Perfons Represented, Duke of Venice. Two other Senators. Gratiano, brother to Brabantio. Lodovico, kinfman to Brabantio. Othello, the Moor: Caffio, his Lieutenant; Iago, his Ancient. Roderigo, a Venetian Gentleman. Montano, Othello's predeceffor in the government of Cyprus. Clown, fervant to Othello. Herald. Defdemona, daughter to Brabantio, and wife to Othello. Emilia, wife to Iago. Bianca, a courtezan, mistress to Caffio. Officers, Gentlemen, Meffengers, Muficians, Sailors, Attendants, c. SCENE, for the first Act, in Venice; during the reft of the play, at a fea-port in Cyprus. ACT I. SCENE I. Venice. A Street. Enter RODERIGO, and IAGO, Rod. Tufh, never tell me, I take it much unkindly, That thou, Iago,-who haft had my purse, As if the ftrings were thine,-fhould't know of this. I did dream of fuch a matter, abhor me. Rod. Thou told'ft me, thou did'ft hold him in thy hate. Jago. Defpife me, if I do not. Three great ones of the city, In perfonal fuit to make me his lieutenant, Oft capp'd to him3;-and, by the faith of man, The story is taken from Cynthio's Novels. Pore. I have not hitherto met with any tranflation of this novel (the fe venth in the third decad) of fo early a date as the age of Shakspeare; but undoubtedly many of thofe little pamphlets have perished between his time and ours. This play was first entered at Stationers' Hall, Oct. 6, 1621, by Thomas Walkely. STEEVENS. I have seen a French tranflation of Cynthio, by Gabriel Chappuys, Par. 1584. This is not a faithful one; and I fufpect, through this medium the work came into English. FARMER. This tragedy I have afcribed (but on no very fure ground) to the year 1611. See An Attempt to ascertain the order of Shakspeare's plays, Vol. I. MALONE. 2 Tush, never tell me,] Thus the quarto, 1622. In the folio the word tufo is omitted. MALONE. 3 Oft capp'd to him ;-] Thus the quarto. The folio reads, Offcapp'd to him. STEEVENS. In fupport of the folio, Antony and Cleopatra may be quoted: But a more "I have ever held my cap off to thy fortunes." This reading I once thought likely to be the true one. intimate knowledge of the quarto copies has convinced me that they ought not without very strong reafon to be departed from. MALONE. But But he, as loving his own pride and purposes, A fellow almoft damn'd in a fair wife; That 4-certes,] . e. certainly, in truth. Obfolete, So Spenfer, in the Faery Queen, b. 4. c. 9: Certes her lofle ought me to forrow moft." STEEVENS. 5 Forfootb, a great arithmetician,] So, in Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio fays: "one that fights by the book of arithmetick." STEEV. Iago, however, means to reprefent Caffio, not as a perfon whose arithmetick was "one, two, and the third in your bofom," but as a man merely converfant with civil matters, and who knew no more of a fquadron than the number of men it contained. So afterwards he calls him this counter-cafter. MALONE. A fellow almost damn'd in a fair wife;] Sir Thomas Hanmer fuppofed that the text must be corrupt, because it appears from a following part of the play that Caffio was an unmarried man. Mr. Steevens has clearly explained the words in the fubfequent note: I have therefore no doubt that the text is right; and have not thought it necessary to infert Mr. Tyrwhitt's note, in which he proposed to read-” a fellow almoft damn'd in a fair life." Shakspeare, he conceived, might allude to the judgment denounced in the gospel against those of whom all men fpeak well. MALONE. Mr. Tyrwhitt's conjecture is ingenious, but cannot be right; for the malicious Iago would never have given Caffio the highest commendation that words can convey, at the very time that he wishes to depreciate him to Roderigo: though afterwards, in fpeaking to himself, [A&t V. fc. i.] he gives him his just character. MASON. That Caffio was married, is not fufficiently implied in the words, a fellow almost damn'd in a fair wife, fince they may mean, according to Iago's licentious manner of expreffing himself, no more than a man very near being married. This feems to have been the cafe in respect of Caffio.-Act IV. Scene i, Iago, fpeaking to him of Bianca, fays, -Wby, the cry goes, that you shall marry ber. Caffio acknowledges that fuch a report has been raifed, and adds, This is the monkey's own giving out: fhe is perfuaded I will marry ber, out of her own love and felf-flattery, not out of my promife. Iago then, having heard this report before, very naturally circulates it in his prefent conversation with Roderigo. If Shakspeare, however, defigned Bianca for a curtizan of Cyprus, (where Caffio had not yet been, and had therefore never feen her,) That never fet a fquadron in the field, More Iago cannot be fuppofed to allude to the report concerning his marriage with her, and confequently this part of my argument must fall to the ground. Had Shakspeare, confiftently with Iago's character, meant to make