Oth. With all my heart. Duke. At nine i' the morning here we'll meet again. Othello, leave some officer behind, And he shall our commission bring to you: As doth import you. Oth. Please your grace, my ancient; A man he is of honesty and trust: To his conveyance I assign my wife, With what else needful your good grace shall think To be sent after me. Good night to every one.—And, noble signior, [TO BRABANTIO. If virtue no delighted 46 beauty lack, Your son-in-law is far more fair than black. 1 Sen. Adieu, brave Moor! use Desdemona well. Bra. Look to her, Moor; have a quick eye to see; She has deceiv'd her father, and may thee. [Exeunt Duke, Senators, Officers, &c. Oth. My life upon her faith.-Honest Iago, My Desdemona must I leave to thee; I pr'ythee, let thy wife attend on her; And bring them after in the best advantage 47.— Rod. Iago. Iago. What say'st thou, noble heart? Rod. What will I do, thinkest thou? Iago. Well, if thou dost, I shall never love thee after it. Why, thou silly gentleman ! 46 Delighted for delighting. See vol. i. p. 54, note 22. 47 i. e. fairest opportunity. Rod. It is silliness to live, when to live is a torment: and then have we a prescription to die, when death is our physician. Iago. O villanous! I have looked upon the world for four times seven years 48! and since I could distinguish between a benefit and an injury, I never found a man that knew how to love himself. Ere I would say, I would drown myself for the love of a Guinea-hen 49, I would change my humanity with a baboon. Rod. What should I do? I confess, it is my shame to be so fond; but it is not in virtue to amend it. Iago. Virtue? a fig! 'tis in ourselves, that we are thus, or thus. Our bodies are our gardens; to the which, our wills are gardeners: so that if we will plant nettles, or sow lettuce; set hyssop, and weed up thyme; supply it with one gender of herbs, or distract it with many; either to have it steril with idleness, or manured with industry: why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills. If the balance 50 of our lives had not one scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us to most preposterous conclusions: But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, 48 That Iago means to say he was but twenty-eight years old, is clearly ascertained by his marking particularly, though indefinitely, a period within that time [' and since I could distinguish,' &c.] when he began to make observations on the characters of men. Waller, on a picture which was painted for him in his youth by Cornelius Jansen, and which is now in the possession of his heir, has expressed the same thought: 'Anno ætatis 23 ; vitæ vix primo.-In the novel, on which Othello is founded, Lago is described as a young handsome man. 49 A Guinea-hen was a cant term for a woman of easy virtue. 50 The folio reads 'if the brain;' probably a mistake for beam. our unbitted 51 lusts; whereof I take this, that call-love, to be a sect 52, or scion. Rod. It cannot be. you Iago. It is merely a lust of the blood, and a permission of the will. Come, be a man: Drown thyself? drown cats, and blind puppies. I have professed me thy friend, and I confess me knit to thy deserving with cables of perdurable toughness; I could never better stead thee than now. Put money in thy purse; follow these wars; defeat thy favour with an usurped beard 53; I say, put money in thy purse. It cannot be, that Desdemona should long continue her love to the Moor,-put money in thy purse; nor he his to her: it was a violent commencement, and thou shalt see an answerable sequestration 54;-put but money in thy purse.These Moors are changeable in their wills:thy purse with money: the food that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida 55. She must change for 51 So in A Knack to Know an Honest Man, 1596:Virtue never taught thee that, She sets a bit upon her bridled lusts.' See also As You Like It, Act ii. Sc. 4: For thou thyself hast been a libertine, 52 A sect is what the gardeners call a cutting. -fill 53 I have already observed that defeat was used for disfigurement or alteration of features: from the French défaire. See vol. iv. p. 144, note 12. Favour means that combination of features which gives the face its distinguishing character. 54 Sequestration is defined to be a putting apart, a separation of a thing from the possession of both those that contend for it.' It is not therefore necessary to suppose any change requisite in the text. In another passage of this play we have a sequester from liberty.' So in Romeo and Juliet:— ་ These violent delights have violent ends, And in their triumph die.' 55 The quarto reads as acerb as coloquintida.' The poet had the third chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel in his thoughts, youth; when she is sated with his body, she will find the error of her choice. She must have change, she must; therefore put money in thy purse.-If thou wilt needs damn thyself, do it a more delicate way than drowning. Make all the money thou canst: If sanctimony and a frail vow, betwixt an erring 56 barbarian and a supersubtle Venetian, be not too hard for my wits, and all the tribe of hell, thou shalt enjoy her; therefore make money. A pox of drowning thyself! it is clean out of the way: seek thou rather to be hanged in compassing thy joy, than to be drowned and go without her. Rod. Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend on the issue? Iago. Thou art sure of me;-Go, make money: -I have told thee often, and I retell thee again and again, I hate the Moor: My cause is hearted 57: thine hath no less reason: Let us be conjunctive in in which we are told that John the Baptist lived in the wilderness on locusts and wild honey. Mr. Douce observes, that 'there is another phrase of the same kind, viz. to exchange herb John for coloquintida. It is used in Osborne's Memoirs of James I. and elsewhere. The pedantic Tomlinson, in his translation of Renodæus's Dispensatory, says, that many superstitious persons call mugwort St. John's herb, wherewith he circumcinged his loins on holidays. Shakspeare, who was extremely well acquainted with popular superstitions, might have recollected this circumstance, when, for reasons best known to himself, he chose to vary the phrase by substituting the luscious locusts of the Baptist. Whether these were the fruit of the tree so called, or the well known insect, is not likely to be determined. It is said that the insect locusts are considered a delicacy at Tonquin. Bullein says that coloquintida is most bitter.'—Bulwarke of Defence, 1579. 56 Erring is the same as erraticus in Latin. So in Hamlet: Th' extravagant and erring spirit.' And in As You Like It: how brief the life of man Runs his erring pilgrimage.' 57 This adjective occurs again in Act iii. :-- hearted throne.' our revenge against him: if thou canst cuckold him, thou dost thyself a pleasure, and me a sport. There are many events in the womb of time, which will be delivered. Traverse 58; go: provide thy money. We will have more of this to-morrow. Adieu. Rod. Where shall we meet i'the morning? Rod. I'll be with thee betimes. Iago. Go to; farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo? Iago. No more of drowning, do you hear. Iago. Go to; farewell: put money enough in Cassio's a proper man: Let me see now; That he is too familiar with his wife:- 58 i. e. march. See vol. v. p. 325, note 15. 59 Woodcock was the general term for a foolish fellow. Iago is more sarcastic, and compares his dupe to a smaller and meaner bird of almost the same shape. 60 That is, I will act as if I were certain of the fact. 'He holds me well,' is, he entertains a good opinion of me. 01 The first quarto reads to make up.' VOL. X. M M |