ing. Make all the money thou canft: If fanimony and a frail vow, betwixt an erring barbarian' and a fuperfubtle Venetian, be not too hard for my wits, and all the tribe of hell, thou fhalt enjoy her; therefore make money. A pox of drowning thyfelf! it is clean out of the way: feek thou rather to be hang'd in compaffing thy joy, than to be drown'd and go without her. ROD. Wilt thou be faft to my hopes, if I depend on the iffue?" 8 IAGO. Thou art fure of me;-Go, make money: betwixt an erring barbarian-] We fhould read errat; that is, a vagabond, one that has no house nor country. WARBURTO Sir T. Hanmer reads, arrant. Erring is as well as either. So, in Hamlet: "Th' extravagant and erring spirit hies "To his confine." STEEVENS. JOHNSON An erring Barbarian perhaps means a rover from Barbary. He had before faid, "You'll have your daughter cover'd with a Barbary horfe." MALONE. I rather conceive barbarian to be here ufed with its primitive fense of a foreigner, as it is alfo in Coriolanus: "I would they were barbarians, (as they are,) 66 Though in Rome litter'd." STEEVENS. The word erring is fufficiently explained by a paffage in the fir fcene of the play, where Roderigo tells Brabantio that his daughter was "Tying her duty, beauty, wit and fortune, "To an extravagant and wheeling stranger." Erring is the fame as erraticus in Latio. The word erring is used in the fame fenfe in fome of Orlando's verfes in As you like it: 66 Tongues I'll hang on every tree, "That fhall civil fayings fhew. "Some, how brief the life of man "Runs his erring pilgrimage;-." M. MASON. if I depend on the ifue?] Thefe words are wanting in the first quarto. STEEVENS. -I have told thee often, and I re-tell thee again and again, I hate the Moor: My caufe is hearted; * thine hath no lefs reafon: Let us be conjunctive ❜ in our revenge against him: if thou canft cuckold him, thou doft thyfelf a pleasure, and me a sport. There are many events in the womb of time, which will be delivered. Traverfe; go; provide thy money. We will have more of this to-morrow. Adieu. 2 ROD. Where fhall we meet i'the morning? ROD. I'll be with thee betimes. LAGO. Go to; farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo?' ROD. What fay you? LAGO. No more of drowning, do you hear. hearted ;] This adjective occurs again in A& III: hearted throne." Dr. Johnfon in his Dictionary has unguardedly faid, that it is only used in compofition: as, for instance, hard-hearted. STEEVENS. 3 —conjun&tive-] The first quarto reads, communicative. STEEVENS. 4 Traverfe;] This was an ancient military word of command. So, in King Henry IV. P. II. Bardolph fays: "Hold, Wart, traverfe; thus, thus, thus." STEEVENS. 5- Do you hear, Roderigo?] In the folio, inftead of this and the following fpeeches, we find only thefe words: Iago. Go to; farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo? lago. Thus do I ever, &c. The quarto, 1622, reads: Iago. Go to; farewell:-do you hear, Roderigo? Iago. No more of drowning, do you hear. Red. I am chang'd. [Exit. [Exit Rod. Iago. Go to; farewell: pet money enough in your purse. Thus do I ever, &c. The reading of the text is formed out of the two copies. MALONE. . ROD. I am changed. I'll fell all my land. LAGO. Go to; farewell: put money enough in your purfe. [Exit RODERIGO. Thus do I ever make my fool my purfe: For I mine own gain'd knowledge fhould profane, If I would time expend with fuch a fnipe, But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor; And it is thought abroad, that 'twixt my sheets He has done my office: I know not, if't be true; But I, for mere fufpicion in that kind, Will do, as if for furety. He holds me well;* The better shall my purpose work on him. Caffio's a proper man: Let me fee now; Το get his place, and to plume up my will;" A double knavery,-How? how?-Let me fee:After fome time, to abufe Othello's ear, That he is too familiar with his wife:He hath a perfon, and a smooth difpofe, To be fufpected; fram'd to make women falfe. The Moor is of a free and open nature,1 That thinks men honeft, that but feem to be fo; And will as tenderly be led by the nofe, As affes are. a fnipe,] Woodcock is the term generally used by Shakfpeare to denote an infignificant fellow; but Iago is more farcaftick, and compares his dupe to a smaller and meaner bird of almoft the fame fhape. STEEVENS. 