One Michael Cassio, a Florentine,
A fellow almost damn'd in a fair wife]
This is one of the passages which must for the present be resigned to
corruption and obscurity. I have nothing that I can, with any approach
to confidence, propose. I cannot think it very plain from Act 3. Scene
1. that Cassio was or was not a Florentine.
I.i.30 (361,6) must be belee'd and calm'd] [--_must be_ LED _and
calm'd_. So the old quarto. The first folio reads _belee'd_: but that
spoils the measure. I read LET, hindered. WARBURTON.] _Belee'd_ suits to
_calm'd_, and the measure is not less perfect than in many other places.
I.i.36 (361,7) Preferment goes by letter] By _recommendation_ from
powerful friends.
I.i.37 (361,8) And not by old gradation] [W: Not (as of old)] _Old
gradation_, is _gradation_ established by_ancient_ practice. Where is
the difficulty?
I.i.39 (361,9) If I in any just term am affin'd] _Affine_ is the reading
of the third quarto and the first folio. The second quarto and all the
modern editions have _assign'd_. The meaning is, _Do I stand_ within
_any such_ terms _of propinquit_ or _relation to the Moor, as that it is
my duty to love him_?
I.i.49 (362,1) honest knaves] _Knave_ is here for _servant_, but with a
mixture of sly contempt.
I.i.63 (362,2) In compliment extern] In that which I do only for an
outward shew of civility.
I.i.76 (363,3) As when, by night and negligence, the fire/Is spied in
populous cities] [Warburton, objecting to "by": Is spred] The particle
is used equivocally; the same liberty is taken by writers more correct.
_The wonderful creature! a woman of reason!
Never grave_ out of _pride, never gay_ out of _season_.
I.i.115 (364,4) What profane wretch art thou?] That is, _what wretch of
gross and licentious language?_ In that sense Shakespeare often uses the
word _profane_.
I.i.124 (365,6) this odd even] The _even_ of _night_ is _midnight_, the
time when night is divided into _even_ parts.
I.i.149 (366,7) some check] Some rebuke.
I.i.150 (366,8) cast him] That is, _dismiss_ him; _reject_ him. We still
say, a _cast_ coat, and a _cast_ serving-man.
I.i.162 (366,9) And what's to come of my despised time] [W: despited]
_Despised time_, is _time of no value_; time in which
"There's nothing serious in mortality,
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere dregs
Are left, this vault to brag of." _Macbeth_.
I.i.173 (367,2) By which the property of youth and maidhood/May be
abus'd?] By which the faculties of a young virgin may be infatuated, and
made subject to illusions and to false imagination.
"Wicked dreams _abuse_
The curtain'd sleep." _Macbeth._
I.ii.2 (368,3) stuff o' the conscience] This expression to common
readers appears harsh. _Stuff_ of the _conscience_ is, _substance_, or
_essence_ of the conscience. _Stuff_ is a word of great force in the
Teutonic languages. The elements are called in Dutch, _Hoefd stoffen_,
or _head stuffs_.
I.ii.13 (368,4) And hath, in his effect, a voice potential/As double as
the duke's] [Warburton had given a source in Dioscorides and Theocritus
for "double"] This note has been much censured by Mr. Upton, who denies,
that the quotation is in Dioscorides, and disputes, not without reason,
the interpretation of Theocritus.
All this learning, if it had even been what it endeavours to be thought,
is, in this place, superfluous. There is no ground of supposing, that
our author copied or knew the Greek phrase; nor does it follow, that,
because a word has two senses in one language, the word which in another
answers to one sense, should answer to both. _Manus_, in Latin,
signifies both a _hand_ and _troop of soldiers_, but we cannot say, that
_the captain marched at the_ head _of his_ hand; or, that _he laid his_
troop _upon his sword_. It is not always in books that the meaning is to
be sought of this writer, who was much more acquainted with naked reason
and with living manners.
_Double_ has here its natural sense. The president of every deliberative
assembly has a _double voice_. In our courts, the chief justice and one
of the inferior judges prevail over the other two, because the chief
justice has a _double_ voice.
Brabantio had, _in his effect_, though not by law, yet by _weight_ and
_influence_, a voice not _actual_ and formal, but _potential_ and
operative, as _double_, that is, a voice that when a question was
suspended, would turn the balance as effectually _as the duke's_.
_Potential_ is used in the sense of science; a _caustic_ is called
_potential_ fire.
I.ii.23 (370,7) speak, unbonnetted] [Pope: unbonnetting] I do not see
the propriety of Mr. Pope's emendation, though adopted by Dr. Warburton.
_Unbonnetting_ may as well be, _not putting on_, as _not putting off_,
the bonnet. Hamner reads _e'en_ bonnetted.
I.ii.26 (370,8) unhoused] Free from _domestic_ cares. A thought natural
to an adventurer.
I.ii.28 (370,9) For the sea's worth] I would not marry her, though she
were as rich as the Adriatic, which the Doge annually marries.
