III.iii.467 (453,3)
Let him command,
And to obey, shall be in me remorse,
What bloody business ever]
[Pope: Not to obey] [T: Nor, to obey.] [W: me. Remord] Of these two emendations, I believe, Theobald’s will have the greater number of suffrages; it has at least mine. The objection against the propriety of the declaration in Iago is a cavil; he does not say that he has no principle of remorse, but that it shall not operate against Othello’s commands. To obey shall be in me, for I will obey you, is a mode of expression not worth the pains here taken to introduce it; and the word remords has not in the quotation the meaning of withhold, or make reluctant, but of reprove, or censure; nor do I know that it is used by any of the contemporaries of Shakespeare.
I will offer an interpretation, which, if it be received, will make alteration unnecessary, but it is very harsh and violent. Iago devotes himself to wronged Othello, and says, Let him command whatever bloody business, and in me it shall be an act, not of cruelty, but of tenderness, to obey him; not of malice to other, but of tenderness for him. If this sense be thought too violent, I see nothing better than to follow Pope’s reading, as it is improved by Theobald.
III.iv.26 (457,5) cruzadoes] [A Portugueze coin, in value three shillings sterling. Dr. GREY.] So called from the cross stamped upon it.
III.iv.46 (458,6) The hearts, of old, gave hands] [Warburton explains this is an allusion to James the First’s practice of creating baronets for money and emends to “The hands of old gave hearts”] The historical observation is very judicious and acute, but of the emendation there is no need. She says, that her hand gave away her heart. He goes on with his suspicion, and the hand which he had before called frank, he now terms liberal; then proceeds to remark, that the hand was formerly given by the heart; but now it neither gives it, nor is given by it.
III.iv.51 (459,7) salt and sullen rheum] — salt and sorry rheum] The old quarto has,
— salt and sullen rheum —
That is, a rheum obstinately troublesome. I think this better.
III.iv.70 (459,8)
A Sybil, that had numbred in the world
The sun to course two hundred compasses]
The expression is not very infrequent; we say, I counted the clock to strike four; so she number’d the sun to course, to run two hundred compasses, two hundred annual circuits.
III.iv.79 (460,1) Why do you speak so startingly, and rash?] Is vehement, violent.
III.iv.103 (461,2) ’Tis not a year, or two, shews us a man] From this line it may be conjectured, that the author intended the action of the play to be considered as longer than is marked by any note of time. Since their arrival at Cyprus, to which they were hurried on their wedding-night, the fable seems to have been in one continual progress, nor can I see any vacuity into which a year or two, or even a month or two, could be put. On the night of Othello’s arrival, a feast was proclaimed; at that feast Cassio was degraded, and immediately applies to Desdemona to get him restored. Iago indeed advises Othello to hold him off a while, but there is no reason to think, that he has been held off long. A little longer interval would increase the probability of the story, though it might violate the rules of the drama. See Act. 5. Sc. 2. (see 1765, VIII, 416, 1)
III.iv.113 (461,3) the duty of my heart] — the office of my heart.] The elder quarto reads,
— the duty of my heart.
The author used the more proper word, and then changed it, I suppose, for fashionable diction; but, as fashion is a very weak protectress, the old word is now ready to resume its place.
III.iv.119 (462,4)
But to know so, must be my benefit]
“Si nequeo placidas affari Caesaris aures,
“Saltem aliquis veniat, qui mihi dicat, abi.”
III.iv.125 (462,7) in favour] In look, in countenance.
III.iv.128 (462,8) within the blank of his displeasure] Within the shot of his anger.
III.iv.141 (463,9) some unhatch’d practice] Some treason that has not taken effect.
III.iv.146 (463,1)
for let our finger ach,
And it endues our other healthful members
Even to that sense of pain]
Endue with a sense of pain, is an expression, which, though it might be endured, if it were genuine, cannot deserve to be introduced by artifice. The copies, both quarto and folio, read, Endue our other healthful members even to a sense of pain. I believe it should be rather, SUBDUE our other healthful members to a sense of pain.
III.iv.151 (463,2) (unhandsome warrior as I am)] [W: wrangler] Unhandsome warrior, is evidently unfair assailant.
