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Thou hast no weapon, and perforce must suffer.
Oth. Look in upon me then, and speak with me,
Qr, naked as I am, I will assault thee.

Re-enter GRATIANO.

Gra. What is the matter?

Oth.

Behold! I have a weapon;

A better never did itself sustain

Upon a soldier's thigh: I have seen the day,
That, with this little arm, and this good sword,
I have made my way through more impediments
Than twenty times your stop:8-But, O vain boast!
Who can control his fate? 'tis not so now.-
Be not afraid, though you do see me weapon'd;'
Here is my journey's end, here is my butt,
And very sea-mark of my utmost sail.
Do you go back dismay'd? 'tis a lost fear;
Man but a rush against Othello's breast,

And he retires;-Where should Othello go?—
Now, how dost thou look now? O ill-starr'd wench!!

7 A better never did itself sustain

Upon a soldier's thigh:] So, in The Two Noble Kinsmen, by Beaumont and Fletcher, 1634:

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On his thigh a sword

Hung by a curious baldricke, when he frowns,
"To seal his will by; better, on my conscience,
"Never was soldier's friend." Malone.

8 I have made my way through more impediments
Than twenty times your stop:] So, in Coriolanus, sc. i:
cracking ten thousand curbs

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"Of more strong link asunder, than can ever

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Appear in your impediment."

Steevens.

though you do see me weapon'd;] This uncommon participle is used by Sidney in his Arcadia.~ Malone.

1

O ill-starr'd wench!] This and the six preceding lines, are omitted in the first quarto Wench originally signified only a young woman. Cassandra, in Whetstone's Promos and Cassandra, 1578, says of herself:

Again:

"O wretched wench, where may I first complayne?"

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Therefore, sweet wenche, helpe me to rue my woe." The word is used without any dishonourable meaning in the Bille: "Now Jonathan and Ahimaaz stayed by En-rogel; (för they might not be seen to come into the city :) and a wench went and told them; and they went and told king David." 2 Sam. xvii,

17.

Pale as thy smock! when we shall meet at compt,
This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven,
And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my girl?
Even like thy chastity.-

O cursed, cursed slave !—Whip me, ye devils,
From the possession of this heavenly sight!
Blow me about in winds! roast me in sulphur!
Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!-
O Desdemona! Desdemona! dead?

Dead? O! O! O!

Enter LODOVICO, MONTANO, CASSIO, carried in a Chair, and Officers, with IAGO, prisoner.

Lod. Where is this rash and most unfortunate man?
Oth. That's he, that was Othello; here I am.
Lod. Where is that viper? bring the villain forth.
Oth. I look down towards his feet;2-but that's a fa-

ble:

If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee.

[OTH. wounds IAGO.

Lod. Wrench his sword from him.

Iago.

I bleed, sir; but not kill'd.

Oth. I am not sorry neither; I 'd have thee live; For, in my sense, 'tis happiness to die.3

Lod. O thou Othello, that was once so good,

Fall'n in the practice1 of a cursed slave,

What shall be said to thee?

Oth.

Why, any thing:

An honourable murderer, if you will;

For nought I did in hate, but all in honour.

Lod. This wretch hath part confess'd his villainy : Did you and he consent in Cassio's death?

Oth. Ay.

And again, by Gawin Douglas, in his version of the Æneid: audetque viris concurrere virgo."

66

"This wensche stoutlye rencounter durst with men."

Steevens.

2 towards his feet;] To see if, according to the common opinion, his feet be cloven. Johnson.

3

For, in my sense, 'tis happiness to die.] The same thought has already occurred in Antony and Cleopatra:

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'Tis well thou 'rt gone,

"If it be well to live." Steevens.

In the practice-] In the snare, by the stratagem.

Johnson.

Cas. Dear general, I never gave you cause.5 Oth. I do believe it, and I ask your pardon. Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil, Why he hath thus ensnar'd my soul and body?

Iago. Demand me nothing: What you know, you

know:

From this time forth I never will speak word.

Lod. What? not to pray?

Gra.

Torments will ope your lips.

Oth. Well, thou dost best.

Lod. Sir, you shall understand what hath befall'n, Which, as I think, you know not: Here is a letter, Found in the pocket of the slain Roderigo;

And here, another: the one of them imports

The death of Cassio to be undertook

By Roderigo.

Oth. O villain!

Cas.

Most heathenish, and most gross!

Lod. Now here 's another discontented paper, Found in his pocket too; and this, it seems, Roderigo meant to have sent this damned villain; But that, belike, Iago in the interim?

Came in and satisfied him.

Oth.

How came you, Cassio, by that handkerchicf
That was my wife's?

Cas.

O pernicious the caitiff!

I found it in my chamber:

And he himself confess'd, but even now,

5 Dear general, I never gave you cause.] Our poet probably without knowing it, has used the words of The Spanish Tragedy, 1605:

"Hieronymo, I never gave thee cause?"

