials for port, furnish him with a plaything, though perhaps at his own expence, as the phrafe may in this inftance be ironically used. In Antony and Cleopatra, the contefted word-mock, occurs again: "He mocks the pauses that he makes." i. e. he plays wantonly with those intervals of time which he should improve to his own prefervation. Should fuch an explanation be admiffible, the advice given by Iago will amount to this:-Beware, my lord, of yielding to a paf fion which as yet has no proofs to justify its excefs. Think how the interval between fufpicion and certainty must be filled. Though you doubt her fidelity, you cannot yet refufe her your bed, or drive her from But, O, what damned minutes tells he o'er, your heart; but, like the capricious favage, muft continue to Sport with one whom you wait for an opportunity to deftroy. A fimilar idea occurs in All's well that ends well: Such is the only fenfe I am able to draw from the original text. What I have faid, may be liable to fome objections, but I have nothing better to propofe. That jealoufy is a monster which often creates the fufpicions on which it feeds, may be well admitted according to Sir T. Hanmer's propofition; but is it the monster? (i. e. a well-known and confpicuous animal) or whence has it green eyes? Yellow is the colour which Shakspeare ufually appropriates to jea loufy. It must be acknowledged, that he afterwards characterises a monster, it as but yet 66 "Begot upon itself, born on itfelf." "What damned minutes tells he o'er," &c. is the beft illuftration of my attempt to explain the paffage. To produce Sir T. Hanmer's meaning, a change in the text is neceffary. I am counsel for the old reading. STEEVENS. It is fo difficult, if not impoffible, to extract any fenfe from this paffage as it ftands, even by the most forced conftruction of it, and the flight amendment propofed by Hanmer, renders it fo clear, elegant, and poetical, that I am furprized the editors fhould hefitate in adopting it, and ftill more furprized they fhould reject it. As for Steevens's objection, that the definite article is used, not the indefinite, he furely need not be told in the very last of these plays, that Shakspeare did not regard fuch minute inaccuracies, which may be found in every play he wrote. When Steevens compares the jealous man, who continues to fport with the woman he fufpects, and is determined to destroy, to the tiger who plays with the victim of his hunger, he forgets that the meat on which jealoufy is fuppofed to feed, is not the woman who is the object of it, but the feveral circumftances of fufpicion which jealoufy itfelf creates, and which caufe and nourish it. So Emilia, at the end of the third act in answer to Desdemona, who, fpeaking of Othello's jealoufy, fays, replies, "Alas the day! I never gave him cause;" "But jealous fools will not be anfwer'd fo, They are not jealous ever for the cause, "But jealous, for they are jealous; 'tis a moniter ་་ Begot upon itself, born on itself." Who dotes, yet doubts; fufpects, yet strongly loves!" This paffage is a strong confirmation of Hanmer's reading. The fame idea oceurs in Maflinger's Picture, where Matthias, fpeaking of the groundless jealoufy he entertained of Sophia's poffible inconftancy, fays, 66 but why fhould I nourish "A fury here, and with imagin'd food, Holding no real ground on which to raise Imagin'd food, is food created by imagination, the food that jealoufy makes and feeds on. M. MASON. In order to make way for one alteration, Mr. M. Mafon is forced to foift in another; or elfe poor Shakspeare must be arraigned for a blunder of which he is totally guiltlefs. This gentleman's objections both to the text in its prefent ftate, and to Mr. Steevens's moft happy illuftration of it, originate entirely in his own mifconception, and a jumble of figurative with literal expreflions. To have been confiftent with himself he should have charged Mr. Steevens with maintaining, that it was the property of a jealous husband, first to mock his WIFE, and afterwards to eat her. In Act V. the word mocks occurs in a fenfe fomewhat fimilar to that in the paffage betore us : "Emil. O miftrefs, villainy hath made mocks with love!" HENLEY. I think myfelf particularly indebted to Mr. Henley for the fupport he has given to my fentiments concerning this difficult paffage; and fhall place more confidence in them fince they have been found to deferve his approbation, a circumstance in which I have not always proved fo fortunate. STEEVENS. I have not the fmallest doubt that Shakspeare wrote make, and have therefore inserted it in my text. The words make and mocke (for fuch was the old spelling) are often confounded in these plays, and I have affigned the reafon in a note on Measure for Measure, Vol. IV. p. 209, n.6. Mr. Steevens in his paraphrafe on this paffage interprets the word mock by sport; but in what poet or profe-writer, from Chaucer and Mandeville to this day, does the verb to mock fignify to sport with? In the pailage from Antony and Cleopatra, I have proved, I think inconteftably, from the metre, and from our poet's ufage of this verb in other places, (in which it is followed by a perfonal pronoun,) that Shakspeare must have written 66 Being fo fruftrate, tell him, he mocks us by "The paufes that he makes." See Vol. XII. p. 644, n. 4. |