III.iv.178 (464,3) a more continuate time] — more convenient time] The folio has,
— more continuate time;
Time less interrupted, time which I can call more my own. It gives a more distinct image than convenient.
III.iv.180 (464,4) Take me this work out] The meaning is not, “Pick out the work, and leave the ground plain;” but, “Copy this work in another handkerchief.”
IV.i.5 (466,6)
Naked in bed, Iago, and not mean harm?
It is hypocrisy against the devil]
Hypocrisy against the devil, means hypocrisy to cheat the devil. As common hypocrites cheat men, by seeming good, and yet living wickedly, these men would cheat the devil, by giving him flattering hopes, and at last avoiding the crime which he thinks them ready to commit.
IV.i.22 (467,8) Boding to all] Thus all the old copies. The moderns, less grammatically,
Boding to ill —
IV.i.42 (468,2) without sone instruction] [W: induction] This is a noble conjecture, and whether right or wrong does honour to its author. Yet I am in doubt whether there is any necessity of emendation. There has always prevailed in the world an opinion, that when any great calamity happens at a distance, notice is given of it to the sufferer by some dejection or perturbation of mind, of which he discovers no external cause. This is ascribed to that general communication of one part of the universe with another, which is called sympathy and antipathy; or to the secret monition, instruction, and influence of a superior Being, which superintends the order of nature and of life. Othello says, Nature could not invest herself in such shadowing passion without instruction. It is not words that shake me thus. This passion, which spreads its clouds over me, is the effect of some agency more than the operation of words; it is one of those notices which men have of unseen calamities.
IV.i.76 (471,4) Confine yourself but in a patient list] For attention; act of listening.
IV.i.82 (471,5) encave yourself] Hide yourself in a private place.
IV.i.89 (471,6) Or I shall say, you are all in all in spleen,/And nothing of a man] I read,
Or shall I say, you’re all in all a spleen.
I think our author uses this expression elsewhere.
IV.i.121 (472,8) Do you triumph, Roman? do you triumph?] Othello calls him Roman ironically. Triumph, which was a Roman ceremony, brought Roman into his thoughts. What (says he) you are now triumphing as great as a Roman?
IV.i.123 (472,9) a customer!] A common woman, one that invites custom.
IV.i.130 (473,1) Have you scar’d me? Have you made my reckoning? have you settled the term of my life? The old quarto reads, stored me. Have you disposed of me? have you laid me up?
IV.i.150 (473,2) ’Tis such another fitchew! marry, a perfum’d one] Shakespeare has in another place mentioned the lust of this animal. He tells Iago, that she is as lewd as the polecat, but of better scent, the polecat being a very stinking animal.
IV.i.244 (476,4) atone them] Make them one; reconcile them.
IV.i.256 (477,5)
If that the earth could teem with woman’s tears,
Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile]
If womens tears could impregnate the earth. By the doctrine of equivocal generation, new animals were supposed producible by new combinations of matter. See Bacon.
IV.i.277 (478,7)
whose solid virtue
The shot of accident, nor dart of chance,
Could neither graze nor pierce]
[T: of change] To graze is not merely to touch superficially, but to strike not directly, not so as to bury the body of the thing striking in the matter struck.
Theobald trifles, as is usual. Accident and chance may admit a subtle distinction; accident may be considered as the act, and chance as the power or agency of fortune; as, It was by chance that this accident befel me. At least, if we suppose all corrupt that is inaccurate, there will be no end of emendation.
IV.ii.57 (482,1) garner’d up my heart] That is, treasured up; the garner and the fountain are improperly conjoined.
IV.ii.62 (482,2)
Turn thy complexion there!
Patience, thou young and rose-lipp’d cherubim;
Ay, there, look grim as hell]
At such an object do thou, patience, thyself change colour; at this do thou, even thou, rosy cherub as thou art, look grim as hell. The old editions and the new have it,
I here look grim as hell.
I was written for ay, and not since corrected.
IV.ii.109 (484,4) The small’st opinion on my great’st abuse] The old quarto reads [for “least misuse”],
The small’st opinion on my great’st abuse.
Which I think is better.
IV.ii.140 (486,6) Some base notorious knave] For gross, not in its proper meaning for known.
IV.ii.144 (486,7) Speak within door] Do not clamour so as to be heard beyond the house.
IV.ii.146 (486,8) the seamy side without] That is, inside out.
