Re-enter OTHELLO. IAGO. Marry, to-Come, captain, will you go? Have with you. Отн. CAS. Here comes another troop to feek for you. Enter BRABANTIO, RODERIGO, and Officers of night, with torches and weapons. LAGO. It is Brabantio:-general, be advis'd;" He comes to bad intent. Отн. Hola! ftand there! Down with him, thief! [They draw on both fides. ROD. Signior, it is the Moor. LAGO. You, Roderigo! come, fir, I am for you. Отн. Keep up your bright fwords, for the dew will ruft them.— Good fignior, you shall more command with years, Than with your weapons. might only be affected; in order to keep his friend's fecret, till it became publickly known. BLACKSTONE. Or he might fear that Othello had proved falfe to the gentle Desdemona, and married another. MALONE. How far this fufpicious apprehenfion would have become the benevolent Caffio, the intimate friend of Othello, let the reader judge. STEEVENS. 6 Have with you.] This expreffion denotes readiness. So, in the ancient Interlude of Nature, bl. 1. no date: "And faw that Glotony wold nedys begone; See Vol. X. p. 571, n. 5. STEEVENS. 7 be advis'd;] That is, be cool; be cautious; be discreet. JOHNSON. BRA. O thou foul thief, where haft thou ftow'd my daughter? Damn'd as thou art, thou haft enchanted her: If the in chains of magick were not bound, 8 The wealthy curled darlings of our nation,] Curled is elegantly and oftentatiously dreffed. He had not the hair particularly in his thoughts. JOHNSON. On another occafion Shakspeare employs the fame expreffion, and evidently alludes to the hair: "If fhe first meet the curled Antony," &c. Sir W. D'Avenant ufes the fame expreffion in his Just Italian, 1630: "The curl'd and filken nobles of the town." Again: "Such as the curled youth of Italy." I believe Shakspeare has the fame meaning in the prefent inftance. Thus, Turnus, in the 12th Eneid, speaking of Æneas: fædare in pulvere crines "Vibratos calido ferro,." STEEVENS. Edgar, when That Dr. Johnfon was miftaken in his interpretation of this line, is afcertained by our poet's Rape of Lucrece, where the hair is not merely alluded to, but exprefsly mentioned, and the epithet curled is added as characteristick of a perfon of the highest rank: "Let him have time to tear his curled hair." Tarquin, a king's fon, is the perfon fpoken of. he was 66 proud in heart and mind,” curl'd his hair. 9 Of fuch a thing as thou; to fear, not to delight.] To fear, in the prefent inftance, may mean-to terrify. So, in K. Henry VI. P. III: "For Warwick was a bug that fear'd us all." The line fpoken by Brabantio is redundant in its measure. It might originally have ran Of fuch as thou; to fear, not to delight. Mr. Rowe, however, feems to have selected the words I would omit, as proper to be put into the mouth of Horatio, who applies them to Lothario: "To be the prey of fuch a thing as thou art." STEEVENS. [Judge me the world, if 'tis not grofs in fenfe, That thou haft practis'd on her with foul charms; Abus'd her delicate youth with drugs, or minerals, That waken motion: -I'll have it difputed on: to fear, not to delight.] To one more likely to terrify than delight her. So, in the next fcene (Brabantio is again the speaker): "To fall in love with what he fear'd to look on.' Mr. Steevens fuppofes fear to be a verb here, used in the sense of to terrify; a fignification which it formerly had. But fear, I apprehend, is a fubftantive, and poetically ufed for the object of fear. MALONE. 2 [Judge me the world, &c.] The lines following in crotchets are not in the first edition. [1622.] POPE. 3 Abus'd her delicate youth with drugs, or minerals, That waken motion:] [Old copy-weaken.] Hanmer reads with probability: That waken motion. JOHNSON. Motion in a fubfequent fcene of this play is ufed in the very fenfe in which Sir T. Hanmer would employ it :-" But we have reafon to cool our raging motions, our carnal ftings, our unbitted lufts." STEEVENS. To weaken motion is, to impair the faculties. It was till very lately, and may with fome be ftill an opinion, that philtres or love potions have the power of perverting, and of courfe weakening or impairing both the fight and judgement, and of procuring fondnefs or dotage toward