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.