THE MOOR OF VENICE. ACT I.....SCENE I. Venice. A Street. Enter RODERIGO and IAGO. Rod. Tush, never tell me,1 I take it much unkindly, That thou, Iago,-who hast had my purse, As if the strings were thine,-should'st know of this. Iago. 'Sblood, but you will not hear me :2— If ever I did dream of such a matter, Abhor me. Rod. Thou told'st me, thou didst hold him in thy hate. Iago. Despise me, if I do not. Three great ones of the city, In personal suit to make me his lieutenant, Oft capp'd to him; 3-and, by the faith of man, 1 Tush, never tell me,] Thus the quarto, 1622. The folio omits the interjection-Tush. Steevens. 2 ’Sblood, but you will not &c.] Thus the quarto: the folio suppresses this oath. Steevens. 3 Oft capp'd to him;] Thus the quarto. The folio reads,-Offcapp'd to him. Steevens. In support of the folio, Antony and Cleopatra may be quoted: "I have ever held my cap off to thy fortunes." This reading I once thought to be the true one. But a more intimate knowledge of the quarto copies has convinced me that they ought not without very strong reason to be departed from. Malone. To cap is to salute by taking off the cap. It is still an academick phrase. M. Mason. 4 — a bombast circumstance,] Circumstance signifies circumlocation. So, in Greene's Tu Quoque: "You put us to a needless labour, sir, "To run and wind about for circumstance, "When the plain word, I thank you, would have serv'd.” Horribly stuff'd with epithets of war; My mediators; for, certes, says he, Forsooth, a great arithmetician,5 Again, in Massinger's Picture: "And therefore, without circumstance, to the point, Again, in Knolles's History of the Turks, p. 576: "wherefore I will not use many words to persuade you to continue in your fidelity and loyalty; neither long circumstance to encourage you to play the men." Reed. 5 Forsooth, a great arithmetician,] So, in Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio says: " -one that fights by the book of arithmetick." Steevens. Iago, however, means to represent Cassio, not as a person whose arithmetick was "one, two, and the third in your bosom," but as a man merely conversant with civil matters, and who knew no more of a squadron than the number of men it contained. So afterwards he calls him this counter-caster. Malone. 6a Florentine,] It appears from many passages of this play (rightly understood) that Cassio was a Florentine, and Iago a Venetian. Hanmer. 7 A fellow almost damn'd in a fair wife;] Sir Thomas Hanmer supposed that the text must be corrupt, because it appears from a following part of the play that Cassio was an unmarried man. Mr. Steevens has clearly explained the words in a subsequent note: I have therefore no doubt that the text is right; and have not thought it necessary to insert Mr Tyrwhitt's note, in which he proposed to read-"a fellow almost damn'd in a fair life." Shakspeare, he conceived, might allude to the judgment denounced in the gospel against those of whom all men speak well. Malone. Mr. Tyrwhitt's conjecture is ingenious, but cannot be right; for the malicious Iago would never have given Cassio the highest commendation that words can convey, at the very time that he wishes to depreciate him to Roderigo: though afterwards, in speaking to himself, [Act V, sc. i,] he gives him his just character. M. Mason. That Cassio was married is not sufficiently implied in the words, a fellow almost damn'd in a fair wife, since they mean, according to Iago's licentious manner of expressing himself, no more than a man very near being married. This seems to have been the case in respect of Cassio-Act IV, sc. i, Iago speaking to him of Bi. anca, says,-Why, the cry goes, that you shall marry her. Cassio That never set a squadron in the field, acknowledges that such a report had been raised, and adds, This is the monkey's own giving out: she is persuaded I will marry her, out of her own love and self-flattery, not out of my promise. Iago then, having heard this report before, very naturally circulates it in his present conversation with Roderigo. If Shakspeare, however, designed Bianca for a courtezan of Cyprus, (where Cassio had not yet been, and had therefore never seen her,) Iago cannot be supposed to allude to the report concerning his marriage with her, and consequently this part of my argument must fall to the ground. Had Shakspeare, consistently with lago's character, meant to make him say that Cassio was actually damn'd in being married to a handsome woman, he would have made him say it outright, and not have interposed the palliative almost. Whereas what he says at present amounts to no more than that (however near his marriage) he is not yet completely damned, because he is not absolutely married. The succeeding parts of Iago's conversation sufficiently evince, that the puct thought no mode of conception or expression too brutal for the character. Steevens. There is no ground whatsoever for supposing that Shakspeare designed Bianca for a courtezan of Cyprus. Cassio, who was a Florentine, and Othello's lieutenant, sailed from Venice in a ship belonging to Verona, at the same time with the Moor; and what difficulty is there in supposing that Bianca, who, Cassio himself informs us," haunted him every where," took her passage in the same vessel with him; or followed him afterwards? Othello, we may suppose, with some of the Venetian troops, sailed in another vessel; and Desdemona and Iago embarked in a third. Iago, after he has been at Cyprus but one day, speaks of Bianca, (Act IV, sc. i,) as one whom he had long known: he must therefore (if the poet be there correct) have known her at Venice: "Now will I question Cassio of Bianca, "A huswife, that, by selling her desires, "Buys herself bread and clothes: it is a creature, "That dotes on Cassio;-as 'tis the strumpet's plague, "To beguile many, and be beguil'd by one.' Malone. Ingenious as Mr. Tyrwhitt's conjecture may appear, it but ill accords with the context. Iago is enumerating the disqualifications of Cassio for his new appointment; but surely his being well spoken of by all men could not be one of them. It is evident