7 as if for furety.] That is, "I will act as if I were certain of the fact." M. MASON. 8 26: " •He holds me well;] i. e. efteems me. So, in St. Matt, xxi. all bold John as a prophet." Again, in Hamlet: 9 “Hold it a fashion, and a toy in blood." REED. to plume up &c.] The first quarto reads—to make up & STEEVENS, 2 The Moor is of a free and open nature,] The first quarto reads, The Moor, a free and open nature 190, That thinks &c. STEEVENS. I have't; it is engender'd:-Hell and night Muft bring this monftrous birth to the world's light. [Exit. ACT II. SCENE I. A Sea-port Town in Cyprus. A Platform. Enter MONTANO and two Gentlemen. MON. What from the cape can you difcern at fea? 1. GENT. Nothing at all: it is a high-wrought flood; 3 in Cyprus.] All the modern editors, following Mr. Rowe, have fuppofed the capital of Cyprus to be the place where the fcene of Othello lies during four acts: but this could not have been Shakfpeare's intention; NICOSIA, the capital city of Cyprus, being fituated nearly in the center of the island, and thirty miles diftant from the fea. The principal fea-port town of Cyprus was FAMAGUSTA; where there was formerly a ftrong fort and commodious haven, the only one of any magnitude in the island; and there undoubtedly the fcene fhould be placed. "Neere unto the haven (fays Knolles,) ftandeth an old CASTLE, with four towers after the ancient manner of building." To this caftle, we find Othello prefently repairs. It is obfervable that Cinthio in the novel on which this play is founded, which was first published in 1565, makes no mention of any attack being made on Cyprus by the Turks. From our poet's having mentioned the preparations against this ifland, which they firft affaulted and took from the Venetians in 1570, we may fuppofe that he intended that year as the era of his tragedy; but by mentioning Rhodes as alfo likely to be affaulted by the Turks, he has fallen into an hiftorical inconfiftency; for they were then in quiet poffeffion of that island, of which they became mafters in December, 1522; and if, to evade this difficulty, we refer Othello to an era prior to that year, there will be an equal incongruity; for from 1473, when the Venetians first became poffeffed of Cyprus, to 1522, they had not been molested by any Turkish armament. MALONS. I cannot, 'twixt the heaven and the main, MON. Methinks, the wind hath spoke aloud at land; A fuller blaft ne'er fhook our battlements: If it hath ruffian'd fo upon the fea,+ What ribs of oak, when mountains melt on them,' 3 'twixt the heaven -] Thus the folio; but perhaps our author wrote the heavens. The quarto, 1622, probably by a printer's error, has-haven. STEEVENS. The reading of the folio affords a bolder image; but the article prefixed ftrongly fupports the original copy; for applied to heaven, it is extremely aukward. Befides; though in The Winter's Tale our poet has made a Clown talk of a ship boring the moon with ber mainmaft, and fay that " between the fea and the firmament you cannot thruft a bodkin's paint," is it probable, that he should put the fame hyperbolical language into the mouth of a gentleman, anfwering a ferious queftion on an important occafion? In a fubfequent paffage indeed he indulges himself without impropriety in the elevated diction of poetry. Of the haven of Famagufta, which was defended from the main by two great rocks, at the diftance of forty paces from each other, Shakspeare might have found a particular account in Knolles's Hijtory of the Turks, ad ann. 1570, p. 863. MALONE. If it hath ruffian'd fo upon the fea,] So, in Troilus and Creffida: "But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage "The gentle Thetis,-." MALONE. when mountains melt on them,] Thus the folio. The quarto reads: 66 when the huge mountain melts." This latter reading might be countenanced by the following paffage in the Second Part of King Henry IV: "Weary of folid firmnefs, melt itself The quarto is furely the better reading; it conveys a more na tural image, more poetically expreffed. Every man who has been on board a veffel in the Bay of Bifcay, or in any very high sea, muft know that the vast billows feem to melt away from the ship, not on it. M. MASON. I would not wilfully differ from Mr. M. Mason concerning the |
