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Re-enter OTHELLO.

Iago. Marry, to-Come, captain, will you go?
Oth. Have with you.

Caf. Here comes another troop to feek for you.

Enter BRABANTIO, RODERIGO, and Officers of night, with torches and weapons.

Iago. It is Brabantio:-general, be advis'd; He comes to bad intent.

Oth. Hola! ftand there!

Rod. Signior, it is the Moor.

Bra. Down with him, thief! [They draw on both fides. Iago. You, Roderigo! come, fir, I am for you.

Oth. Keep up your bright fwords, for the dew will ruft them.

Good fignior, you shall more command with years,
Than with your weapons.

Bra. O thou foul thief, where haft thou flow'd my daughter?

Damn'd as thou art, thou haft enchanted her:
For I'll refer me to all things of fenfe,

If the in chains of magick were not bound,
Whether a maid-fo tender, fair, and happy;
So oppofite to marriage, that fhe fhunn'd
The wealthy curled darlings of our nation',

Would

Or he might fear that Othello had proved falfe to the gentle Defdemona, and married another. MALONE.

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be advis'd;] That is, be cool; be cautious; be discreet.

JOHNSON.

The wealthy curled darlings of our nation,] Curled is elegantly and oftentatiously dreffed. He had not the hair particularly in his thoughts. JOHNSON. On another occafion Shakspeare employs the fame expreflion, and evidently alludes to the bair:

"If the first meet the curled Antony," &c. Sir W. D'Avenant ufes the fame expreffion in his Juft Italian, 1630: "The curi'd and filken nobles of the town."

Again :

"Such is the enrled youth of Italy."

I believe Shakspeare has the fame meaning in the prefent inftance.

STEEVENS.

That

Would ever have, to incur a general mock,
Run from her guardage to the footy bofom
Of fuch a thing as thou; to fear, not to delight.
Judge me the world, if 'tis not grofs in fenfe,
That thou haft practis'd on her with foul charms;
Abus'd her delicate youth with drugs, or minerals,
That waken motion :—I'll have it disputed on:

'Tis

That Dr. Johnson was mistaken in his interpretation of this line, is afcertained by our poet's Rape of Lucrece, where the hair is not merely alluded to, but exprefsly mentioned, and the epithet curled is added as characteristick of a perfon of the highest rank:

"Let him have time to tear his curled bair."

Tarquin, a king's fon, is the person spoken of. See Vol. X. p. 102, n. 1. Edgar, when he was "proud in heart and mind," curl'd bis bair. MALONE.

2- to fear, not to delight.] To one more likely to terrify than to delight her. So, in the next scene (Brabantio is again the speaker): "To fall in love with what she fear'd to look on."

Mr. Steevens fuppofes fear to be a verb here, ufed in the fenfe of to terrify; a fignification which it formerly had. But fear, I apprehend, is a fubftantive, and poetically used for the object of fear. MALONE. 3 Judge me, &c.] This and the five following lines are not in the quarto, 1622. MALONE.

4 Abus'd ber delicate youth with drugs, or minerals,

That waken motion :] The folio, where alone this paffage is found, reads-That weaken motion. The emendation was made by Sir Thomas Hanmer; and I have adopted it, because I have a good reafon to believe that the words weaken and waken were in Shakspeare's time pronounced alike, and hence the mistake might eafily have happened. Motion is elsewhere used by our poet precifely in the fenfe required here. So, in Cymbeline:

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"The wanton ftings and motions of the fenfe."

So also, in A Mad World, my Mafters, by Middleton, 1608: "And in myself footh up adulterous motions,

"And fuch an appetite as I know damns me."

We

'Tis probable, and palpable to thinking.
I therefore apprehend and do attach thee,
For an abufer of the world, a practiser
Of arts inhibited and out of warrant :-
Lay hold upon him; if he do refift,
Subdue him at his peril.

We have in the play before us-waken'd wrath, and I think in fome other play of Shakspeare-waken'd love. Sɔ, in our poet's 117th Sonnet:

"But fhoot not at me in your waken'd bate.”

Ben Jonfon in the preface to his Volpone has a fimilar phrafeology. it being the office of the comick poet to firre up gentle affec

tions."

Mr. Theobald reads-That weaken notion, i. e. fays he, her right conception and idea of things; understanding, judgment.

This reading it must be acknowledged, derives fome support from a paffage in King Lear, A& II. fc. iv.-" either his notion weakens, or his difcernings are lethargy'd." But the objection to it is, that no opiates or intoxicating potions or powders of any fort can distort or pervert the intellects, but by deftroying them for a time; nor was it ever at any time believed by the most credulous, that love-powders, as they were called, could weaken the understanding, though it was formerly believed that they could fajcinate the affections: or in other words, waken motion.