from what follows that a report had prevailed at Venice of Cassio's being soon to be married" to the most fair Bianca." Now as she was in Shakspeare's language "a customer," it was with a view to such a connexion that Iago called the new lieutenant a fellow almost damned. It may be gathered from various circumstances that an intercourse between Cassio and Bianca had existed before they left Venice; for Bianca is not only well known to Iago at Cyprus, but she upbraids Cassio (Act III, sc. iv,) with having been absent a week from her, when he had not been two days on the island. Hence, and from what Cassio himself relates, (Act Nor the division of a battle knows IV, sc. i,) I was the other day talking on the SEA-BANK WITH CERTAIN VENETIANS, and THITHER comes the bauble; by this hand, she falls thus about my neck;-it may be presumed she had secretly followed him to Cyprus: a conclusion not only necessary to explain the passage in question, but to preserve the consistency of the fable at large.—The sea-bank on which Cassio was conversing with certain Venetians, was at Venice; for he had never till the day before been at Cyprus: he specifies those with whom he conversed as Venetians, because he was himself a Florentine; and he mentions the behaviour of Bianca in their presence, as tending to corroborate the report she had spread that he was soon to marry her. Henley. I think, as I have already mentioned, that Bianca was a Venetian courtezan: but the sea-bank of which Cassio speaks, may have been the shore of Cyprus. In several other instances beside this, our poet appears not to have recollected that the persons of his play had only been one day at Cyprus. I am aware, however, that this circumstance may be urged with equal force against the concluding part of my own preceding note; and the term seabank certainly adds support to what Mr. Henley has suggested, being the very term used by Lewkenor, in his account of the Lito maggior of Venice. Malone. Thus far our commentaries on this obscure passage are arranged as they stand in the very succinct edition of Mr. Malone. Yet I cannot prevail on myself, in further imitation of him, to suppress the note of my late friend Mr. Tyrwhitt, a note that seems to be treated with civilities that degrade its value, and with a neglect that few of its author's opinions have deserved. My inability to offer such a defence of his present one, as he himself could undoubtedly have supplied, is no reason why it should be prevented from exerting its own proper influence on the reader. Steevens. The poet has used the same mode of expression in The Merchant of Venice, Act I, sc. i: "O my Antonio, I do know of those "Who therefore only are reputed wise, "For saying nothing; who, I'm very sure, "If they should speak, would almost damn those ears, "Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools." And there the allusion is evident to the gospel-judgment against those, who call their brothers fools. I am therefore inclined to believe, that the true reading here is: A fellow almost damn'd in a fair life; and that Shakspeare alludes to the judgment denounced in the gospel against those of whom all men speak well. The character of Cassio is certainly such, as would be very likely to draw upon him all the peril of this denunciation, literally understood. Well-bred, easy, sociable, good-natured; with abilities enough to make him agreeable and useful, but not suf More than a spinster; unless the bookish theorick,8 ficient to excite the envy of his equals, or to alarm the jealousy of his superiors. It may be observed too, that Shakspeare has thought it proper to make Iago, in several other passages, bear his testimony to the amiable qualities of his rival. In Act V, sc. i, he speaks thus of him: if Cassio do remain, "He hath a daily beauty in his life, "That makes me ugly." I will only add, that, however hard or far-fetched this allusion (whether Shakspeare's or only mine) may seem to be, Archbishop Sheldon had exactly the same conceit, when he made that singular compliment, as the writer calls it, [Biograph. Britan. Art. TEMPLE,] to a nephew of Sir William Temple, that "he had the curse of the gospel, because all men spoke well of him." Tyrwhitt. That Mr. Tyrwhitt has given us Shakspeare's genuine word and meaning I have not the least doubt. Bianca is evidently a courtezan of Cyprus, and Cassio, of course, not yet acquainted with her. But even admitting that she might have followed him thither, and got comfortably settled in a "house," still, I think, the improbability of his having any intention to marry her is too gross for consideration. What! the gallant Cassio, the friend and favourite of his general, to marry a "customer," a " fitchew," a "huswife who by selling her desires buys herself bread and clothes!" Iago, indeed, pretends that she had given out such a report, but it is merely with a view to make Cassio laugh the louder. There can be no reason for his practising any similar imposition upon Roderigo. Ritson. 9- theorick,] Theorick, for theory. So, in The Proceedings against Garnet on the Powder-Plot: "as much deceived in the theoricke of trust, as the lay disciples were in the practicke of conspiracie." Steevens. This was the common language of Shakspeare's time. See Vol. V, p. 269, n. 8. Malone. 1 Wherein the toged consuls] Consuls for counsellors. Warburton. Sir Thomas Hanmer reads, council. Mr. Theobald would have us read, counsellors. Venice was originally governed by consuls : and consuls seems to have been commonly used for counsellors, as afterwards in this play. In Albion's Triumph, a Masque, 1631, the Emperor Albanact is said to be "attended by fourteen consuls." Again: " the habits of the consuls were after the same manner." Geoffrey of Monmouth, and Matthew Paris after him, call both dukes and earls, consuls. Steevens. The rulers of the state, or civil governors. The word is used by Marlowe, in the same sense, in Tamburlaine, a tragedy, 1590: "Both we will raigne as consuls of the earth." Malone.* By toged perhaps is meant peaceable, in opposition to the warlike |