May speak, unbonneted, to as proud a fortune
As this that I have reach'd:]

Demerit now signifies only ill desert; in Shakespeare's day it was used indiscriminately for good or ill deserving. In the present instance it is ap arently employed in the good sense, for Othello could hardly mean that his blemishes mi ht stand without concealment beside the dignity he had achieved. The import we take to be, my services when revealed (unbonneted), may aspire or lay claim to (may speak to) as proud a fortune as this which I

Enter CASSIO, and certain Officers with torches.

OTH. The servants of the duke! and my lieutenant!-

The goodness of the night upon you, friends!
What is the news?

CAS.

The duke does greet you, general;
And he requires your haste-post-haste appearance,
Even on the instant.
Отн.
What is the matter, think you?
CAS. Something from Cyprus, as I may divine:
It is a business of some heat; the galleys
Have sent a dozen sequent messengers
This very night at one another's heels ;
And many of the consuls, rais'd and met,
Are at the duke's already. You have been hotly
call'd for;

When, being not at your lodging to be found,
The senate hath sent about three several quests
To search you out.

Отн.

"T is well I am found by you.

I will but spend a word here in the house,
And go with you.

CAS.

[Exit.

Ancient, what makes he here IAGO. Faith, he to-night hath boarded a land

have attained. Mr. Fuseli, however, has given another explanation, founded on the fact that at Venice the bonnet has always been a badge of patrician honours :-I am his equal or superior in rank; and were it not so, such are my demerits, that, unbonneted, without the addition of patrician or senatorial dignity, they may speak to as proud a fortune, &c. But here, too, it is indispensable for the integrity of the passage that "speak to" be understood in the sense just mentioned of aspire, or lay claim to.

e a land-carack;] A carack was a ship of large burden, like the Spanish galleon; but the compound in the text appears to have been a dissolute expression, the meaning of which may be gathered from the following:

"Here to his Land Friggat hee's ferried by Charon,
He bords her: a service a hot and a rare one."
Verses prefixed to Coryat's Cru 'ities.

BRA. O, thou foul thief, where hast thou stow'd my daughter?

Damn'd as thou art, thou hast enchanted her;
For I'll refer me to all things of sense,
If she in chains of magic were not bound,a
Whether a maid so tender, fair, and happy,
So opposite to marriage, that she shunn'd
The wealthy curled darlings" of our nation,
Would ever have, to incur a general mock,
Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom
Of such a thing as thou,--to fear, not to delight.
Judge me the world, if 't is not gross in sense
That thou hast practis'd on her with foul charms;
Abus'd her delicate youth with drugs or minerals
That waken motion: I'll have 't disputed

с

on; (2)

Call thee to answer.

Отн.
What if I do obey?
How may the duke be therewith satisfied,
Whose messengers are here about my side,
Upon some present business of the state,
To bring me to him?

1 OFF. 'Tis true, most worthy signior, The duke's in council, and your noble self, I am sure is sent for.

BRA. How the duke in council In this time of the night!-Bring him away: Mine's not an idle cause: the duke himself, Or any of my brothers of the state, Cannot but feel this wrong as 't were their own; For if such actions may have passage free, Bond-slaves and pagans shall our statesmen be. [Exeunt. (+) First folio omits, I. If she in chains of magic were not bound,-] A line not found in the quarto 1622.

(*) First folio, Whether.

bcurled darlings-] "Curled' was an epithet characteristic of gentility. Thus D'Avenant, in "The Just Italian," Act III. Sc. 1,

"the curl'd and silken Nobles of the Town." The folio reads, "dearlings."

e That waken motion:-1 So Hanmer; the original having, "That weakens motion," &c. The upholders of the old reading contend that Brabantio's accusation is that the Moor, by magical devices and the administering of drugs or minerals, had weakened those natural impulses of youth and maidhood in his daughter, which, uncontrolled, would have inclined to those of her own clime, complexion, and degree; but this is expressly contradicted by what he has himself just said,

"a maid so tender, fair, and happy,
So opposite to marriage, that she shunn'd
The wealthy curled darlings of our nation."

We therefore readily accept the easy emendation Hanmer offers. Brabantio's grievance, it is plain, was not that Othello had, by charms and medicines, abated the motions of Desdemona's sense, but that he had aroused and stimulated them.

d and do attach thee-] The passage beginning,-"Judge me the world," to the above words inclusive, is not in the quarto 1622.

ewhere the aim reports.-] To aim is to conjecture or surmise. f I do not so secure me in the error,-] I do not so over-confidently build on the discrepancy, but that, &c.

g So may he with more facile question bear it.-] The remainder of the speech after this line, is tound only in the folio 1623 and the quarto 1630.

Ay, to me;

She is abus'd, stol'n from me, and corrupted
By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks;
For nature so preposterously to err,

Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense,
Sans witchcraft could not.

DUKE. Whoe'er he be that, in this foul proceeding,

Hath thus beguil'd your daughter of herself,
And you of her, the bloody book of law
You shall yourself read in the bitter letter,
After your own sense; yea, though our proper son
Stood in your action.

BRA.
Humbly I thank your grace.
Here is the man, this Moor; whom now, it

seems,

Your special mandate, for the state-affairs,
Hath hither brought.

DUKE and SEN. We are very sorry for 't. DUKE. What, in your own part, can you say to this? [To OTHELLO.

BRA. Nothing, but this is so.

OтH. Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors, My very noble and approv'd good masters,That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter, It is most true; true, I have married her;

a Their dearest action-] See note (b), p. 398.

The very head and front of my offending
Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my
speech,

And little bless'd with the soft phrase of peace;
For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith,
Till now some nine moons wasted, they have us'd
Their dearest action in the tented field;
And little of this great world can I speak,
More than pertains to feats of broils and battle;
And therefore little shall I grace my cause

In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious

patience,

I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver

Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms,

What conjuration, and what mighty magic,-
For such proceeding I am charg'd withal,-
I won his daughter.

BRA.

A maiden never bold;
Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion
Blush'd at herself: and she,-in spite of nature,
Of years, of country, credit, every thing,-
To fall in love with what she fear'd to look on!
It is a judgment maim'd and most imperfect,
That will confess perfection so could err
Against all rules of nature; and must be driven
To find out practices of cunning hell,

Why this should be. I therefore vouch again,
That with some mixtures powerful o'er the blood,
Or with some dram conjur'd to this effect,
He wrought upon her.

(*) First folio, main'd.