This phrase, a very familiar one, is also employed in p. 353,

1. 11:

"Alas, the day! I never gave him cause." Malone.

Oth. O villain!

Cas. Most heathenish, and most gross!] Read, for the sake of both sense and metre:

Oth. O villainy!

Cas.

Most heathenish, and most gross. Ritson.

7 in the interim-] The first copy has-in the nick. It I suppose, thought upon revisal, that nick was too familar.

was,

8

Johnson.

confess'd, but even now,] The quarto, 1622, reads-

That there he dropp'd it, for a special purpose,
Which wrought to his desire.

Oth.

O fool! fool! fool!
Cas. There is, besides, in Roderigo's letter,-
How he upbraids Iago, that he made him
Brave me upon the watch; whereon it came
That I was cast: And even but now he spake,
After long seeming dead,-Iago hurt him,
Iago set him on.

Lod. You must forsake this

with us;

room, and go
Your power and your command is taken off,
And Cassio rules in Cyprus. For this slave,——
If there be any cunning cruelty,

That can torment him much, and hold him long,
It shall be his: You shall close prisoner rest,
Till that the nature of your fault be known
To the Venetian state :-Come, bring him away.
Oth. Soft you; a word or two, before you go.

I have done the state some service, and they know it;
No more of that:-I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak
Of one, that lov'd not wisely, but too well;
Of one, not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplex'd in the extreme; of one, whose hand,
Like the base Júdean, threw a pearl away,

Richer than all his tribe;' of one, whose subdu'd eyes,

confess'd it even now. The folio-confess'd it, but even now. The word it was manifestly caught by the compositor's eye glancing on the subsequent line. Malone.

9 Speak of me as I am;] The first quarto reads,-Speak of them as they are. The present reading, which is the reading of the folio, has more force. Johnson.

1

of one, whose hand,

Like the base Júdean, threw a pearl away,

Richer than all his tribe;] I have restored Judian, from the elder quarto, as the genuine and more eligible reading. Mr. Pope thinks this was occasioned probably by the word tribe just after: I have many reasons to oppose this opinion. In the first place, the most ignorant Indian, I believe, is so far the reverse of the dunghill-cock in the fable, as to know the estimation of a pearl beyond that of a barley-corn. So that, in that respect, the thought itself would not be just. Then, if our author had de

Albeit unused to the melting mood,

signed to reflect on the ignorance of the Indian without any farther reproach, he would have called him rude, and not base. Again, I am persuaded, as my friend Mr. Warburton long ago observed, the phrase is not here literal, but metaphorical; and, by his pearl, our author very properly means a fine woman. But Mr. Pope objects farther to the reading Judian, because, to make sense of this, we must pre-suppose some particular story of a Jew alluded to: which is much less obvious: but has Shakspeare never done this, but in this single instance? I am satisfied, in his Judian, he is alluding to Herod; who, in a fit of blind jealousy, threw away such a jewel of a wife as Mariamne was to him. What can be more parallel in circumstance, than the conduct of Herod and Othello? Nor was the story so little obvious as Mr. Pope seems to imagine: for, in the year 1613, the Lady Elizabeth Carew published a tragedy called MARIAM, the Fair Queen of JEWRY. I shall only add, that our author might write Judian or Judean, (if that should be alledged as any objection) instead of Judean, with the same licence and change of accent, as, in his Antony and Cleopatra, he shortens the second syllable of Euphrates in pronunciation: which was a liberty likewise taken by Spenser, of whom our author was a studious imitator. Theobald.

Like the base Júdean.] Thus the folio. The first quarto, 1622, reads-Indian. Mr. Theobald therefore is not accurate in the preceding note, in his account of the old copies. Malone.

The elder quarto reads Judian, and this is certainly right. And by the Judian is meant Herod, whose usage to Mariamne is so apposite to the speaker's case, that a more proper instance could not be thought of. Besides, he was the subject of a tragedy at that time, as appears from the words in Hamlet, where an ill player is described

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The metaphorical term of a pearl for a fine woman, is so common as scarce to need examples. In Troilus and Cressida, a lover says of his mistress

"There she lies a PEARL."

And again:

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Why she is a pearl, whose price" &c. Warburton.

I cannot join with the learned criticks in conceiving this passage to refer either to the ignorance of the natives of India, in respect of pearls, or the well-known story of Herod and MariThe poet might just as fairly be supposed to have alluded to that of Jepthah and his daughter.

amne.

Othello, in detestation of what he had done, seems to compare himself to another person who had thrown away a thing of value, with some circumstances of the meanest villainy, which the epithet base seems to imply in its general sense, though it is some. times used only for low or mean. The Indian could not properly be termed base in the former and most common sense, whose

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