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A closet-lock-and-key of villainous secrets:

And yet fhe'll kneel, and pray; I have feen her do't.

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[To EMILIA.

Leave procreants alone, and shut the door;
Cough, or cry-hem, if any body come:
Your mystery, your mystery;-nay, defpatch.

[Exit EMILIA. DES. Upon my knees, what doth your speech import?

I understand a fury in your words,

But not the words.

OTн. Why, what art thou?

DES.

And loyal wife.

ΟΤΗ.

Your wife, my lord; your true

Come, fwear it, damn thyself;

Left, being like one of heaven, the devils them

felves

Should fear to feize thee: therefore be doubledamn'd,

* But not the words.] This line is added out of the first edition. POPL.

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Swear-thou art honeft.

DES.

Heaven doth truly know it.

OTн. Heaven truly knows, that thou art falfe as

hell.

DES. To whom, my lord? With whom? How am
I falfe?

OTH. O Desdemona !-away! away! away!

DES. Alas, the heavy day!-Why do you weep?
Am I the occafion of these tears, my lord?
If, haply, you my father do fufpect,

An inftrument of this your calling back,

Lay not your blame on me; if you have lost him,
Why, I have loft him too.

OTH.

Had it pleas'd heaven
To try me with affliction; had he rain'd

All kinds of fores, and fhames, on my bare head;
Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips;

Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes;
I should have found in fome part of my foul
A drop of patience: but (alas!) to make me
A fixed figure, for the time of fcorn'

9-time of fcorn &c.] The reading of both the eldeft quartos and the folio is, - for the time of scorn."

Mr. Rowe reads-hand of fcorn; and fucceeding editors have filently followed him.

I would (though in oppofition to fo many great authorities in favour of the change) continue to read with the old copy:

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the time of fcorn."

We call the hour in which we are to die, the hour of death-the time when we are to be judged-the day of judgement—the instant when we fuffer calamity-the moment of evil; and why may we not diftinguish the time which brings contempt along with it, by the title of the time of fcorn? Thus, in King Richard III:

"Had you fuch leifure in the time of death ?—,"

Again, in King 93 Henry VI. P. III.

" To help king Edward in his time of storm."

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Again, in Soliman and Perfeda, 1599:

"So fings the mariner upon the fhore,

"When he hath paft the dangerous time of forms.”
Again, in Marston's Infatiate Countefs, 1603:

"I'll poifon thee; with murder curbe thy paths,
"And make thee know a time of infamy.'

Othello takes his idea from a clock. To make me (fays he) a fixed foure on the dial of the world) for the hour of fcorn to hoint and maky

at motion, and mine eye may be deceiv ́a. ̈*
In the clocks of the laft age there was, I think, in the middle of
the dial-plate a figure of time, which, I believe, was in our poet's
thoughts, when he wrote the paffage in the text. [See Vol. VIII.
P. 342, n. 9.]

The finger of the dial was the technical phrafe.
King of the Lombards, by D'Avenant, 1629:
"Even as the flow finger of the dial

"Doth in its motion circular remove
"To diftant figures,—.”

So, in Albovine

D'Avenant was a great reader of Shakspeare, and probably had read his plays, according to the fashion of the time, in the folio, without troubling himself to look into the quarto copies.

Unmoving is the reading of the quarto, 1622. The folio reads -and moving; and this certainly agrees with the image prefented and its counterpart, better than unmoving, which can be applied to

Yet could I bear that too; well, very well:
But there, where I have garner'd up my heart;*
Where either I must live, or bear no life;'

a clock, only by licence of poetry, (not appearing to move,) and as applied to fcorn, has but little force: to say nothing of the fuperfluous epithet flow; for there needs no ghoft to tell us, that that which is unmoving is flow. Slow implies fome fort of motion, however little it may be, and therefore appears to me to favour the reading of the folio.

I have given the arguments on both fides, and, from refpect to e opinion of others, have printed unmoving, though I am very oubtful whether it was the word intended by Shakspeare. The uarto, 1622, has-fingers; the folio-finger. MALONE.

Perhaps we should read-flowly moving finger at. I should wish > reject the prefent reading, for even the word flow implies me degree of motion, though that motion may not be perceptible the eye. The time of fcorn is a strange expreffion, to which, I innot reconcile myself, I have no doubt but it is erroneous, and ish we had authority to read-band of scorn, instead of time.

M. MASON.

If a certain culprit, in one of his foliloquies (after the execution f a late fentence in the corn-market) had been heard to exlaim:

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would, at once, have been understood, by the TIME of scorn, to mean the HOUR of his exposure in the pillory; and by its flow unmoving FINGER, the HOUR-INDEX of the dial that fronted him.

Mr. Malone, in a fubfequent note, hath remarked that, “his for its is common in our author;" and in respect to the epithet unmoving, it may be obferved, with Rofalind, not only that time tra vels in divers paces with divers perfons, but, that for the fame reason, it GALLOPS with the thief to the gallows, it apparently STANDS STILL with the perjured in the pillory. Whatever were the precife. inftance of difgrace to which Othello alluded, the text in its prefent ftate, is perfectly intelligible; and, therefore, fhould be preferved from capricious alterations. HENLEY.

2 — garner'd up my heart;] That is, treasured up; the garner and the fountain are improperly conjoined. JOHNSON.

Where either I must live, or bear no life;] So, in King Lear:
Whereby we do exift, or ceafe to be." STEEVENS.

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The fountain from the which my current runs,
Or elfe dries up; to be discarded thence!
Or keep it as a ciftern, for foul toads 4

To knot and gender in!-turn thy complexion there!

Patience, thou young and rofe-lipp'd cherubin; Ay, there, look grim as hell!'

DES. I hope, my noble lord esteems me honest. OTн. O, ay; as fummer flies are in the fhambles,

That quicken even with blowing. O thou weed, Who art fo lovely fair, and smell'ft fo fweet,

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a ciftern, for foul toads &c.] So, in Antony and Cles

"So half my Egypt were fubmerg'd, and made
"A ciftern for fcal'd fnakes -

turn thy complexion there! &c.]

STEEVENS.

At fuch an object do

thou, patience, thyfelf change colour; at this do thou, even thou, rofy cherub as thou art, look as grim as hell.

the new have it :

"I here look grim as hell."

The old editions and

I was written for ay, and not fince corrected. JOHNSON. Here in the old copies was manifeftly an error of the prefs. See the line next but one above. Mr. Theobald made the correction. MALONE.

6 O thou weed,] Dr. Johnfon has, on this occafion, been unjustly cenfured for having ftifled difficulties where he could not remove them. I would therefore obferve, that Othello's fpeech is printed word for word from the folio edition, though the quarto

reads:

"O thou black weed!"

Had this epithet, black, been admitted, there would ftill have remained an incomplete verfe in the fpeech: no additional beauty would have been introduced; but inftead of it, a paltry antithefis between the words black and fair. STEEVENS.

The quarto, 1622, reads:

"O thou black weed, why art fo lovely fair?

"Thou fmell'ft fo fweet, that the fenfe aches at thee," &c.

MALONE.

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