any unworthy object who adminifters them. And by motion, Shakspeare means the fenfes which are depraved and weakened by thefe fafcinating mixtures. RITSON. The folio, where alone this paffage is found, reads: That weaken motion : I have adopted Sir Thomas Hanmer's emendation, because I have a good reafon to believe that the words weaken and waken were in Shakspeare's time pronounced alike, and hence the mistake might eafily have happened. Motion is elfewhere ufed by our poet precifely in the fenfe required here. So, in Cymbeline: -for there's no motion Again, in Hamlet: - fenfe fure you have, "Elfe could you not have motion," 'Tis probable, and palpable to thinking. "The wanton ftings and motions of the fenfe." So alfo, in A Mad World, my Mefters, by Middleton, 1608: "And in myfelf footh up adulterous motions, "And fuch an appetite as I know damns me." We have in the play before us-waken'd wrath, and I think in fome other play of Shakspeare-waken'd love. So, in our poet's 117th Sonnet: 66 "But fhoot not at me in your waken'd hate." Ben Jonfon in his preface to Volpone has a fimilar phrafeology: it being the office of the comick poet to firre up gentle affections." Mr. Theobald reads-That weaken notion, i. e. fays he, her right conception and idea of things; understanding, judgement. This reading it must be acknowledged, derives fome fupport from a paffage in King Lear, Act II. fc. iv.-" either his notion weakens, or his difcernings are lethargy 'd." But the objection to it is, that no opiates or intoxicating potions or powders of any fort can distort or pervert the intellects, but by defroying them for a time; nor was it ever at any time believed by the moft credulous, that lovepowders, as they were called, could weaken the understanding, though it was formerly believed that they could fafcinate the affections: or in other words, waken motion. Brabantio afterwards afferts, "That with fome mixtures powerful o'er the blood, "He wrought upon her." (Our poet, it should be remembered, in almost all his plays uses blood for paffion. See p. 257, n. 2; and Vol. XI. p. 296, n. 2, and p. 578, n. 5.) And one of the fenators afks Othello, not, whether he had weaken'd Defdemona's understanding, but whether he did "Subdue and poijon this young maid's affections." The notion of the efficacy of love-powders was formerly fo prevalent, that in the parliament fummoned by King Richard the Third, on his ufurping the throne, it was publickly urged as a charge against lady Grey, that he had bewitched King Edward the Fourth, by ftrange potions and amorous charms." See Fabian, p. 495; Speed, p. 913, edit. 1632; and Habington's Hiftory of King Edward the Fourth, p. 35. MALONE. In the paffages adduced by Mr. Steevens and Mr. Malone, to For an abuser of the world, a practiser Отн. Hold your hands, Both you of my inclining, and the rest: Were it my cue to fight, I fhould have known it Without a prompter.-Where will you that I go To answer this your charge? BRA. To prifon; till fit time Of law, and courfe of direct feffion, Call thee to answer. Отн. What if I do obey? How may the duke be therewith fatisfied; prove that motion fignifies luftful defires, it may be remarked that the word derives this peculiar meaning, either from fome epithet, or restrictive mode of expreffion, with which it stands connected. But, had it been ufed abfolutely, in that fenfe, with what confiftency could Brabantio attribute the emotions of luft in his daughter, to the irritation of thofe very philtres, which he, in the felf-fame breath, reprefents as abating it? The drugs or minerals, with which Othello is charged as having abufed the delicate youth of Desdemona, were supposed to have accomplished his purpose, by Charming her blood with pleafing heaviness," thereby weakening MOTION, that is, fubduing her MAIDEN PUDENCY, and lulling her WONTED COYNESS into a state of acquiefcence. That this is the fenfe of the paffage, is further evident from what follows; for fo bafhful was the of difpofition, 66 that her MOTION "That with fome mixtures powerful o'er the blood, "He wrought upon her." HENLEY. 4 For an abufer &c.] The first quarto reads-Such an abufer &c, STEEVENS. |