I.ii.30 (371,2) a land-carrack] A _carrack_ is a ship of great bulk, and
commonly of great value; perhaps what we now call a _galleon_.
I.ii.55 (372,3) be advis'd] That is, be _cool_; be _cautious_; be
_discreet_.
I.ii.68 (372,4) The wealthy curled darlings of our nation] _Curled_ is
_elegantly and ostentatiously dressed_. He had not the hair particularly
in his thoughts.
I.ii.74 (373,6) Abused her delicate youth with drugs, or minerals,/ That
weaken notion] [T: notion] Hanmer reads with equal probability, _That_
waken motion. [Originally _motion_].
I.iii.6 (375,9) As in these cases where they aim reports] [W: the aim]
The folio has,
--_the_ aim reports.
But, _they aim reports_, has a sense sufficiently easy and commodious.
There men _report_ not by certain knowledge, but by _aim _and
conjecture.
I.ii.18 (375,1) By no assay of reason] Bring it to the _test_, examine
it by reason as we examine metals by the _assay_, it will be found
counterfeit by all trials.
I.iii.23 (376,2) facile question] _Question_ is for the _act of
seeking_. With more _easy endeavour_.
I.iii.24 (376,4) warlike brace] State of defence. To arm was called to
_brace on_ the armour.
I.iii.42 (376,5) And prays you to believe him] The late learned and
ingenious Mr. Thomas Clark, of Lincoln's Inn, read the passage thus:
_And prays you to_ relieve _him_.
But the present reading may stand. _He intreats you not to doubt the
truth of this intelligence_.
I.iii.54 (377,6) Hath rais'd me from my bed; nor doth the general care]
The word _care_, which encumbers the verse, was probably added by the
players. Shakespeare uses _the general_ as a substantive, though, I
think, not in this sense.
I.iii.69 (373,8) though our proper son/Stood in your action] Were the
man exposed to your _charge_ or _accusation_.
I.iii.80 (378,9) The very head and front of my offending] The _main_,
the _whole_, unextenuated.
I.iii.85 (379,2) Their dearest action] That is _dear_, for which much is
paid, whether money or labour; _dear action_, is action performed at
great expence, either of ease or safety.
I.iii.107 (380,4) overt test] Open proofs, external evidence.
I.iii.108 (380,5) thin habits and poor likelihoods/Of modern seeming]
Weak shew of slight appearance.
I.iii.139 (381,6) And portance in my travel's history] [I have restored,
_And with it all my travel's history_:
From the old edition. It is in the rest,
_And portance in my travel's history_.
Rymer, in his criticism on this play, has changed it to _portents_,
instead of _portance_. POPE.] Mr. Pope has restored a line, to which
there is little objection, but which has no force. I believe _portance_
was the author's word in some revised copy. I read thus,
_Of being----sold
To slavery, of my redemption, thence,
And portance in't; my travel's history._
My redemption from slavery, and behaviour in it.
I.iii.140-170 (381,7) Wherein of antres vast, and desarts idle] Whoever
ridicules this account of the progress of love, shows his ignorance, not
only of history, but of nature and manners. It is no wonder that, in any
age, or in any nation, a lady, recluse, timorous, and delicate, should
desire to hear of events and scenes which she could never see, and
should admire the man who had endured dangers and performed actions,
which, however great, were yet magnified by her timidity. [Pope: deserts
wild] Every mind is liable to absence and inadvertency, else Pope could
never have rejected a word so poetically beautiful. Idle is an epithet
used to express the infertility of the chaotic state, in the Saxon
translation of the Pentateuch. (1773)
I.iii.140 (382,8) antres] [French grottos. POPE.] Rather _caves_ and
_dens_.
I.iii.142 (382,9) It was my hint to speak] [W: hent] _Hent_ is not used
in Shakespeare, nor, I believe, in any other author; _hint_, or _cue_,
is comnonly used for occasion of speech, which is explained by, _such
was the process_, that is, the course of the tale required it. If _hent_
be restored, it may be explained by _handle_. I had a _handle_, or
_opportunity_, to speak of cannibals.
I.iii.144 (382,1) men whose heads/Do grow beneath their shoulders] Of
these men there is an account in the interpolated travels of Mondeville,
a book of that time.
I.iii.199 (384,4) Let me speak like yourself;] [W: our self] Hanmer
reads,
_Let me_ now speak _more_ like your self.
Dr. Warburton's emendation is specious; but I do not see how Hanmer's
makes any alteration. The duke seems to mean, when he says he will speak
like Brabantio, that he will speak sententiously.
I.iii.213 (385,6) But the free comfort which from thence he hears] But
the moral precepts of consolation, which are liberally bestowed on
occasion of the sentence.
I.iii.232 (386,8) thrice-driven bed of down] A _driven_ bed, is a bed
for which the feathers are selected, by _driving_ with a fan, which
separates the light from the heavy.