IV.iii.27 (490,2) and he, she lov’d, prov’d mad,/And did forsake her] I believe that mad only signifies wild, frantick, uncertain.
IV.iii.31 (490,3) I have much to do,/But to go hang my head] I have much ado to do any thing but hang my head. We might read,
Not to go hang my head.
This is perhaps the only insertion made in the latter editions which has improved the play. The rest seem to have been added for the sake of amplification, or of ornament. When the imagination had subsided, and the mind was no longer agitated by the horror of the action, it became at leisure to look round for specious additians. This addition is natural. Desdemona can at first hardly forbear to sing the song; she endeavours to change her train of thoughts, but her imagination at last prevails, and she sings it.
IV.iii.41 (491,4)
Des. “The poor soul sat singing by a sycamore-tree,
“Sing all a green willow]
This song, in two parts, is printed in a late collection of old ballads; the lines preserved here differ somewhat from the copy discovered by the ingenious collector.
IV.iii.55 (491,5)
Des. “I call’d my love false love; but what said
“he then?
“Sing willow, &c.]
This couplet is not in the ballad, which is the complaint, not of a woman forsaken, but of a man rejected. These lines were probably added when it was accommodated to a woman.
IV.iii.94 (493,6) our former having] Our former allowance of experience.
IV.iii.107 (493,7) heaven me such usage send] — heaven me such uses send,] Such is the reading of the folio, and of the subsequent editions; but the old quarto has,
— such usage send. —
Usage is an old word for custom, and, I think, better than uses.
V.i.11 (494,1) I have rubb’d this young quat almost to the sense] In some editions,
I’ve rubb’d this young gnat almost to the sense,
And he grows angry.]
This is a passage much controverted among the editors. Sir T. Hanner reads quab, a gudgeon; not that a gudgeon can be rubbed to much sense, but that a man grossly deceived is often called a gudgeon. Mr. Upton reads quail, which he proves, by much learning, to be a very choleric bird. Dr. Warburton retains gnat, which is found in the early quarto. Theobald would introduce knot, a small bird of that name. I have followed the text of the folio, and third and fourth quartos.
A quat in the midland counties is a pimple, which by rubbing is made to smart, or is rubbed to sense. Roderigo is called a quat by the same mode of speech, as a low fellow is now termed in lay language a scab. To rub to the sense, is to rub to the quick.
V.i.37 (496,2) No passage?] No passengers? No body going by?
V.i.42 (499,4) a heary night] A thick cloudy night, in which an ambush may be commodiously laid.
V.ii.1 (499,4) It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul; — /Let me not name it] The abruptness of this soliloquy makes it obscure. The meaning, I think, is this: “I am here (says Othello in his mind) overwhelmed with horror. What is the reason of this perturbation? Is it want of resolution to do justice? Is it the dread of shedding blood? No; it is not the action that shocks me, but it is the cause, it is the cause, my soul; let me not name it to you, ye chaste stars; it is the cause.”
V.ii.20 (500,7)
I must weep,
But they are cruel tears: this sorrel’s heavenly;
It strikes, where it doth love. — She wakes — ]
This tenderness, with which I lament the punishment which justice compels me to inflict, is a holy passion.
I wish these two lines could be honestly ejected. It is the fate of Shakespeare to counteract his own pathos.
V.ii.65 (502,8) A murder, which I thought a sacrifice] This line is difficult. Thou hast hardened my heart, and makest me kill thee with the rage of a murderer, when I thought to have sacrificed thee to justice with the calmness of a priest striking a victim.
It must not be omitted, that one of the elder quartos reads, thou dost stone thy heart; which I suspect to be genuine. The meaning then will be, thou forcest me to dismiss thee from the world in the state of the murdered without preparation for death, when I intended that thy punishment should have been a sacrifice atoning for thy crime.
I am glad that I have ended my revisal of this dreadful scene. It is not to be endured.
V.ii.134 (505,3) false as water] As water that will support no weight, nor keep any impression.
V.ii.151 (506,4) villainy has made mocks with love] Villainy has taken advantage to play upon the weakness of a violent passion.
