3 I saw it not, thought it not, it harm'd not me: OTн. I had been happy, if the general camp, This is uttered by a jealous husband who supposes himself to have just destroyed his wife. Again, Iago says: 66 Dangerous conceits, &c. with a little act upon the blood, "Burn like the mines of sulphur." Thus Sebastian, in Middleton's play : "When a suspect doth catch once, it burnes maynely." A scene between Francisca and her brother Antonio, when she first excites his jealousy, has likewise several circumstances in common with the dialogue which passes between lago and Othello on the same subject. This piece also contains a passage very strongly resembling another in Hamlet, who says: "I am but mad north-north-west : when the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a hand-saw.” -Thus, Almachildes: "There is some difference betwixt my joviall condition and the lunary state of madness. I am not quight out of my witts: I know a bawd from an aqua-vitæ shop, a strumpet from wild-fire, and a beadle from brimstone." For a further account of this MS. play, see in vol. ii. a note on Mr. Malone's Attempt to ascertain the Order in which the Pieces of Shakspeare were written :-Article, Macbeth. STEEVENS. 3 I slept the next night well, was free and merry ;] Thus the quartos. The folio reads 66 “I slept the next night well; fed well; was free and merry." STEEVENS. 4-if the general camp, PIONEERS and all,] That is, the most abject and vilest of the camp. Pioneers were generally degraded soldiers, appointed to the office of pioneer, as a punishment for misbehaviour. "A soldier ought ever to retaine and keepe his arms in saftie and forth comming, for he is more to be detested than a coward, that will lose or play away any part thereof, or refuse it for his ease, or to avoid paines; wherefore such a one is to be dismissed with punishment, or to be made some abject pioner." So I had nothing known: O now, for ever, The Art of War and England Traynings, &c. by Edward Davies, So, in The Laws and Ordinances of War, established by the Earl of Essex, printed in 1640 : "If a trooper shall loose his horse or hackney, or a footman any part of his arms, by negligence or lewdnesse, by dice or cardes; he or they shall remain in qualitie of pioners, or scavengers, till they be furnished with as good as were lost, at their own charge." GROSE. s Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars, Farewell the neighing steed, &c.] In a very ancient drama entitled Common Conditions, printed about 1576, Sedmond, who has lost his sister in a wood, thus expresses his grief: "But farewell now, my coursers brave, attraped to the ground! "Farewell! adue all pleasures eke, with comely hauke and hounde! "Farewell, ye nobles all, farewell eche marsial knight, 66 'Farewell, ye famous ladies all, in whom I did delight! 66 Adue, eche wight, and marsial knight, adue, eche living thyng!" One is almost tempted to think that Shakspeare had read this old play. I produced the above passage some years ago, as bearing a resemblance which I still think it does, to Shakspeare: but this speech of Othello's may rather have been suggested by a poem of George Peeles: "A Farewell, entituled to the Famous and Fortunate Generalls of our English Forces, Sir John Norris and Syr Francis Drake, 1589; where we meet with the following lines: 'Change love for armes ; gyrt to your blades, my boyes; 66 "Your rests and muskets take, take helme and targe, "And let God Mars his consort make you mirth, "The roaring cannon, and the brazen trumpe, "The angry-sounding drum, the whistling fife, "The shriekes of men, the princelie coursers ney." MALONE. I know not why we should suppose that Shakspeare borrowed so common a repetition as these diversified farewells from any preceding drama. A string of adieus is perhaps the most tempting of all repetitions, because it serves to introduce a train of imagery, The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife as well as to solemnify a speech or composition. Wolsey, like Othello, indulges himself in many farewells; and the Valete, aprica montium cacumina ! Valete, opaca vallium cubilia! &c. are common to poets of different ages and countries. I have now before me an ancient MS. English poem, in which sixteen succeeding verses begin with the word farewell, applied to a variety of objects and circumstances: "Farewell prowesse in purpell pall," &c. STEEVENS. 