Brabantio afterwards afferts,

"That with fome mixtures powerful o'er the blood,
"He wrought upon her."

(Our poet, it should be remembered, in almost all his plays uses blood for paffion. See p. 356, n. 5; and Vol. VIII. p. 81, n. 4, and p. 199, n. 7.) And one of the fenators afks Othello, not, whether he had weaken'd Defdemona's underflanding, but whether he did

66- by indirect and forced courfes

"Subdue and poifon this young maid's affections."

The notion of the efficacy of love-powders was formerly fo prevalent, that in the parliament fummoned by King Richard the Third, on his ufurping the throne, it was publickly urged as a charge against Lady Grey, that he had bewitched King Edward the Fourth by strange potions and amorous charms." See Fabian, p. 495; Speed, p. 913, edit. 1632; and Habington's Hiftory of King Edward the Fourth, p. 35.

MALONE.

Motion in a fubfequent scene of this play is used in the very sense in which Hanmer would employ it. "But we have reafon to cool our raging motions, our carnal ftings, our unbitted lufts." STEEVENS.

5 For an abufer, &c.] The first quarto reads, Such an abuser, &c. STEEVENS.

Otb.

Oth. Hold your hands,

Both you of my inclining, and the reft:

Were it my cue to fight, I fhould have known it
Without a prompter.-Where will you that I go
To answer this your charge?

Bra. To prifon; till fit time

Of law, and courfe of direct feffion,
Call thee to answer.

Oth. What if I do obey?

How may the duke be therewith fatisfied;
Whose messengers are here about my fide,
Upon fome prefent bufinefs of the ftate,
To bring me to him?

Off. 'Tis true, moft worthy fignior,

The duke's in council; and your noble self,
I am fure, is fent for.

Bra. How! the duke in council!

In this time of the night!-Bring him away:
Mine's not an idle caufe: the duke himself,
Or any of my brothers of the ftate,

Cannot but feel this wrong, as 'twere their own:
For if fuch actions may have paffage free,
Bond-flaves, and pagans, fhall our statesmen be 7.

To bring-] The quartos read-To bear. STEEVENS.

[Exeunt.

7 Bond-flaves, and pagans, &c.] Brabantio alludes to the common condition of all blacks, who come from their own country, both flaves and pagans; and ufes the words in contempt of Othello and his complexion. If this Moor is now fuffered to efcape with impunity, it will be fuch an encouragement to his black countrymen, that we may expect to fee all the firft offices of our ftate filled up by the pagans and bond-flaves of Africa. STEEVENS.

In our authour's time pagan was a very common expreffion of contempt. So, in K. Henry IV. P. II.

"What pagan may that be?" See Vol. V. p. 319, n. 8. MALONE.

SCENE

SCENE III.

The fame. A Council-Chamber.

The Duke, and Senators, fitting at a table; Officers attending.

Duke. There is no compofition in these news, That gives them credit.

1. Sen. Indeed, they are difproportion'd;
My letters fay, a hundred and feven gallies.
Duke. And mine, a hundred and forty.
2. Sen. And mine, two hundred:

But though they jump not on a just account,
(As in thefe cafes, where the aim reports,
'Tis oft with difference,) yet do they all confirm
A Turkish fleet, and bearing up to Cyprus.
Duke. Nay, it is poffible enough to judgment;
I do not fo fecure me in the error,

But the main article I do approve

In fearful fenfe.

Sailor. [within.] What ho! what ho! what ho!
Enter an Officer, with a Sailor.

Offi. A meffenger from the gallies.

Duke. Now? the bufinefs?

Sail. The Turkish preparation makes for Rhodes; So was I bid report here to the state,

By, fignior Angelo'.

Duke. How fay you by this change?

8 There is no compofition-] Compofition, for confifiency, concordancy. WARBURTON.

-thefe news,] Thus the quarto, 1622, and fuch was frequently the phrafeology of Shakspeare's age. So, in The Spanish Tragedy, 1610: "The news are more delightful to his foul,-."

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See alfo Vol. VI. p. 194, n. 2. The folio reads-this news. MALONE. •where the aim reports,] In thefe cafes where conjecture or fufpicion tells the tale. Aim is again used as a substantive, in this sense, in Julius Cæfar:

"What you would work me to, I have fome aim." Thus the folio. The quarto reads-they aim'd reports. MALONE To aim is to conjecture. So, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona:

"But fearing left my jealous aim might err." STEEVENS. By Signior Angelo.] This hemiftich is wanting in the first quarto

STLEVENS. 1. Sen.

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