Wordly matter and direction, I suppose, means social concerns, and. the order of them, in contradistinction to military or warlike avocations. "What will I do ?" This is a provincialism-" will," for "shall." 296. "She must change for youth." This may mean, either-she must change by reason of her youth-a mode of speech common enough-or, in favour of a youthful paramour. The first, I believe, is the sense designed. 299. "Go to; farewell: put money enough in your purse." As this injunction, so often and strongly urged, seems to have had its full effect on Roderigo, who has resolved to sell his land, the repetition of it here seems to have been judiciously omitted in the second copy of this play: Rod. "I ăm chang'd: I'll go sell all Iago. 66 Farewell. my land." The remainder of this line, I suppose, has been lost. ACT II. SCENE I. 301. "Descry a sail." This fragment might, with slight help, be in corporated in the verse. The quarto gives, in the fourth line following, "When the huge mountain melts," and the metre that succeeds the present hemistie may be regulated thus: Gent. "Descry a sail." Mont. " Methinks the wind hath spoke "Aloud at land; a fuller blast ne'er shook "Our battlements :-if it have ruffian'd SO Upon the sea, what ribs of oak so strong, "When the huge mountains melt on them, can hold "The mortises. this ?" What shall we hear of keep their "Hold the mortises," means, 66 lodgment in the mortises." "The wind hath spoke." The quarto-" Does speak. "Main," extreme violence. "And quench the guards of the ever-fixed pole." This alteratat once impairs the me reads "ever-fired po taphor, and weakens the expression. The removal of the useless particle would reclaim this line: "that" "On the enchaf'd flood. If the Turkish fleet." News, lords! our wars are done." The first quarto-" your wars." These broken lines are very frequent in this play, and are generally attended with subsequent derangement of the metre. Perhaps, we might read : News, lords; your wars are done;-the desperate tempest "Hath bang'd the Turk so, their designment halts. "A ship of Venice hath seen a grievous wreck, "And sufferance of most part of their fleet." Mont. "How! Is this true?" Gent. "The ship is here put in," &c. 305." Throw out our eyes." 66 Emit our glance.-It is a harsh expression. Make the main, and the aerial blue, "An indistinct regard." Undistinguishable objects of vision. 306. "An indistinct regard." The metre again exhibits an indistinct regard. I would regulate, rejecting the words "let's do so," which have corruptedly crept in here, Montano having, the minute before, said, "let's to the sea-side, Gent. ور "An indistinct regard." Come, every minute "Is now expectancy of more arrivance.” "Is he well ship'd?" Again, within four verses, two hemistics. We might form the measure thus: Mont. "Is he well shipp'd ?" Cas. His bark is stoutly timber'd, "His pilot expert, and of prov'd allow- Therefore my hopes, not surfeited to death, Therefore, the sickly inquietude of Hope being in me restrained to moderate bounds, and not indulged to that excess which commonly ends in impatience and despair, rests confident of being cured at length by the general's arrival. 307. "A sail, a sail." Any attempts to obtain purity by a different. combination of the lines, or a change in their parts, where disorder and corruption are so prevalent as in many of these plays, must be abortive; but where the mere omission of an unnecessary word, and, still more, of the useless repetition of a word, will at least restore order, it cannot be wrong to propose it :—thus the third a sail!" is clearly erroneous: "Stand in bold cure-” 308. "And give us truth who 'tis that is arriv'd." Gent. "I shall,” Mont. "But, good lieutenant, is your general wiv'd?" This untimely jingle, which could hardly be intended, might be avoided, and the gentleman's answer admitted into the line to supply the metre: "And give us truth who is arrived. 66 "But good lieutenant," &c. "Does bear all excellency," &c. This verse is intolerably overloaded: "Does bear all excellence.-How now? who has put in ?" 312. "Their mortal natures, letting go safely by." "Safe" might have stood adverbially, for the relief of the metre: Letting safe go by," &c. which, perhaps, is right:-their common propensity and fitness to destroy. 313. "You'd have enough." This, joined to Desdemona's words, will form the measure, but leave a hemistic at the beginning of Iago's speech following. I suppose some words have been lost from Iago's first speech:perhaps, like these: "Ifaith, 'tis odds, but you would have enough." You have little cause to say so. An easy alteration would reduce this to mea 314. sure: "And chides with thinking. You've no cause to say so. |