The quarto of 1622 has "confest it euen now.”—The folio, and the quarto of 1630, have "confest it but euen now." P. 469. (111) "of one whose hand, Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away So the quartos.-The folio has "Of one, whose hand (Like the base Iudean) threw," &c.— Malone adopted "Júdean," thinking that "the word 'tribe' is strongly in favour of the reading :" but Boswell observes; "The word tribe is not, as Mr. Malone seemed to suppose, peculiarly applicable to the Jews. It meant in Shakespeare's time, as we learn from Cokeram, a kindred, and it is constantly used at this day in speaking of the Indians." [It was rather unnecessary to refer to Cokeram, since, in the present play, Iago says, "Good heaven, the souls of all my tribe defend From jealousy!" p. 421. Boswell proceeds] "The Jews are not in general described as willing to throw away what is valuable; and it is not likely that Shakespeare would allude to an anecdote of a single individual, of which perhaps none of his auditors had ever heard; but in our author's time, when voyages of discovery to America were common, each putter out of fire for one was probably stimulated by a description of the riches he might find there, and of the facility with which the Indians base, on account of their ignorance, would part with them. I will only add, that two succeeding poets have given the Indians the same character; 'So the unskilfull Indian those bright gems Habington's Castara,-To Castara weeping. So also in The Woman's Conquest, by Sir Edward Howard; The latter part of the above note (the most valuable of Boswell's contributions to the illustration of Shakespeare) proves, I think, decidedly, that Othello alludes to no particular story, but to "the Indian" as generally described and to the passages just cited, the following one may be added; "The wretched Indian spurnes the golden ore." Drayton's Legend of Matilda, sig. Ff 7,-Poems, 8vo, n. d.— Walker (Crit. Exam. &c. vol. iii. p. 292) says, "Indian, certainly;" and quotes the preceding line of Drayton, which I had long before adduced in my Remarks on Mr. Collier's and Mr. Knight's editions of Shakespeare. So the folio ("Medicinable").—The quartos have "medicinall." P. 469. (113) "[Stabs himself with a dagger. The quartos have "He stabs himselfe."-The folio has no stage-direction here. In p. 466 Othello, on offering to stab Iago, is disarmed by Montano; but he has "another weapon-a sword of Spain," ibid. Of that second weapon, after wounding Iago, he is also deprived: this is shown, not only by the exclamation of Lodovico, "Wrench his sword from him," p. 467, but by the remark of Cassio, "This did I fear, but thought he had no weapon," p. 469. The instrument he now uses must therefore have been a dagger which was concealed about his person. |