P. 429. (81) "Arise, black vengeance, from the hollow hell!" So the folio.-The quartos have "Arise blacke vengeance, from thy hollow Cell ;" which is the usual modern reading: but Mr. Knight seems justly to remark that the lection of the folio is the better one on account of the preceding "heaven;" and Steevens aptly compares a line in Jasper Heywood's translation of Seneca's Thyestes, "Where most prodigious vgly thinges the hollowe hell doth hyde." P. 429. (82) "Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on" So the quarto of 1630.—The folio has “ Neu'r keepes retyring ebbe, but keepes due on."-This speech in the quarto of 1622 is curtailed to, "Oth. Neuer: In the due reuerence of a sacred vow, I here ingage my words.”— Southern in his copy of the folio 1685, and Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector, substitute "Ne'er knows retiring ebb," &c.-According to Walker (Crit. Exam. &c. vol. i. p. 314), the reading "feels," though authorised by the quarto of 1630, "is wrong; brooks' would be better, though not, I think, the true word." Walker would read "sorrow." Crit. Exam, &c. vol. i. p. 246. P. 434. (84) "Though great ones are their object,” &c. So the folio arranges this passage.-The quartos arrange it (as Capell does; and as Walker, Crit. Exam. &c. vol. iii. p. 288, thinks it ought perhaps to be arranged) thus ; "Tho great ones are the obiect, Tis euen so: for let our finger ake, And it endues our other healthfull members Euen to that sence of paine; nay, we must thinke, For authorize, Oth. An unauthóriz'd kiss.' see Shakespeare's] V[ersification], Art. xxxvii." Walker's Crit. Exam. &c. vol. iii. p. 288; where his editor adds in a note, "Walker, intentionally or otherwise, has placed a full-stop after 'kiss.' So the quartos, I believe [yes, A.D.]; and Mr. Dyce: the folio has a note of interrogation. Are these short speeches properly distributed? Iago seems to have been pretending that, if Othello had caught Cassio kissing Desdemona, that would have been no proof of guilt in the lady and her friend: from this Othello seems to have dissented. Qu., 'Think so, Iago! what, to kiss in private! An unauthoriz'd kiss !'" P. 437. (86) "Arrange, perhaps ; P. 438. (87) 66 "And to suppose her chaste," &c. 'Arrange, perhaps (if the reading be right); 'And to suppose her chaste! No, let me know; and, knowing what I am, I know what she shall be. Walker's Crit. Exam. &c. vol. iii. p. 289.-And so Hanmer arranges the lines from "No, let me know," &c. Capell prints "all in all a spleen.”—Mr. W. N. Lettsom suggests “all in all one spleen." P. 445. (89) "Had it pleas'd heaven To try me with affliction: had they rain'd" So the folio. The quartos have "he" instead of "they." But compare 'Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven; and Hamlet, act iii. sc. 4; "heaven hath pleas'd it so, To punish me with this, and this with me, And see Walker on “Heaven used as plural." Crit. Exam, &c. vol. ii. p. 110. P. 446. (90) "A fixed figure for the time of scorn To point his slow unmoving finger at !—" So the quarto of 1622, except that it has ". . . vnmouing fingers at oh, oh."-The folio has "The fixed Figure for the time of Scorne, To point his slow, and mouing finger at.”— The quarto of 1630 differs from that of 1622 only in having “finger.”—Rowe substituted "for the hand of scorn;" and Mason proposed "slowly moving finger;" both which alterations are made by Mr. Collier's Ms. Corrector.Mr. Knight adopts Mr. Hunter's conjecture; Mr. Grant White suspects that Shakespeare wrote "thy cheeks;" but, as Mr. W. N. Lettsom observes, "Othello is speaking, not of blushes, but of heat." "This is the reading of the quarto 1622, which Dr. Johnson thought preferable to the reading of the folio, on my least misuse?" MALONE. 6 So all the old eds. ("fopt").—The modern reading is "fobbed." "Barbarie,' fol. Qu. The form is not yet obsolete among the common people." Walker's Crit. Exam. &c. vol. iii. p. 290; where his editor adds in a note, "The quartos also have either 'Barbarie' or 'Barbary.' [The 'Barbara' has no quartos of 1622 and 1630 agree in Barbary.' A. D.] better authority than that of the second folio." So the quarto of 1630.