DES. Ay, sooth; so humbled, That he hath left part of his grief with me, To suffer with hima. Good love, call him back. OTH. Not now, sweet Desdemonab; some other time. DES. But shall 't be shortly? OTH. The sooner, sweet, for you. DES. Shall 't be to-night at supper? DES. To-morrow dinner then? No, not to-night. I shall not dine at home; I meet the captains at the citadel. DES. Why then, to-morrow night; on Tuesday morn; And yet his trespass, in our common reason, (Save that, they say, the wars must make example Out of their best,) is not almost a fault To incur a private check: When shall he come? What you would ask me that I should deny, Or stand so mammering on. What! Michael Cassio, When I have spoke of you dispraisingly, Hath ta'en your part; to have so much to do To bring him in! Trust me, I could do much,ОTн. Prithee, no more: let him come when he will; I will deny thee nothing. DES. Why, this is not a boon; "T is as I should entreat you wear your gloves, Or feed on nourishing dishes, or keep you warm; Or sue to you to do a peculiar profit The quarto, I suffer with him. Sweet Desdemona. In five passages of this play, in the folio edition, Desdemona is called Desdemon. The abbreviation might not be a capricious one, but an epithet of tenderness. • The repetition of the word on, instead of or, is the reading of the folio. It is much more emphatic. Mammering. The quarto, muttering. The word-having the meaning of suspense—doubt—is continually used by our old writers, as in Lyly's' Euphues'-" Neither stand in a mammering, whether it be best to depart or not." ⚫ Steevens struck out so in the course of his hood-winked pruning. To your own person: Nay, when I have a suit Отн. I will deny thee nothing: Whereon, I do beseech thee, grant me this, To leave me but a little to myself. DES. Shall I deny you? no: Farewell, my lord. Отн. Farewell, my Desdemona; I'll come to thee straight. DES. Emilia, come :-Be as your fancies teach you; Whate'er you be, I am obedient. OTH. Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul Отн. He did, from first to last: Why dost thou ask? IAGO. But for a satisfaction of my thought; IAGO. I did not think he had been acquainted with her. IAGO. Indeed? Отн. Indeed? ay, indeed :-Discern'st thou aught in that? Is he not honest? [Exit, with Emilia. This is adopted without any mention of the reading difficult weight; and then the editors tell us that poise is weight. Now, in the sense before us, poise is balance, and Desdemona means to say that, when she really prefers a suit that shall task the love of Othello, it shall be one difficult to determine, and, when determined, hard to be undertaken. Wretch. The play-house copies, in their nicely-critical phraseology, give us wench instead of wretch. Johnson properly explains wretch as expressing “the utmost degree of amiableness, joined with an idea, which perhaps all tenderness includes, of feebleness, softness, and want of protection." • This re-echo of Iago's echo is rejected by Steevens, because it violates the measure. By heaven he echoes me" is the reading of the first quarto. The folio has, "Alas! thou echoest me." The quarto of 1630, "Why dost thou echo me?” As if there were some monster in his thought Too hideous to be shown.-Thou dost mean something: IAGO. My lord, you know I love you. Отн. I think thou dost; And, for I know thou 'rt full of love and honesty, Are tricks of custom; but in a man that's just, IAGO. For Michael Cassio,I dare be sworn I think that he is honest. ОTH. I think so too. IAGO. Men should be what they seem ; Or, those that be not 'would they might seem none! OTH. Certain, men should be what they seem. IAGO. Why then, I think Cassio's an honest man. Отн. Nay, yet there's more in this: I prithee speak to me, as to thy thinkings, As thou dost ruminate; and give thy worst of thoughts IAGO. Good my lord, pardon me; Though I am bound to every act of duty, I am not bound to that all slaves are free to. Utter my thoughts? Why, say, they are vile and false, As where's that palace whereinto foul things. Sometimes intrude not?