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Thou haft no weapon, and perforce must fuffer. Oth. Look in upon me then, and (peak with me Or, naked as I am, I will affault thee.

Re-enter GRATIANO.

Gra. What is the matter?

Oth. Lo! I have a weapon:
A better never did itfelf sustain

Upon a foldier's thigh. I've seen the day,
That with this little arm, and this good fword,
I've made my way thro' more impediments,
Than twenty times your ftop. But, oh vain boast!
Who can controul his fate? 'tis not so now.
Be not afraid, tho' you do fee me weaponed;
Here is my journey's end, here is my butt,
The very fea-mark of my utmost fail.
Do you go back difmayed? 'tis a loft fear:
Man but a rush against Othello's breast,
And he retires. Where fhould Othello go?
Now------how doft thou look now? oh, ill-ftarred
wench!

Pale as thy fmock! When we shall meet at compt,
This look of thine will hurl my foul from heaven,
And fiends will fnatch at it. Cold, cold, my girl?
Even like thy chastity. O cursed slave!
Whip me, ye devils!

From the poffeffion of this heavenly fight;
Blow me about in winds, roaft me in fulphur,
Wath me in steep-down gulphs of liquid fire-
Oh Defdemona! Defdemona! dead, dead! oh! oh!
Enter LODOVICO, CASSIO led in wounded, MONTA-
NO, and 1AGO prifoner, with Officers.

Lod. Where is this rafh and most unfortunate
: man?

Qub. That's he that was Othello: here I am.

Lod. Where is that viper? bring the villain forth. Oth. I look down towards his feet; but that's a fable, (54)

If that thou be’st a devil, I cannot kill thee.

[Othello wounds Iagó.

Lod. Wrench his fword from him.

Iago. I bleed, Sir, but not killed.

Oth. I am not forry neither: I'd have thee live; For, in my fenfe, 'tis happiness to die.

Lod. Oh thou, Othello, that wait once fo good, Fall'n in the practice of a curfed flave,What fhall be faid to thee?

Oth. Why, any thing;.

An honourable murderer, if you will:
For nought I did in hate, but all in honour.
Lod. This wretch hath part confefs'd his villainy:
Did you
and he confent in Caffio's death?

Oth. Ay.

Caf. Dear General, I never gave you caufe
Oth. I do believe it, and I afk your pardon :
Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil,
Why he hath thus enfnared my foul and body?
Iago. Demand me nothing; what you know, you
know;

From this time forth I never will speak word.
Led. What, not to pray?

Gra. Torments will ope your lips.

Oth. Well, thou dost beft.

Lod. Sir, you fhall understand what hath befall'n,

(54) I look down towards his feet : but that's a fable.] I won't pretend to affirm but Ben Johnfon feems to me to be sneer ing at Shakespeare, for hinting at a notion, inculcated, by the foppery of painters, and fuperftition of zealots into the ulgar, that the Devil has cloven feet.

I looked o' your feet afore, you cannot cozen me;
Your fhoe's not cloven, Sir, you are whole hoofed.

Devil's an Afi.

Which, as I think, you know not: here's à letter,
Found in the pocket of the flain Rodorigo,

And here another; one of them imports
The death of Caffio to be undertook

By Rodorigo.

Oth. Oh villain !

Caf. Moft heathenifh and most grofs.

Lod. Now here's another difcontented paper Found in his pocket too; and this, it seems, Rodorigo meant t' have sent this damned villain; But that, belike, Iago in the interim Came in and fatisfied him.

Oth. Oh thou pernicious caitiff!

How came you, Caffio, by that handkerchief
That was my wife's?

Caf. I found it in my chamber;

And he himself confefs'd it but even now,
That there he dropp'd it for a fpecial purpose,
Which wrought to his defire.

Oth. Oh fool, fool, fool!

Caf. There is befides, in Rodorigo's letter, How he upbraids lago that he made him Brave me upon the watch; whereon it came That I was caft; and even now he spake, After long feeming dead, Iago kurt him, lago fet him on.

