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162. fitchew!] A pole-cat.

strumpet.

POPE.

Shakspere has in another place mentioned the lust of this animal. Cassio tells Iago, that she is as lewd as the pole-cat, but of better scent, the pole-cat being a very stinking animal. JOHNSON. A pole-cat was anciently one of the cant terms for a STEEVENS. 200. -No, my heart is turn'd to stone; I strike it and it hurts my hand.-] This thought, as often as it occurs to Shakspere, is sure to be received, and as often counteracts his pathos. STEEVENS. -atone them,-] Make them one; reconcile JOHNSON. Few words have occasioned the spilling of so much Christian ink as the word atone, which is here used in its proper sense. So likewise in Cymbeline, act i.

251.

them.

"To atone my countryman and you."

Again, in As you Like It, act v. line 338.
"Then there is mirth in heaven,

"When earthly things made even
"Atone together."

This expression is formed by the coalescence of the words at one, the verb to set, or some equivalent being omitted. Thus, in the acts:- -"he shewed himself to them as they strove and would have set them AT ONE again." and in The Beehive of the Romish Church: 66 through which God is made AT ONE with us, and hath forgiven us our sins." HENLEY.

270. If that the earth would teem, &c.] If women's tears could impregnate the earth. By the doctrine of

equivocal

equivocal generation, new animals were supposed producible by new combinations of matter. See Bacon. JOHNSON.

271. Each drop she falls] To fall is here a verb active. So, in The Tempest:

“ —when I rear my hand, do you the like,
"To fall it on Gonzalo.”

STEEVENS.

284. Proceed you in your tears.-] I cannot think that the poet meant to make Othello bid Desdemona to continue weeping, which proceed you in your tears (as the passage is at present pointed) must mean. rather would have said,

-Proceed you in your tears?

He

What! will you still continue to be a hypocrite by a display of this well-painted passion? WARNER.

289. Cassio shall have my place.] Perhaps this is addressed to Desdemona, who had just expressed her joy on hearing Cassio was deputed in the room of her husband. Her innocent satisfaction in the hope of returning to her native place is construed by Othello into the pleasure she received from the advancement of his rival. STEEVENS.

291. Goats and monkies!] In this exclamation Shakspere has shewn great art. lago, in the first scene in which he endeavours to awaken his suspicion, being urged to give some evident proof of the guilt of Cassio and Desdemona, tells him it were impossible to have ocular demonstration of it, though they should be, "as prime as goats, as hot as monkies.”—These words we may suppose; still ring in the ears of Othello,

L

who

who being now fully convinced of his wife's infidelity, rushes out with this emphatic exclamation :-lago's words were but too true-now indeed I am convinced that they are as prime as goats, as hot as monkies.

MALONE. 352. But not your words.] This line is added out of the first edition.

POPE.

377. -time of scorn] The reading of both the elder quartos and the folio is,

-for the time of scorn.

Mr. Rowe reads-hand of scorn; and succeeding editors have silently followed him.

I would (though in opposition to so many great authorities in favour of the change) continue to read with the old copy,

the time of scorn.

We call the hour in which we are to die, the hour of death-the time when we are to be judged—the day of judgment-the instant when we suffer calamity-the moment of evil; and why may we not distinguish the time which brings contempt along with it, by the title of the time of scorn? Thus, in Soliman and Perseda, 1599: "So sings the mariner upon the shore,

"When he hath past the dangerous time of storms." Again, Marston's Insatiate Countess, 1603:

"I'll poison thee; with murder curbe thy paths, "And make thee know a time of infamy!"

Othello takes this idea from a clock. To make me (says he) a fixed figure (on the dial of the world) for the hour of scorn to point and make a full stop at!

STEEVENS.

Might not Shakspere have written—

-for the scorn of time

To point his slow unmoving finger at ?

i. e. the marked object for the contempt of all ages and all time.

So, in Hamlet:

"For who would bear the whips and scorns of time?"

However, in support of the reading of the old copies, it may be observed, that our author has personified scorn, in his 88th Sonnet:

"When thou shalt be dispos'd to set me light,

"And place my inerit in the eye of scorn."

The epithet unmoving (the folio reads and moving) may likewise be supported by Shakspere's 104th Sonnet, in which this very thought is expressed:

"Ah yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand,
"Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived,

"So your sweet hue, which, methinks, still doth
stand,

"Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceiv'd." MALONE.

Perhaps we should read-slowly moving finger at. I should wish to reject the present reading, for even then the word slow implied some degree of motion, though that motion may not be perceptible to the eye. The time of scorn is a strange expression, to which, I cannot reconcile myself; I have no doubt but it is erroneous, and wish we had authority to read hand of scorn, instead of time. MONCK MASON.

If Atkinson, the contractor, in one of his soliloquies (after the execution of a late sentence in the corn-market) had been heard to explain:

-but, alas! to make me

"A fixed figure, for the time of scorn
"To point his slow unmoving finger at,—

"O! O!"

he would, at once, have been understood, by the TIME of scorn, to mean the HOUR of his exposure in the pillory; and by its slow unmoving FINGER, the HOURINDEX of the dial that fronted him.

Mr. Malone, in a subsequent note, hath remarked that, "his for its is common in our author;" and in respect to the epithet unmoving, it may be observed, with Rosalind, not only that time travels in divers paces with divers persons, but, that for the same reason, it GALLOPS with the thief to the gallows, it apparently STANDS STILL with the perjured in the pillory -Whatever were the precise instance of disgrace to which Othello alluded, the text in its present state, is perfectly intelligible; and, therefore, should be preserved from capricious alterations. HENLEY.

381. garner'd up my heart;] That is, treasured up. See Matt. iii. 12.

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JOHNSON.

386. — Turn thy completion there, &c.] At such an object do thou, patience, thyself change colour; at this do thou, even thou, rosy cherub as thou art, look as grim as hell. 391. 0 thou weed!] Dr. Johnson has, on this occasion, been unjustly censured for having stifled

JOHNSON.

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