"I am your own for ever." This vapid hemistic I take to be interpolated: the line might readily have been completed: My gracious lord, I am your own for ever." SCENE IV. This Scene, between Desdemona and the Clown, is entirely useless. 413. "Where should I lose that handkerchief?" Desdemona must have mentioned this loss previous to her entrance on the stage, and therefore her repeating the word handkerchief, here, is awkward and superfluous:-the clumsy redundancy of the verse bespeaks corruption: I suppose it stood thus: Desd. "Where should I los't, Emilia?" "Look where he comes." This will not accord with the metre; we might read : "Drew all such humours from him." Emil. " I suppose the author wrote, metrically, "A sequester from liberty, prayer, fasting." "A frank one." This is deficient:-I suppose it was, "A very frank one.' Desd. " You, indeed, may say so." 416. "What promise, chuck?" Here is more omission, and, of course, more subsequent disorder :-I would offer, with my premised distrust, "What promise, chuck ?" Desd. " Why Cassio's reinstatement; "I've sent to bid him come and speak with you." 418. "Lend me thy handkerchief." All that follows, for several lines, is disorder, which I would thus regulate: "Lend me thy handkerchief." Oth. "That which I gave you." Desd. " Desd. " Here 'tis, my lord." That! I have it not Not!" "About me.' Why no, indeed, my lord, (Quarto, "i' faith.") "I have not." Oth. 66 That's a fault; that handker chief," &c. 419. "A sibyl that had number'd in the world, "The sun to make two hundred com This, certainly, is obscure and embarrassed; but I believe the construction is this—a sibyl that in the world had counted the sun to make (i. e. to have made) two hundred compasses. 421. "Ha! wherefore?" This hemistic might find accommodation in the preceding line : Desd. "Then would to heaven I had never seen't." Oth. "Ha! wherefore?" "Heaven bless us !" Here, again, something seems to have been lost: perhaps this regulation may be admitted: "Heaven bless us! how now! what is this, my lord?” Oth. Oth. 66 "Come, come." The repetition of "come" is interpolation: Come, you'll ne'er meet a more sufficient man. "Shar'd dangers with you." We might regulate the metre thus: Desd. "Shar'd dangers with you." Oth. 66 Th' handkerchief." Isn't this man jealous?" Desd. "I cannot tell; I ne'er saw this before." 422. "They are all stomachs, and we all but food." They are all stomachs, and we are all merely food for them. 426. " It indues "Our other healthful members, even to that sense "Of pain." 66 Should we not read "with" instead of “to?” 427. "And he's indited falsely." These hemistics often deform the verse without necessity: "And he's indited falsely." Emil. " Pray heav'n it be "State matters, as you think, and no conception, "Nor any jealous toy, concerning you." "Toy" is vain conception, idle fancy; as in K. Henry VI. ·66 Such like toys as these "Have mov'd his highness to commit me now." .66 They are not ever jealous for the cause." Perhaps it should be "for a cause," yet there may have been here a licentious levity assigned to Emilia, who, putting the case generally, insinuates that there may be a cause, though the jealous man is not sagacious enough to discover it, and only knows that he is jealous. Begot upon itself, born on itself." Perhaps "of itself:" we might regulate thus: "Begot on's self, born of itself." Desd. " Heaven keep "That monster from Othello's mind.” Emil. " "I humbly thank your ladyship." The deficiency of this line is readily supplied: "Madam, I humbly thank your ladyship." 429. "Is it come," &c. We might read: "And is it come to this! well!" Cas. " And again : "How! leave you, Cassio! wherefore should I leave you!" "Why then," at the beginning of Iago's speech, is a useless and awkward interpolation: Oth. "What then?" 'Tis hers, my lord; and, being hers," &c. 4 A |