Lod. You must forfake this room, and go with
Your power and your command is taken off, us:
And Caffio rules in Cyprus. For this flave,
If there be any cunning cruelty,

That can torment him much, and hold him long,
It fhall be his. You fhall close prisoner rest,
Till that the nature of your fault be known
To the Venetian ftate. Come, bring him away.
Oth. Soft you; a word or two before you go.
I've done the State fome fervice, and they know't;

Y

No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
When you fhall thefe unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am. Nothing extenuate,
Nor fet down aught in malice. Then muft you
speak

Of one that loved, not wifely, but too well;

Of one, not eafily jealous, but being wrought, Perplexed in the extreme; of one, whose hand, (55)

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Like the bafe Indian, threw a pearl away

:

Richer than all his tribe.] I have restored, Julian, from the elder Quarto, as the genuine and more eligible reading. Mr Pope thinks, this was occasioned probably by the word tribe just after I have many reasons to oppose to this opi nion. In the first place, the most ignorant Indian, I be lieve, is fo far the reverfe of, the dunghil-cock in the fable, as to know the eftimation of a pearl, beyond that of a barley-corn. So that, in that refpect, the thought itself would not be just. Then, if our Author had defigned to reflect on the ignorance of the Indian without any farther reproach, he would have called him rude, and not bafe. Again, I am perfuaded, as my friend Mr Warburton long ago ob. ferved, the phrafe is not here literal but metaphorical: and, by his pearl, our Author, very properly means a fine wo To inftance only in two paffages from his Troilus, of the like ufage;

man.

Her bed is India; there the lyes, a pearl.

Is the worth keeping why, fire is a pearl,
Whose price hath launched above a thousand ships,
And turned crowned Kings to merchants.

But Mr Pope objects farther to reading Judian, because, to make fenfe of this, we mutt prefuppofe fome particular ftory of a Jew alluded to, which is much lefs obvious: but has Shakespeare never done this but in this single instance? Let us turn back, for proof, to his Twelfth Night;

Why fhould I not, had I the heart to do't,

Like to th' Agyptian thief, at point of death,
Kill what I love?

Here is a particular ftory hinted at, (which I have explained in the proper place) much lefs obvious than the story above prefuppofed. But this we are to obferve of Shake

Like the bafe Judian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe; of one, whofe eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinal gum. Set you down this;
And say befides, that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turbaned Turk
Beat a Venetian, and traduced the State,
I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
And fmote him thus.

Lod. Oh bloody period!

Gra. All that is spoke is marred.

[Stabs himself.

fpeare, that though both his ftories are introduced tarit nomine, his allufion and fimile are as clear as if he had given us the exprefs hiftory. Ben Johnfon, I am fure, does not always convey his allufions in the fame clearness.

I have a husband, and a two-legged one,
But fuch a moonling, as no wit of man,

Or rofes can redeem from being an ass.

Here is a story prefuppofed, but fo darkly couched, that, I dare warrant, fcarce one reader in five hundred of this Poet ever gueffed at it. Nor can any one know what he would be at, who has not read either Lucian or Apuleius; and obferved, that when Lucius, by a magical unguent, was converted into an afs, the only means of recovering his own form, was for him to browse on fresh roses. I hope the explication of this obfcure paffage will compenfate for the digression. But, to return to my Author. I am fatisfied, in his fudian, he is alluding to Herod; who, in a fit of blind jealoufy, threw away fuch a jewel of a wife as Mariamne was to him. What can be more parallel in circumftance, than the conduct of Herod and Othello? Nor was the story fo little obvious as Mr Pope feems to imagine: for, in the year 1613, the Lady Elizabeth Carew published a Tragedy called Mariam, the fir Queen of Jewry. I fhall only add, that our Author might write Judian or Judean, (if that should be alledged as any objection) instead of Judaan, with the fame license and change of accent, as, in his Antony and Cleopatra, he hortens the fecond fyllable of Euphrates in pronunciation.

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