V.ii.162 (506,5) Thou hast not half that power to do me harm, /As I have to be hurt] [Hamner: to bear hurt] The Oxford Editor saw well the meaning of his author, but weakened his expression. She means to say, I have in this cause power to endure more than thou hast power to inflict.
V.ii.183 (507, 6) charm your tongue] I know not whether I have read, or whether my own thoughts hare suggested, an alteration of this passage. It seems to me not improbable, that Shakespeare wrote clam your tongue; to clam a bell, is to cover the clapper with felt, which drowns the blow, and hinders the sound.
V.ii.211 (509,7) she with Cassio had the act of shame/A thousand times committed] This is another passage which seems to suppose a longer space comprised in the action of this play than the scenes include.
V.ii.253 (512,2) It was a sword of Spain, the ice-brook’s temper] [In the first edition it is, Isebroke’s temper. Thence corrupted to Ice-brook’s. — Ebro’s temper; the waters of that river of Spain are particularly famous for tempering of steel. POPE.] I believe the old reading changed to ice-brook is right. Steel is hardened by being put red hot into very cold water.
V.ii.286 (513,3)
I look down towards his feet; but that’s a fable.
If that thou be’st a devil, I cannot kill thee]
To see if, according to the common opinion, his feet be cloven.
V.ii.292 (513,4) Fall’n in the practice of a cursed slave] In the snare, by the stratagem.
V.ii.317 (514,5) in the interim] The first copy has, in the nick. It was, I suppose, thought upon revisal, that nick was too familiar.
V.ii.342 (515,6) Speak of me as I am] The early copies read, Speak of them as they are. The present reading has more force. (rev. 1778, X, 622, 6)
(520,2) General Observation. The
beauties of this play impress themselves so strongly upon the attention of the reader, that they can draw no aid from critical illustration. The fiery openness of Othello, magnanimous, artless, and credulous, boundless in his confidence, ardent in his affection, inflexible in his resolution, and obdurate in his revenge; the cool malignity of Iago, silent in his resentment, subtle in his designs, and studious at once of his interest and his vengeance; the soft simplicity of Desdemona, confident of merit, and conscious of innocence, her artless perseverance in her suit, and her slowness to suspect that she can be suspected, are such proofs of Shakespeare’s skill in human nature, as, I suppose, it is vain to seek in any modern writer. The gradual progress which Iago makes in the Moor’s conviction, and the circumstances which he employs to inflame him, are so artfully natural, that, though it will perhaps not be said of him as he says of himself, that he is a man not easily jealous, yet we cannot but pity him, when at last we find him perplexed in the extreme.
There is always danger, lest wickedness, conjoined with abilities, should steal upon esteem, though it misses of approbation; but the character of Iago is so conducted, that he is from the first scene to the last hated and despised.
Even the inferior characters of this play would be very conspicuous in any other piece, not only for their justness, but their strength. Cassio is brave, benevolent, and honest, ruined only by his want of stubbornness to resist an insidious invitation. Roderigo’s suspicious credulity, and impatient submission to the cheats which he sees practised upon him, and which by persuasion he suffers to be repeated, exhibit a strong picture of a weak mind betrayed by unlawful desires to a false friend; and the virtue of Aemilia is such as we often find, worn loosely, but not cast off, easy to commit small crimes, but quickened and alarmed at atrocious villainies.
The scenes from the beginning to the end are busy, varied by happy interchanges, and regularly promoting the progression of the story; and the narrative in the end, though it tells but what is known already, yet is necessary to produce the death of Othello.
Had the scene opened in Cyprus, and the preceding incidents been occasionally related, there had been little wanting to a drama of the most exact and scrupulous regularity.
(LI 2) Appendix. Some apology perhaps is necessary for the inconvenience of an Appendix, which, however, we can justify by the strongest of all pleas, the plea of necessity. The Notes which it contains, whether communicated by correspondents, or collected from published volumes, were not within our reach when the plays were printed, to which they relate. Of that which chance has supplied, we could have no previous knowledge; and he that waited till the river should run dry, did not act with less reason than the Editor would do, who should suspend his publication for possibilities of intelligence, or promises of improvement. Had we foreseen the Oxford edition, the assistance we expected from it might have persuaded us to pause; but our volumes were completely finished before its publication. [There are no notes by Johnson in this Appendix; several are by Steevens.]
Complete Works of Samuel Johnson Page 575