-who has that breast so pure, a Delations. The quarto, denotements. The original word dilations is rejected by the editors, because they accept it either in the sense of delays or dilatements. We have adopted Johnson's ingenious suggestion, that the dilations of the folio was delations-secret accusations. Sir Henry Wotton uses delations in the same sense. The quarto, session. The reading of the folio, sessions, has a parallel in that exquisite gem, the 30th Sonnet: "When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past." With meditations lawful? OTH. Thou dost conspire against thy friend, Iago, If thou but think'st him wrong'd, and mak'st his ear Though I, perchance, am vicious in my guess, (As I confess it is my nature's plague To spy into abuses, and of my jealousy Shape faults that are not,) that your wisdom From one that so imperfectly conceits Would take no notice; nor build yourself a trouble It were not for your quiet, nor your good, Отн. What dost thou mean? IAGO. Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls: Who steals my purse steals trash; 't is something, nothing; 'T was mine, 't is his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name, Robs me of that which not enriches him, Отн. I'll know thy thoughts. IAGO. You cannot, if my heart were in your hand; OTH. Ha! IAGO. O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mock ■ The modern editors take the reading of the quarto: "I do beseech you, Though I, perchance, am vicious in my guess, To spy into abuses; and oft my jealousy Shapes faults that are not,-I entreat you, then, From one that so imperfectly conjects, You'd take no notice." They then enter into a long discussion about abruptness, and obscurity, and regulation of the pointing, without taking the slightest notice of the perfectly clear reading of the folio, which we give without the alteration of a point or letter. The first quarto, "By Heaven, I'll know thy thoughts." • This passage has always been a stumbling-block. Hanmer reads, and Malone and Collier adopt the reading, "It is the green-ey'd monster which doth make The meat it feeds on." The commentators give us five pages for and against mock, leaving the matter exactly where they Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger: Who dotes, yet doubts; suspects, yet strongly loves! ОтH. O misery! IAGO. Poor, and content, is rich, and rich enough; But riches, fineless, is as poor as winter, To him that ever fears he shall be poor: Отн. Why! why is this? Think'st thou, I'd make a life of jealousy,. To follow still the changes of the moon With fresh suspicions? No: to be once in doubt, To such exsufflicate and blow'd surmises, Matching thy inference. "T is not to make me jealous, found it. Mocke is the reading both of the first quarto and the folio. The quarto of 1630 has 66 a green-ey'd monster." One of the difficulties would be got over by adopting the indefinite article; for then we should not be called upon to agree with Steevens that a tiger was meant, nor with Jennens that it was certainly a crocodile. A green-ey'd monster leaves us the licence of imagining that the poet had some chimera in his mind, to which he applied the epithet, greeney'd. It has been suggested that Shakspere meant to say, that the meat mocked the monster, instead of the monster mocking the meat. (Explanations, &c.; Edinburgh, 1814.) But the inverted construction which this implies was quite uncalled for, and is not in Shakspere's manner. We have little doubt that mock is the true word; and that it may be explained, which doth play with,-half receive, half reject, the meat it feeds on-as the cat (green-eyed) playing with the mouse. Farmer suggested that it was used for mammock, which appears not unlikely. a Strongly is the reading of the quarto. The folio has soundly, which is probably a misprint for fondly. Fineless-endless. Exsufficate. Todd, in his edition of 'Johnson's Dictionary,' says, that exsufficate may be traced to the low Latin exsufflare, to spit down upon, an ancient form of exorcising, and figuratively to spit out in abhorrence or contempt. Exsufflicate may thus signify contemptible. Richardson, in his admirable Dictionary, somewhat dissents from this; considering the word "not improbably a misprint for exsufflate, i. e., efflate or efflated, puffed out, and, consequently, exaggerated, extravagant,-to which blow'd is added, not so much for the sake of a second epithet, with a new meaning, as to give emphasis to the first." Dances. The quarto adds, well—a weak addition, as we think. Mr. Collier says, "Southern's ear was so sensible of the deficiency, that he added the word in manuscript in his copy of the folio, 1685." |