LOD. The duke and fenators of Venice greet you. [Gives him a packet. Oтн. I kifs the instrument of their pleasures. [Opens the packet, and reads. DES. And what's the news, good coufin Lodovico? IAGO. I am very glad to fee you, fignior; Welcome to Cyprus. LOD. I thank you: How does lieutenant Caffio? IAGO. Lives, fir. DES. Coufin, there's fallen between him and my lord An unkind breach: but you fhall make all well. OTн. Are you fure of that? DES. My lord? Отн. This fail you not to do, as you will [Reads. LOD. He did not call; he's bufy in the paper. Is there divifion 'twixt thy lord and Caffio? DES. A most unhappy one; I would do much To atone them,' for the love I bear to Caffio. Again, at the conclufion of the same scene : Ifab. 'Save your honour! "Ang. From thee: even from thy virtue !" If it be urged, that "fave you" only means preferve you in this world, my fenfe of the paffage will not be much weakened; as our protection, "Even here, upon this bank and fhoal of time," depends on the Almighty. STEEVENS. atone them,] Make them one; reconcile them. JOHNSON. The expreffion is formed by the coalefcence of the words at one, the verb to fet, or fome equivalent being omitted. Thus, in the he fhowed himself to them as they ftrove, and would have fet them AT ONE again." And in The Bechive of the Romijh Aas: LOD. 'May be, the letter mov'd him; For, as I think, they do command him home, DES. By my troth, I'm glad on't. How, fweet Othello? [Striking ber. OTH. Devil! DES. I have not deferv'd this. LOD. My lord, this would not be believ'd in Venice, Though I should fwear I faw it: 'Tis very much; Make her amends, fhe weeps. ΟΤΗ. O devil, devil! If that the earth could teem with woman's tears," Church: 66 See Vol. XII. p. 189, n. 6. MALONE. and 6 If that the earth could teem &c.] If women's tears could impregnate the earth. By the doctrine of equivocal generation, new animals were fuppofed producible by new combinations of matter. See Bacon. JOHNSON. Shak speare here alludes to the fabulous accounts of crocodiles. Each tear, fays Othello, which falls from the false Desdemona, would generate a crocodile, the most deceitful of all animals, and whofe own tears are proverbially fallacious." It is written," fays Bullokar," that he will weep over a man's head when he hath devoured the body, and then he will eat up the head too. Wherefore in Latin there is a proverbe, crocodili lachrymæ, crocodile's tears, to fignifie fuch tears as are fained, and spent only with intent to deceive, or doe harme." English Expofitor, 8vo. 1616. It Each drop fhe falls' would prove a crocodile :Out of my fight! DES. I will not stay to offend you. [Going. LOD. Truly, an obedient lady :— I do befeech your lordship, call her back. ОTн. Mistress, DES. Отн. My lord? What would you with her, fir? my lord? LOD. Who, I, my Отн. Aу; you did with, that I would make her turn: 8 Sir, she can turn, and turn, and yet go on, appears from this writer, that a dead crocodile, "but in perfect forme," of about nine feet long, had been exhibited in London, in our poet's time." MALONE. Each drop he falls-] To fall is here a verb active. So, in The Tempest: 66 when I rear my hand, do you the like, "To fall it on Gonzalo." STEEVENS. 8 Sir, he can turn, &c.] So, in King Henry VI. Part I: Done like a Frenchman; turn and turn again." 9— STEEVENS, Proceed you in your tears.] I cannot think that the poet meant to make Othello bid Defdemona to continue weeping, which proceed you in your tears (as the paffage is at prefent pointed) muit mean. He rather would have faid: Proceed you in your tears ? What! will you ftill continue to be a hypocrite by a display of this well-painted poffin? WARNER. I think the old punctuation the true one. MALONE. 2 I am commanded home:] Thus the folio. The quarto, 1622, reads, perhaps better: I am commanded here-Get you away, &c. I'll fend for you anon.-Sir, I obey the mandate, And will return to Venice;-Hence, avaunt! [Exit DESDEMONA. Caffio fhall have my place.' And,-fir, to-night, I do entreat that we may fup together. kies! 4 You are welcome, fir, to Cyprus.-Goats and mon[Exit. LOD. Is this the noble Moor, whom our full fenate Call-all-in-all fufficient? This the noble nature Whom paffion could not fhake? whofe folid virtue The fhot of accident, nor dart of chance, The alteration, I fufpect, was male, from the editor of the folio not perceiving that an abrupt sentence was intended. MALONE. I am commanded here, (without the least idea of an abrupt fentence,) may be an indignant fentiment of Othello :-" I have an officer here placed over my head; I am now under the command of another" i. e. of Caffio, to whom the government of Cyprus was juft transferred. STEEVENS. 3 Coffis fhall have my place.] Perhaps this is addreffed to Defdemona, who had juft expreffed her joy on hearing Caffio was deputed in the room of her hufband. Her innocent fatisfaction in the hope of returning to her native place, is conftrued by Othello into the pleasure she received from the advancement of his rival. STEEVENS. Goats and monkies!] In this exclamation Shak fpeare has fhown great art. Iago, in the firft fcene in which he endeavours to awaken his fufpicion, being urged to give fome evident proof of the guilt of Callio and Defdemona, tells him it were imponible to have ocular demonftration of it, though they fhould be "as prime as goats, as hot as monkies."-Thefe words we may fuppofe, Bill ring in the ears of Othello, who being now fully convinced of his wife's infidelity, rufhes out with this emphatick exclamation:Iago's words were but too true; now indeed I am convinced that they are as hot as "goats and monkies." MALONE. Though the words of Othello, cited by Mr. Malone, could not have efcaped the deliberate reader's memory, a reference to a diftant fcene, but ill agrees with the infuriation of Othello's mind. His fancy, haunted by ftill growing images of lewdnefs, would scarce have expreffed its feelings in recollected phrafeology. STEEVENS, Could neither graze, nor pierce? s He is much chang'd. IAGO. What he might be,-if, what he might, he is not,— LOD. What, ftrike his wife! LAGO. 'Faith, that was not fo well; Yet 'would I knew, That stroke would prove the worst. LOD. Is it his ufe? ક્ whofe folid virtue The hot of accident, nor dart of chance, Could neither graze, nor pierce?] I cannot fee, for my heart, the difference betwixt the fhot of accident and dart of chance. The words and things they imply are purely fynonymous; but that the poet intended two different things feems plain from the difcretive adverb. Chance may afflict a man in fome circumstances; but other diftreffes are to be accounted for from a different caufe. I am perfuaded our author wrote: "The fhot of accident, nor dart of change," &c. And, in a number of other places, our poet induftriously puts these two words in oppofition to each other. THEOBALD. To graze is not merely to touch fuperficially, [as Dr. Warburton has stated] but to ftrike not directly, not fo as to bury the body of the thing ftriking in the matter ftruck. Theobald trifles, as is ufual. Accident and chance may admit a subtle distinction; accident may be confidered as the act, and chance as the power or agency of fortune; as, It was by chance that this accident befel me. At leaft, if we fuppofe all corrupt that is inaccurate, there will be no end of emendation. JOHNSON. I do not fee the leaft ground for fuppofing any corruption in this paffage. As pierce relates to the dart of chance, lo graze is referred to the foot of accident. The expreffion is ftill ufed; we still fay→→ he was grazed by a bullet. For graze, Dr. Warburton arbitrarily fubftituted-raze. MALONE. |