6 The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,] In mentioning the fife joined with the drum, Shakspeare, as usual, paints from the life; those instruments accompanying each other being used in his age by the English soldiery. The fife, however, as a martial instrument, was afterwards entirely discontinued among our troops for many years, but at length revived in the war before the last. It is commonly supposed that our soldiers borrowed it from the Highlanders in the last rebellion: but I do not know that the fife is peculiar to the Scotch, or even used at all by them. It was first used within the memory of man among our troops by the British guards, by order of the Duke of Cumberland, when they were encamped at Maestricht, in the year 1747, and thence soon adopted into other English regiments of infantry. They took it from the Allies with whom they served. This instrument, accompanying the drum, is of considerable antiquity in the European armies, particularly the German. In a curious picture in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, painted 1525, representing the siege of Pavia by the French King, where the emperor was taken prisoner, we see fifes and drums. In an old English treatise written by William Garrard before 1587, and published by one captain Hitchcock in 1591, intituled The Art of Warre, there are several wood cuts of military evolutions, in which these instruments are both introduced. In Rymer's Fœdera, in a diary of King Henry's siege of Bulloigne, 1544, mention is made of the drommes and viffleurs marching at the head of the King's army. Tom. xv. p. 53. The drum and fife were also much used at ancient festivals, shows, and processions. Gerard Leigh, in his Accidence of Armorie, printed in 1576, describing a Christmas magnificently celebrated at the Inner Temple, says, "We entered the prince his hall, where anon we heard the noyse of drum and fife." p. 119. At a stately masque on Shrove-Sunday, 1510, in which King Henry VIII. was an actor, Holinshed mentions the entry "of a drum and fife apparelled in white damaske and grene bonnettes." Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war 7! And O you mortal engines, whose rude throats $ The immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit, Chron. iii. 805, col. 2. There are many more instances in Holinshed and Stowe's Survey of London. From the old French word viffleur, above-cited, came the English word whiffler, which anciently was used in its proper literal sense. Strype, speaking of a grand tilting before the court in Queen Mary's reign, 1554, says, from an old journal, that King Philip and the challengers entered the lists, preceded by "their whifflers, their footmen, and their armourers." Eccles. Memor. iii. p. 211. This explains the use of the word in Shakspeare, where it is also literally applied. King Henry V. Act IV. Sc. ult.: behold the British beach 66 "Pales in the flood with men, with wives and boys, "Whose shouts and claps out-voice the deep-mouth'd sea, "Which, like a mighty whiffler 'fore the king, "Seems to prepare his way." By degrees, the word whiffler hence acquired the metaphorical meaning, which it at present obtains in common speech, and became an appellation of contempt. Whiffler, a light trivial character, a fellow hired to pipe at processions. T. WARTON. In the old dramatick piece, intitled, Wine, Beer, Ale, and Tobacco, 2d edit. 1630, Tobacco says to Beer: 66 it will become your duty to obey me." To which Wine replies: "You our sovereign! a mere whiffler !" Again, in Ram-Alley, or Merry Tricks, 1611: 66 he was known "But only for a swaggering whiffler." STEEVENS. 7 Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!] Sir W D'Avenant does not appear to have been scrupulous of adopting almost Shakspeare's own words. So, in Albovine, 1629: "Then glorious war, and all proud circumstance STEEVENS. Fletcher has imitated this passage of Othello, in his Prophetess, which was first represented in May, 1622: 66 and to keep "My faith untainted, farewel pride, and pomp, "And circumstance of glorious majesty, 66 8 Farewel, for ever! MALONE. whose rude throats-] So, Milton, Paradise Lost, b. vi.: "From those deep-throated engines," &c. The quarto 1622 reads-whose wide throats. STEEVENS. Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone! IAGO. Is it possible ?-My lord, ОTH. Villain, be sure thou prove my love a Be sure of it; give me the ocular proof; [Taking him by the Throat. Or, by the worth of mine eternal soul 9, Thou hadst been better have been born a dog', IAGO. Is it come to this? ОTн. Make me to see it; or (at the least) so prove it, That the probation bear no hinge, nor loop, OTH. If thou dost slander her, and torture me, Never pray more: abandon all remorse 2; On horror's head horrors accumulate : Do deeds to make heaven weep 3, all earth amaz'd, * Quarto, man's. 9 MINE eternal soul,] Perhaps the quarto 1622 more forcibly reads 66 man's eternal soul. Shakspeare might have designed an opposition between man and dog. STEEVENS ITHOU HADST BEEN better have been born a dog,] Thus, in Chapman's translation of the sixth Iliad : 2 that had been better born "A dog, than such a horrid dame." STEEVENS. abandon all REMORSE;] All tenderness of nature, all pity; in which sense, as Mr. Steevens has justly observed, the word was frequently used in Shakspeare's time. See p. 391, n. 1. The next line shows it is used in this sense here. MALONE. 3 Do deeds to make heaven weep,] So, in Measure for Mea sure: 66 Plays such fantastick tricks before high heaven "As make the angels weep." STEEVENS. |