That he may bless this bay with his tall ship, And bring all Cyprus comfort!-O, behold, Enter DESDEMONA, EMILIA, IAGO, RODERIGO, and Attendants. The riches of the ship is come on shore 14! Enwheel thee round! Des. I thank you, valiant Cassio. What tidings can you tell me of my lord? Cas. He is not yet arriv'd; nor know I aught But that he's well, and will be shortly here. Des. O, but I fear;-How lost you company? Cas. The great contention of the sea and skies Parted our fellowship: But, hark! a sail. [Cry within, A sail, a sail! Then guns heard. 2 Gent. They give their greeting to the citadel; This likewise is a friend. Cas. See for the news 15 [Exit Gentleman. [TO EMILIA. Good ancient, you are welcome;-Welcome, mis tress: Let it not gall your patience, good Iago, [Kissing her. Iago. Sir, would she give you so much of her lips As of her tongue she oft bestows on me, You'd have enough. 14 The riches of the ship is come on shore.' Shakspeare uses riches as a singular in his eighty-seventh Sonnet: And for that riches, where is my deserving?' 15 The first quarto reads 'So speaks this voice.' Des. Alas, she has no speech. I find it still, when I have list to sleep: Emil. You have little cause to say so. Iago. Come on, come on; you are pictures out of doors, Bells in your parlours, wild cats in your kitchens, Saints in your injuries 16, devils being offended, Players in your housewifery, and housewives in your beds. Des. O, fye upon thee, slanderer! Iago. Nay, it is true, or else I am a Turk; You rise to play, and go to bed to work. Emil. You shall not write my praise. Iago. No, let me not. Des. What would'st thou write of me, if thou should'st praise me? Iago. O gentle lady, do not put me to't; For I am nothing, if not critical 17. Des. Come on, assay:-There's one gone to the harbour? Iago. Ay, madam. Des. I am not merry; but I do beguile The thing I am, by seeming otherwise.Come, how would'st thou praise me? Iago. I am about it; but, indeed, my invention 16 That is When you have a mind to do injuries, you put on an air of sanctity. In Puttenham's Art of Poesie, 1589, we have almost the same thoughts:-'We limit the comely parts of a woman to consist in four points; that is, to be a shrew in the kitchen, a saint in the church, an angel at board, and an ape in the bed; as the chronicle reports by mistress Shore, paramour to King Edward the Fourth.' There is something similar in Middleton's Blurt Master Constable, 1602; and it is alluded to in The Miseries of Inforc'd Marriage, 1607. 17 i. e. censorious. Comes from my pate, as birdlime does from frize18, It plucks out brains and all: But my muse labours, And thus she is deliver'd. If she be fair and wise,-fairness, and wit, The one's for use, the other useth it. Des. Well prais'd! How if she be black and witty? Iago. If she be black, and thereto have a wit, She'll find a white that shall her blackness fit 19. Des. Worse and worse. Emil. How, if fair and foolish? Iago. She never yet was foolish that was fair; For even her folly help'd her to an heir. Des. These are old fond paradoxes, to make fools laugh i'the alehouse. What miserable praise hast thou for her that's foul and foolish? Iago. There's none so foul, and foolish thereunto, But does foul pranks which fair and wise ones do. Des. O heavy ignorance!-thou praisest the worst best. But what praise could'st thou bestow on a deserving woman indeed 20! one, that, in the authority of her merit, did justly put on the vouch of very malice itself 21 ? Iago. She that was ever fair, and never proud; Had tongue at will, and yet was never loud; Never lack'd gold, and yet went never gay; Fled from her wish, and yet said,—now I may; 18 A similar thought occurs in The Puritan:- The excuse stuck upon my tongue like ship-pitch upon a mariner's gown.' 19 The quarto reads-hit. 20 The hint for this question and the metrical reply of Iago is taken from a strange pamphlet called Choice, Chance, and Change, or Conceits in their Colours, 1606. 21 The sense is this-one that was so conscious of her own merit, and of the authority her character had with every one, that she durst call upon malice itself to vouch for her. This was some commendation. And the character only of clearest virtue; which could force malice, even against its nature, to do justice. -Warburton. To put on is to provoke, to incite. She that, being anger'd, her revenge being nigh, To change the cod's head for the salmon's tail 22; She was a wight,—if ever such wight were,— Iago. To suckle fools, and chronicle small beer 23 Des. O most lame and impotent conclusion !— Do not learn of him, Emilia, though he be thy husband. How say you, Cassio? is he not a most profane 24 and liberal counsellor? Cas. He speaks home, madam; you may relish him more in the soldier, than in the scholar. Iago. [Aside.] He takes her by the palm: Ay, well said, whisper: with as little a web as this, will I ensnare as great a fly as Cassio. Ay, smile upon her, do; I will gyve25 thee in thine own courtship. You say true; 'tis so indeed: if such tricks as these strip you out of your lieutenantry, it had been better you had not kissed your three fingers so oft, which now again you are most apt to play the sir in. 22 That is to exchange a delicacy for coarser fare. See Queen Elizabeth's Household Book for the forty-third year of her reign' Item, the master cookes have to fee all the salmons' tailes,' &c. p. 296. 23 i. e. to suckle children and keep the accounts of the household.' These expressions are only instances of the want of natural affection, and the predominance of a critical censoriousness in Iago, which he allows himself to be possessed of, where he says 'O! I am nothing if not critical.' 24 See Act i. Sc. 1, note 20. Liberal is licentious. 25 To gyve is to fetter, to shackle. The first quarto reads-I will catch you in your own courtsies. It may be as well to observe that courtship is the same as courtesy, i. e. complimentary or courtly behaviour. To play the sir is to show good breeding and gallantry. Very good; well kissed! an excellent courtesy ! 'tis so, indeed. Yet again your fingers to your lips? 'would, they were clyster-pipes for your sake! -[Trumpet.] The Moor, I know his trumpet. Cas. 'Tis truly so. Des. Let's meet him, and receive him. Cas. Lo, where he comes! Enter OTHELLO, and Attendants. Oth. O my fair warrior 26 ! Des. My dear Othello! Oth. It gives me wonder great as my content, To see you here before me. O my soul's joy! If after every tempest come such calms, May the winds blow till they have waken'd death! And let the labouring bark climb hills of seas, Olympus-high; and duck again as low As hell's from heaven! If it were now to die, "Twere now to be most happy 7; for, I fear, My soul hath her content so absolute, 26 This phrase was introduced by our copiers of the French sonnetteers. Ronsard frequently calls his mistresses guerrieres ; and Southern, his imitator, is not less prodigal of the same appellation. Thus in his fifth sonnet : And my fair warrior, my light shines in thy fair eyes.' And in his sixth sonnet he uses it twice : I am not, my cruel warrier, the Thebain,' &c. I came not, my warrier, of the blood Lidain.' Had not I met with the word thus fantastically applied, I should have concluded that Othello called his wife a warrior because she embarked with him on a warlike expedition, and not in consequence of Ovid's observation :— 'Militat omnis amans, et habet sua castra Cupido.' Desdemona in Act iii. says:- Unhandsome warrior as I am.'— Steevens. 27 So Cherea in The Eunuch of Terence, Act iii. Sc. 5:Proh Jupiter! Nunc tempus profecto est, cum perpeti me possum interfici, Ne vita aliquâ hoc gaudium contaminet ægritudine.' |