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: Upon a foldier's thigh. I've seen the day, Pale as thy fmock! When we shall meet at compt, From the poffeffion of this heavenly fight; Lod. Where is this rafh and most unfortunate 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: Oth. Ay. Caf. Dear General, I never gave you caufe From this time forth I never will speak word. 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; Devil's an Afi. Which, as I think, you know not: here's à letter, And here another; one of them imports 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 Caf. I found it in my chamber; And he himself confefs'd it but even now, 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 That can torment him much, and hold him long, Y No more of that. I pray you, in your letters, 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) 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, 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, 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 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, 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. |