-The folio has "singing."-This is not in the quarto of 1622. "Why write 'mo'? This, indeed, is the spelling of the folio [and of the quarto of 1630:-this is not in the quarto of 1622]; but the folio has 'mo' or 'moe' in numberless places, where no one has thought it necessary so to read, unless the rhyme demanded it." Walker's Crit. Exam, &c. vol. iii. p. 290. So the quartos.-The folio has "But so" (qy. if intended for "But, soft"?). "Two or three groan:" P. 456. (98) "Fol. 'groane.' Qu." Walker's Crit. Exam. &c. vol. iii. p. 290; where Mr. W. N. Lettsom observes in a note, "Groans' is the quarto reading. Recent editors follow the folio; but how could people at a distance distinguish whether groans proceeded from one person or from more, when the groaners were lying close together?" Surely, if Lodovico heard, first, Cassio exclaiming "What, ho! no watch!" &c., and then Roderigo crying out "O wretched villain!" he might well say "Two or three groan." P. 459. (99) "Put out the light,—and then put out thy light :" The old eds. have " -and then put out the light."-I agree with Malone ad l. and Walker (Crit. Exam. &c. vol. iii. p. 291) that the reading now given is the true one, though Boswell objects to it as introducing "a cold conceit" (he, we may suppose, having suddenly forgotten what a crop of "conceits" there is in Shakespeare). Compare the context; "I think 'guilt." Walker's Crit. Exam, &c. vol. iii. p. 291. An alteration made long ago. [Smothers her. Emil. [within] My lord, my lord! what, ho! my lord, my lord!" So the folio and the quarto of 1630.-The quarto of 1622 has "Oth. Tis too late. Des. O Lord, Lord, Lord. Em. My Lord, my Lord," &c.; and though in my Remarks on Mr. Collier's first edition of Shakespeare I protested against the insertion of "Oh Lord, Lord, Lord," as having been most probably foisted into the text by the players,-as disgustingly vulgar, instead of terrible or pathetic,—and as being rendered not a little comic by the words which immediately follow, "My lord, my lord! what, ho! my lord, my lord !”— my protest appears to have had no other effect than to make Mr. Collier the more determined to retain it in his second edition. P. 461. (102) "Ha! no more moving? Still as the grave.” Walker (Crit. Exam. &c. vol. ii. p. 144) proposes "Ha! no more moving? still, Still as the grave.” P. 462. (103) "O, my good lord, yonder's foul murder done!" Here several modern editors silently print "O, good my lord," &c.; which perhaps the author wrote, for Emilia has just before twice used that form of expression; but the old copies agree in "O my good lord," &c.—In this line the old eds, have "murders." Here the old eds. have the spelling "top." See note 76. P. 465. (105) "[Falling on the bed. Here the folio has no stage-direction, but the quartos have as above; which Mr. Collier seems to have forgotten, when, after mentioning that his Ms. Corrector makes Othello here throw himself upon the ground, he speaks of the falling on the bed as a stage-direction only found in modern editions. -1865. Mr. Collier in the second edition of his Shakespeare rectifies this mis-statement. "This is a place where the quarto 1630 affords a different and an inferior reading to the two older editions: it has 'pernicious villain.' At all events, pernicious does not suit the measure." COLLIER. - "Precious villain' is more in the style of Cloten than of Othello: qu. 'Pernicious' with quarto 2. This could scarcely have crept in from 'pernicious caitiff' 80 lines below. Collier's metrical objection is 'naught.' See Walker's Shakespeare's Versification, &c. Art. ix. Collier himself reads [with the folio] 'woman' for ‘wife' in the line above." W. N. LETTSOM. 66 P. 467. (107) "O Desdemon! dead, Desdemon! dead! O!" So the folio, except that it has " dead. Oh, oh!"-The quartos have The folio has "of a cursed Slaue:" but I prefer the reading of the quartos, because Othello has a little before exclaimed "O cursèd, cursed slave !" |