That nightly lie in thofe unproper beds,

Which they dare fwear peculiar; your cafe is better. O, 'tis the spite of hell, the fiend's arch-mock, To lip a wanton" in a fecure couch,*

And to fuppofe her chafte! No, let me know; And, knowing what I am, I know what the shall

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Every woman fhall be common.

Every woman common! what fhall we do with all the proper women in Arcadia?

"They fhall be common too."

Again, in Gower De Confeffione Amantis, B. II. fol.—

"And is his proper by the lawe."

Again, in The Maftive, &c. an ancient collection of epigrams and fatires, no date:

"Rofe is a fayre, but not a proper woman;

"Can any creature proper be, that's common?"

STEEVENS.

9 To lip a wanton -] This phrafe occurs in Eastward Hoe,

A& I:

2

lip her, lip her, knave." REED.

in a fecure couch,] In a couch in which he is lulled into a falfe fecurity and confidence in his wife's virtue. A Latin fenfe. So, in The Merry Wives of Windfor: "Though Page be a fecure fool, and ftands fo firmly on his wife's frailty," &c.

3 And, knowing what I am, I know what the shall be.] Redundancy of metre, without improvement of fenfe, inclines me to confider the word be, in this line, as an intruder. Iago is merely ftating an imaginary cafe as his own. When I know what I am (fays he) I know what the refult of that conviction fhall be. To whom, indeed, could the pronoun fhe, grammatically, refer?

4

STEEVENS.

-lift.] Lift, or lifts, is barriers, bounds. Keep your temper, fays lago, within the bounds of patience.

Whilft you were here, ere while mad with your

grief,'

(A paffion moft unfuiting fuch a man,)
Caffio came hither: I fhifted him away,
And laid good 'fcufe upon your ecftafy;

Bade him anon return, and here fpeak with me;
The which he promis'd. Do but encave yourfelf,
And mark the fleers, the gibes, and notable scorns,
That dwell in every region of his face;"
For I will make him tell the tale anew,-
Where, how, how oft, how long ago, and when

So, in Hamlet:

"The ocean over-peering of his lift,

"Eats not the flats with more impetuous hafte," &c.

Again, in King Henry V. A&t V. fc. ii: «

COLLINS.

you and I can

not be confined within the weak lift of a country fashion." Again, in King Henry IV. P. I

"The very lift, the very utmoft bound,

"Of all our fortunes."

you

Again, in All's Well that End's Well, A&t II. fc.i: " have restrain'd yourself within the lift of too cold an adieu." Chapman, in his tranflation of the 16th Book of Homer's Odyfey, has thus expreffed an idea fimilar to that in the text:

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let thy heart

"Beat in fix'd confines of thy bosom still."

STEEVENS.

5ere while mad with your grief,] Thus the first quarto. The folio reads:

o'erwhelmed with your grief. STEEVENS,

6 — encave yourself,] Hide yourself in a private place.

JOHNSON.

That dwell in every region of his face;] Congreve might have had this paffage in his memory, when he made Lady Touchwood fay to Mafkwell" Ten thousand meanings lurk in each corner of that various face." STEEVENS.

region of his face;] The fame uncommon expreffion occurs again in King Henry VIII:

The refpite fhook

"The region of my breaft." MALONE.

He hath, and is again to cope your wife;
I fay, but mark his gefture. Marry, patience;
Or I fhall fay, you are all in all in fpleen,

And nothing of a man.

Отн.

Doft thou hear, Iago?

I will be found moft cunning in my patience;
But (doft thou hear?) most bloody.

IAGO.
That's not amifs;
But yet keep time in all. Will you withdraw?

[OTHELLO withdraws. Now will I queftion Caffio of Bianca,

A housewife, that, by felling her defires,
Buys herself bread and clothes: it is a creature,
That dotes on Caffio,-as 'tis the ftrumpet's plague,
To beguile many, and be beguil'd by one;-
He, when he hears of her, cannot refrain
From the excess of laughter:-Here he comes :-

Re-enter CASSIO.

