Oth. O, blood, Iago, blood! Iago. Patience, I say; your mind, perhaps, may change. Oth. Never, Iago. Like to the Pontick sea Till that a capable 69 and wide revenge pace, 68 ? Swallow them up.-Now, by yond' marble heaven 70, In the due reverence of a sacred vow I here engage my words. Iago. [Kneels. Do not rise yet. [Kneels. Witness, you ever-burning lights above! 68 From the word Like to marble heaven, inclusively, is not found in the quarto 1622. Pope thinks that it would be better omitted, as an unnatural excursion in this place. Shakspeare probably derived his knowledge upon this subject from the second book and ninety-seventh chapter of Pliny's Natural History, 1601:- And the sea Pontus evermore floweth and runneth out into Propontis; but the sea never retireth backe againe within Pontus.' Mr. Edwards conceived this simile might allude to Sir Philip Sidney's device, whose impress Camden, in his Remains, says, was the Caspian sea, with this motto, Sine refluxu. 69 Capable seems to be here used for capacious, comprehensive. Nashe, in his Pierce Pennilesse, 1592, employs the word in the same manner:-' Then belike, quoth I, you make this word, Dæmon, a capable name, of gods, of men, of devils.' 70 This expression occurs in Soliman and Perseda, 1599:'Now by the marble face of the welkin,' &c. So in Marston's Antonio and Mellida, 1602 :— 'And pleas'd the marble heavens.' The execution 71 of his wit, hands, heart, To wrong'd Othello's service! let him command, And to obey shall be in me remorse 72, What bloody work soever. Oth. I greet thy love, Not with vain thanks, but with acceptance bounteous, Within these three days let me hear thee say, Iago. My friend is dead; 'tis done, at your request: But let her live. Oth. Damn her, lewd minx; 0, damn her! Come, go with me apart; I will withdraw, To furnish me with some swift means of death For the fair devil. Now art thou my lieutenant. Iago. I am your own for ever. SCENE IV. The same. [Exeunt. Enter DESDEMONA, EMILIA, and Clown. Des. Do you know, sirrah, where lieutenant Cassio lies? Clo. I dare not say, he lies any where. Des. Why, man? Clo. He is a soldier; and for me to say a soldier lies, is stabbing. Des. Go to; Where lodges he? 71 The first quarto reads excellency. By execution Shakspeare meant employment or exercise. So in Love's Labour's Lost:'Full of comparisons and wounding flouts Which you on all estates will execute.' And in Troilus and Cressida: 'In fellest manner execute your arms.' 72 Shakspeare always uses remorse for pity or commiseration. 'Let him command whatever bloody business, and in me it shall be an act not of cruelty but of pity or commiseration to obey him.' The quarto reads, What bloody business ever.' Clo. To tell you where he lodges, is to tell you where I lie 1. Des. Can any thing be made of this? Clo. I know not where he lodges; and for me to devise a lodging, and say—he lies here, or he lies there, were to lie in my own throat. Des. Can you inquire him out, and be edified by report? Clo. I will catechize the world for him; that is, make questions, and by them answer 2. Des. Seek him, bid him come hither: tell him, I have moved my lord in his behalf, and hope, all will be well. Clo. To do this, is within the compass of man's wit; and therefore I will attempt the doing it. [Exit. Des. Where should I lose that handkerchief, Emilia? Emil. I'know not, madam. Des. Believe me, I had rather have lost my purse Full of cruzadoes 3. And, but my noble Moor Is true of mind, and made of no such baseness As jealous creatures are, it were enough To put him to ill thinking. 1 This and the following speech are wanting in the first quarto. 2 i. e. and by them, when answered, form my own answer to you. The quaintness of the answer is in character. 3 Cruzadoes were not current, as it should seem, at Venice, though they certainly were in England, in the time of Shakspeare; who has here again departed from the strict propriety of national costume. It appears from Rider's Dictionary that there were three sorts of cruzadoes: one with a long cross, one with a short cross, and the great cruzado of Portugal. They were of gold, and weighed from two pennyweights six grains, to two pennyweights sixteen grains, and differed in value from six shillings and eightpence to nine shillings. The sovereigns who struck these coins were Emanuel and his son John of Portugal. Mr. Douce has given the figure of them in his Illustrations of Shakspeare. Emil. Is he not jealous? Des. Who, he? I think, the sun, where he was born, Drew all such humours from him. Emil. Look, where he comes. Des. I will not leave him now, till Cassio Enter OTHELLO. Oth. Well, my good lady.-[Aside.] O, hardness to dissemble! How do Des. you, Desdemona? Well, my good lord. Oth. Give me your hand: This hand is moist, my lady. Des. It yet has felt no age, nor known no sorrow. For here's a young and sweating devil here, Des. You may, indeed, say so; 4 Warburton thought that this was a satirical allusion to the new order of baronets, created by James I. in 1611. Sir William Blackstone supports him in this supposition, and has pointed out a similar allusion in The Merry Wives of Windsor. See vol. i. p. 208, note 2. But if the play was written in 1602, as Malone presumes, this is a sufficient refutation. Warburton has a further conceit, that by the word hearts the poet meant to allude to the gallantry of the reign of Elizabeth, in which men distinguished themselves by their steel; and that by hands those courtiers were pointed at, who served her inglorious successor by their gold. This is too fanciful to require an answer. Come now your Des. I cannot speak of this. promise. Oth. What promise, chuck? Des. I have sent to bid Cassio come speak with you. Oth. I have a salt and sullen 5 rheum offends me; Lend me thy handkerchief. Des. Here, my lord. Oth. That which I gave you. I have it not about me. That is a fault: No, indeed, my lord. Des. Oth. Not? Des. Oth. That handkerchief Did an Egyptian to my mother give; Steevens observes, that the absurdity of making Othello so familiar with British heraldry, the utter want of consistency as well as policy in any sneer of Shakspeare at the badge of honours instituted by a prince whom he was solicitous to flatter, and at whose court this very piece was acted in 1613, are strong arguments against the propriety of Warburton's explanation.' In various parts of our poet's works he has alluded to the custom of plighting troth by the union of hands. So in The Tempest: 'Mir. My husband then? Fer. Ay, with a heart as willing As bondage e'er of freedom. Here's my hand. The hearts of old (says Othello), dictated the union of hands, which formerly were joined with the hearts of the parties in them; but in our modern marriages hands alone are united, without hearts.' There is a passage in the Essays of Sir William Cornwallis the younger, 1601, which may have suggested to Shakspeare the mention of this new heraldry:- We of these later times, full of a nice curiositie mislike all the performances of our forefathers; we say they were honest plaine men, but they want the capering wits of this ripe age. They had wont to give their hands. and hearts together, but we think it a finer grace to looke asquint, our hand looking one way and our heart another.' 5 The folio reads 'sorry.' Rider explains sullen by acerbus, Latin. |