And he himself confess'd but even now That there he dropp'd it for a special purpose Oth. O fool! fool! fool! Lod. You must forsake this room, and go with us: That can torment him much and hold him long, Oth. Soft you; a word or two before you go. I have done the state some service, and they know 't;- When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak Of one, that lov'd not wisely, but too well; Of one, not easily jealous, but, being wrought, Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees Their med❜cinable (68) gum. Set you down this; I took by the throat the circumcisèd dog, Lod. O bloody period! VOL. VI. [Stabs himself. All that's spoke is marr❜d. Oth. I kiss'd thee ere I kill'd thee :-no way but this, Killing myself, to die upon a kiss. For he was great of heart. O Spartan dog, Lod. This heavy act with heavy heart relate. [Dies. [To Iago. [Exeunt. P. 5. (1) "Sblood, but you will not hear me :— If ever I did dream of such a matter, So the quarto of 1622 verbatim. (What can Mr. Knight mean when he says that so "Steevens writes these lines"?) P. 5. (*) "for, "Certes,' says he, 'I have already chose my officer."" Mr. Collier and Delius point with the old copies, "For certes,' says he," &c., -Delius observing that "For certes" is here equivalent to "For certain," and that the modern editors are wrong in putting a comma between these words. But it appears to me that the "for" is not a portion of what Iago makes Othello say. (Compare The Tempest, act iii. sc. 3; P. 6. (3) "If I should say I saw such islanders,— For, certes, these are people of the island," &c.) "unless the bookish theoric, Wherein the togèd consuls can propose As masterly as he: mere prattle, without practice, So the quarto of 1622.-The folio and the quarto of 1630 have "Wherein the Tongued Consuls," &c.,-which, according to Boswell, agrees better with the context "mere prattle," and which Delius adopts; though the folio has a similar error in Coriolanus, act ii. sc. 3, “Why in this Wooluish tongue should I stand heere," &c. Has been altered to "That weaken notion" and to " That waken motion:" see notes ad l. in the Varior. Shakespeare. P. 15. (5) "And prays you to believe him." "The Rev. H. Barry plausibly suggests to me, that we ought to read relieve for 'believe."" COLLIER.—But that alteration had been suggested long ago. "An emendation not necessary of a word in the line before, has a place in the same 'Readings;' put there more to shew it was thought of, than from any other inducement: Montano's message to the senate is worded with great politeness in all the parts of it: in this last, relief, the thing he stood in want of and wished, is only insinuated; knowing it would follow from them, was belief accorded him." Capell's Notes, &c. vol. ii. p. 139. P. 17. (6) “It is a judgment maim'd and most imperfect," &c. So the quartos.-The folio has "It is a iudgement main'd, and most imperfect," &c., a reading which I do not mean to defend when I observe that in The Sec. Part of Henry VI. we have the provincialism "mained," i.e. lamed: see vol. iv. p. 200, note (66). P. 18. (7) "And portance in my travel's history," &c. So the quarto of 1630.-The quarto of 1622 has " And with it all my trauells Historie," &c.-The folio reads "And portance in my Trauellours historie,” &c.; which is given by Mr. Knight and Delius,—the former remarking that “Othello modestly, and somewhat jocosely, calls his wonderful relations a traveller's history," though a personage less inclined to jocoseness than Othello cannot well be conceived.-Dr. Richardson suggests to me that the "Trauellours" of the folio is a misprint for "travellous" (or "travailous"), and adds that Wiclif has "Jobs trauailous nights" and "the travellous presoun of the Egipcians:" but, though the epithet is very properly applied to "nights" or to a "prison," can we speak of a "travailous history"?-(Further on in the present speech the folio has "But not instinctiuely,"-which Mr. Knight allows to be "a decided typographical error ;" and, a little after that, "She gaue me for my paines a world of kisses"!!) P. 19. (8) "God be with you!—I have done." So the folio,-Shakespeare certainly here intending “God be with you” to be pronounced "God b' wi' you,”—which perhaps he wrote.-The quartos have "God bu' y, I ha done." (In act iii. sc. 3, the old eds. agree in having “God buy you take mine office," &c.) P. 20. (9) "I never yet did hear That the bruis'd heart was pierced through the ear." Warburton reads "piecèd" for "pierced;" and so Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector (vide Mr. Collier's one-volume Shakespeare).—But see the notes ad l. in the Varior. Shakespeare; where, however, some of the passages adduced to defend the original reading are strangely inapposite. My downright violence and storm of fortunes," &c. is So the folio, and the quarto of 1630.-The quarto of 1622 has "My downe right violonce, and scorne of Fortunes," &c.; "which," says Johnson, perhaps the true reading." P. 21. (") "I therefore beg it not, To please the palate of my appetite; Nor to comply with heat (the young affects In me defunct) and proper satisfaction," &c. So the old copies, except that they have "In my defunct," &c.-There is a passage in Massinger's Bondman, act i. sc. 3, which was undoubtedly copied from the present one, viz. "Let me wear Your colours, lady; and though youthful heats, Are long since buried in me, while I live, I am," &c. and a passage, also imitated from the same source, occurs in Fletcher's Fair Maid of the Inn, act i. sc. 1; "Shall we take our fortune? and (while our cold fathers, In whom long since their youthful heats were dead, Talk much of Mars) serve under Venus' ensigns, These passages, as Gifford has observed, show how the lines of Shakespeare were understood by his contemporaries. They also show that in our text the alteration of a single letter, the change of "my" to "me" (which was first made by Upton) is absolutely necessary." Affects," says Johnson (whose explanation is termed "rational and unforced" by Gifford, Massinger's Works, ii. 30, ed. 1813), “stands here not for love, but for passions, for that by which any thing is affected. I ask it not, says he, to please appetite, or satisfy loose desires, the passions of youth which I have now outlived, or 'for any particular gratification of myself,' but merely that I may indulge the wishes of my wife."-" Young affects," writes Gifford (ubi supra), “are therefore perfectly synonymous with youthful heats. Othello was not an old man, though he had lost the fire of youth; the critics might therefore have dismissed that concern for the lady, which they have so delicately communicated for the edification of the rising generation." (I cannot help wondering what Gifford would have thought, if he had lived to read in Dr. Delius's ed. of Othello that "Nor to comply with heat, the young affects," is equivalent to "Nor to comply with heat which affects the young"!) P. 23. (1) coloquintida. She must change for youth: when she is sated with his body, she will find the error of her choice: she must have change, the must: therefore put money in thy purse.-If thou wilt needs," &c. 66 Collo So the quarto of 1630.-The quarto of 1622 has, not so well, ". quintida. When she is sated with his body," &c.—The reading of the folio is still worse, Coloquintida. She must change for youth: when she is sated with his body she will find the errors of her choice. Therefore, put Money in thy purse. If thou wilt needs," &c. P. 24. (") "Iago. Go to; farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo? Rod. What say you? Iago. No more of drowning, do you hear? Rod. I am changed: I'll go sell all my land. [Exit. So the quarto of 1630.-The quarto of 1622 has, |