As he fhall fmile, Othello fhall go mad;
And his unbookifh jealoufy" must conftrue
Poor Caffio's fmiles, geftures, and light behaviour,
Quite in the wrong.-How do you now, lieutenant?

CAS. The worfer, that you give me the addition, Whose want even kills me.

8 Or I fall fay, you're all in all in spleen,] I read : "Or fhall I fay, you're all in all a fpleen."

I think our author ufes this expreffion elsewhere. JOHNSON. "A hare-brain'd Hotspur, govern'd by a Spleen."―The old reading, however, is not inexplicable. We ftill fay, fuch a one is in wrath, in the dumps, &c. The fenfe therefore is plain. Again, in A Midsummer's-Night's Dream:

That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth.”—

STEEVENS.

9 And his unbookish jealousy —] Unbookish, for ignorant.

WARBURTON.

IAGO. Ply Desdemona well, and you are fure of't. Now, if this fuit lay in Bianca's power,

How quickly fhould you speed?

CAS.

[Speaking lower.

Alas, poor caitiff!

OTH. Look, how he laughs already!

[Afide

IAGO. I never knew a woman love man so.
CAS. Alas, poor rogue! I think, i'faith, fhe loves

me.

OTH. Now he denies it faintly, and laughs it out.

IAGO. Do you hear, Caffio?

[Afide.

Отн. Now he importunes him To tell it o'er: Go to; well faid, well faid.

Do

[Afide.

LAGO. She gives it out, that you fhall marry her: you intend it?

Orн. Do you triumph, Roman? do you triumph?

Afide.

CAS. I marry her!-what? a customer!' I pr'ythee, bear fome charity to my wit; do not think it fo unwholesome. Ha, ha, ha!

OTH. So, fo, fo, fo: They laugh, that win.

LAGO. 'Faith, the cry goes, that

[Afide.

you fhall

marry

her.

2 Do you triumph, Roman? do you triumph ?] Othello calls him Roman ironically. Triumph, which was a Roman ceremony, brought Roman into his thoughts. What (fays he) you are now triumphing as great as a Roman? JOHNSON.

3 - a customer!] A common woman, one that invites custom. JOHNSON.

So, in All's well that ends well:

"I think thee now fome common customer." STEEVENS.

CAS. Pr'ythee, say true.

IAGO. I am a very villain elfe.

OTн. Have you fcored me? Well.

[Afide.

CAS. This is the monkey's own giving out: fhe is perfuaded I will marry her, out of her own love and flattery, not out of my promife.

OTH. Iago beckons me; now he begins the story.

[Afide.

CAS. She was here even now; fhe haunts me in every place. I was, the other day, talking on the fea-bank with certain Venetians; and thither comes the bauble; by this hand,' fhe falls thus about my neck ;

4 Have you fcored me?] Have you made my reckoning? have you fettled the term of my life? The old quarto reads-ftored me. Have you difpofed of me? have you laid me up? JOHNSON.

To Score originally meant no more than to cut a notch upon a tally, or to mark out a form by indenting it on any fubftance. Spenfer, in the firft Canto of his Faery Queen, fpeaking of the Cross, fays:

Upon his fhield the like was also scor'd.” Again, Book II. c. ix:

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why on your fhield, fo goodly fcor'd, "Bear you the picture of that lady's head?"

But it was foon figuratively used for fetting a brand or mark of difgrace on any one. "Let us fcore their backs," fays Scarus, in Antony and Cleopatra; and it is employed in the same sense on the prefent occafion. STEEVENS.

In Antony and Cleopatra, we find:

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I know not

"What counts harth fortune cafts upon my face," &c. But in the paffage before us our poet might have been thinking of the ignominious punishment of flaves. So, in his Rape of Lucrece: "Worfe than a flavish wipe, or birth-hour's blot." MALONE.

I fufpect that wipe, in the foregoing paffage from The Rape of Lucrece, was a typographical depravation of wipe. See Vol. X. P. 270, n. 4. STEEVENS.

5

by this hand,] This is the reading of the first quarto.

STEEVENS.