him fay that Caffio was actually damn'd in being married to a bandsome woman, he would have made him fay it outright, and not have interpofed the palliative almoft. Whereas what he lays at prefent amounts to no more than that (however near his marriage) he is not yet compietely damn'd, because he is not abfolutely married. The fucceeding parts of Iago's converfation fufficiently evince, that the poet thought no mode of conception or expreffion too brutal for the character. STEEV. There is no ground whatfoever for fuppofing that Shakspeare defigned Bianca for a courtezan of Cyprus. Caffio, who was a Florentine, and Othello's lieutenant, failed from Venice in a thip belonging to Verona, at the fame time with the Moor; and what difficulty is there in fuppofing that Bianca, who, Caffio himself informs us, "haunted him every where," took her paffage in the fame veffel with him; or followed him afterwards? Othello, we may fuppofe, with fome of the Venetian troops, failed in another veffel; and Defdemona and lago embarked in a third. Iago, after he has been at Cyprus but one day, speaks of Bianca, (Act IV. fc. i.) as one whom he had long known: he muft therefore (if the poet be there correct) have known her at Venice: "Now will I queftion Caffio of Bianca, "A bouferwife, that, by felling ber defires, "That dotes on Caffio;-as 'tis the ftrumpet's plague, "To beguile many, and be beguil'd by one." MALONE. Ingenious as Mr. Tyrrwhitt's conjecture may appear, it but ill accords with the context. lago is enumerating the difqualifications of Caffio for his new appointment; but furely his being well spoken of by all men could not be one of them. It is evident from what follows that a report had prevailed at Venice of Caffio's being foon to be married" to the most fair Bianca." Now as he was in Shakspeare's language "a cuftomer," it was with a view to fuch a connexion that lago called the new lieutenant a fellow almoft damn'd. It may be gathered from various circumstances that an intercourfe between Caffio and Bianca had exifted before they left Venice; for Bianca is not only well known to Jago at Cyprus, but the upbraids Caffio, (Act III. fc. iv.) with having been abfent a week from her, when he had not been two days on the island. Hence, and from what Caffio himself relates, (A&IV. fc. i.) I was the other day talking on the SEA-BANK WITH CERTAIN VENETIANS, and THITHER comes the bauble; by this band for falls thus about my neck;"-it may be prefumed he had fecretly VOL. IX. Ff 6 followed More than a fpinfter; unless the bookish theorick", As masterly as he mere prattle, without practice, followed him to Cyprus: a conclufion not only neceffary to explain the paffage in question, but to preferve the confistency of the fable at large. The fea-bank on which Caffio was converfing with certain Venetians, was at Venice; for he had never till the day before been at Cyprus: he specifies thofe with whom he converfed as Venetians, because he was himself a Florentine; and he mentions the behaviour of Bianca in their prefence, as tending to corroborate the report she had fpread that he was foon to marry her. HENLEY., I think, as I have already mentioned, that Bianca was a Venetian courtezan: but the fea-bank of which Caffio fpeaks, may have been the fhore of Cyprus. In feveral other inftances befide this, our poet appears not to have recollected that the perfons of his play had only been one day at Cyprus. I am aware, however, that this circumftance may be urged with equal force against the concluding part of my own preceding note; and the term fea-bank certainly adds fupport to what Mr. Henley has fuggefted, being the very term ufed by Lewkenor, in his account of the Lito maggior of Venice. See p. 453, n. 2. MALONE. 7-the bookish theorick,] Theorick for theory. STEEVENS. This was the common language of Shakspeare's time. See Vol. III. P. 445, n. 8. MALONE. the toged confuls-] The rulers of the flate, or civil goverThe word is ufed by Marlowe, in the fame fense, in Tamburlaine, a tragedy, 1590: nours. "Both we will raigne as confuls of the earth." MALONE. By toged perhaps is meant peaceable, in oppofition to the warlike qualifications of which he had been fpeaking. He might have formed the word in allufion to the Latin adage,-Cedant arma toga. STEEV. 9-muft be be-lee'd and calm`d—] Be lee'd and-be-calm'd are terms of navigation. I have been informed that one veffel is faid to be in the lee of another, when it is fo placed that the wind is intercepted from it. Iago's meaning therefore is, that Caffio had got to the wind of him, and becalmed him from going on. To be-calm (as I learn from Falconer's Marine Di&ionary) is likewife to obftruct the current of the wind in its paffage to a fhip, by any contiguous object. STEEVENS. The quarto, 1622, reads must be led and calm'd-. I fufpect therefore that Shakspeare wrote-must be lee'd and calm'd. The |