The execution 71 of his wit, hands, heart, To wrong'd Othello's service! let him command, And to obey shall be in me remorse 72, What bloody work soever. Oth. I greet thy love, Not with vain thanks, but with acceptance bounteous, Within these three days let me hear thee say, Iago. My friend is dead; 'tis done, at your request: But let her live. Oth. Damn her, lewd minx; O, damn her! Come, go with me apart; I will withdraw, To furnish me with some swift means of death For the fair devil. Now art thou my lieutenant. Iago. I am your own for ever. SCENE IV. The same. [Exeunt. Enter DESDEMONA, EMILIA, and Clown. Des. Do you know, sirrah, where lieutenant Cassio lies? Clo. I dare not say, he lies any where. Des. Why, man? Clo. He is a soldier; and for me to say a soldier lies, is stabbing. Des. Go to; Where lodges he? 71 The first quarto reads excellency. By execution Shakspeare meant employment or exercise. So in Love's Labour's Lost:Full of comparisons and wounding flouts Which you on all estates will execute.' And in Troilus and Cressida: In fellest manner execute your arms.' 72 Shakspeare always uses remorse for pity or commiseration. 'Let him command whatever bloody business, and in me it shall be an act not of cruelty but of pity or commiseration to obey him.' The quarto reads, What bloody business ever.' Clo. To tell you where he lodges, is to tell you where I lie 1. Des. Can any thing be made of this? Clo. I know not where he lodges; and for me to devise a lodging, and say-he lies here, or he lies there, were to lie in my own throat. Des. Can you inquire him out, and be edified by report? Clo. I will catechize the world for him; that is, make questions, and by them answer2. Des. Seek him, bid him come hither: tell him, I have moved my lord in his behalf, and hope, all will be well. Clo. To do this, is within the compass of man's wit; and therefore I will attempt the doing it. [Exit. Des. Where should I lose that handkerchief, Emilia? Emil. I know not, madam. Des. Believe me, I had rather have lost my purse Full of cruzadoes 3. And, but my noble Moor Is true of mind, and made of no such baseness As jealous creatures are, it were enough To put him to ill thinking. 1 This and the following speech are wanting in the first quarto. 2 i. e. and by them, when answered, form my own answer to you. The quaintness of the answer is in character. 3 Cruzadoes were not current, as it should seem, at Venice, though they certainly were in England, in the time of Shakspeare; who has here again departed from the strict propriety of national costume. It appears from Rider's Dictionary that there were three sorts of cruzadoes: one with a long cross, one with a short cross, and the great cruzado of Portugal. They were of gold, and weighed from two pennyweights six grains, to two pennyweights sixteen grains, and differed in value from six shillings and eightpence to nine shillings. The sovereigns who struck these coins were Emanuel and his son John of Portugal. Mr. Douce has given the figure of them in his Illustrations of Shakspeare. Emil. Is he not jealous? Des. Who, he? I think, the sun, where he was born, Drew all such humours from him. Emil. Look, where he comes. Des. I will not leave him now, till Cassio Be call'd to him.-How is't with you, my lord? Enter OTHEllo. Oth. Well, my good lady.-[Aside.] O, hardness to dissemble! How do you, Desdemona? Des. Well, my good lord. Oth. Give me your hand: This hand is moist, my lady. Des. It yet has felt no age, nor known no sorrow. Oth. This argues fruitfulness, and liberal heart;Hot, hot, and moist; This hand of yours requires A sequester from liberty, fasting and prayer, Much castigation, exercise devout; For here's a young and sweating devil here, That commonly rebels. 'Tis a good hand, A frank one. 4 Des. You may, indeed, say so; For 'twas that hand that gave away my heart. Oth. A liberal hand: The hearts of old, gave hands; But our new heraldry is—hands, not hearts *. 4 Warburton thought that this was a satirical allusion to the new order of baronets, created by James I. in 1611. Sir William Blackstone supports him in this supposition, and has pointed out a similar allusion in The Merry Wives of Windsor. See vol. i. p. 208, note 2. But if the play was written in 1602, as Malone presumes, this is a sufficient refutation. Warburton has a further conceit, that by the word hearts the poet meant to allude to the gallantry of the reign of Elizabeth, in which men distinguished themselves by their steel; and that by hands those courtiers were pointed at, who served her inglorious successor by their gold. This is too fanciful to require an answer. Des. I cannot speak of this. Come now your promise. Oth. What promise, chuck? Des. I have sent to bid Cassio come speak with you. Oth. I have a salt and sullen5 rheum offends me; Lend me thy handkerchief. Des. Here, my lord. Oth. That which I gave you. Des. Oth. Not? Des. Oth. That handkerchief I have it not about me. No, indeed, my lord. Did an Egyptian to my mother give; That is a fault: Steevens observes, that the absurdity of making Othello so familiar with British heraldry, the utter want of consistency as well as policy in any sneer of Shakspeare at the badge of honours instituted by a prince whom he was solicitous to flatter, and at whose court this very piece was acted in 1613, are strong arguments against the propriety of Warburton's explanation.' In various parts of our poet's works he has alluded to the custom of plighting troth by the union of hands. So in The Tempest: 'Mir. My husband then? Fer. Ay, with a heart as willing As bondage e'er of freedom. Here's my hand. The hearts of old (says Othello), dictated the union of hands, which formerly were joined with the hearts of the parties in them; but in our modern marriages hands alone are united, without hearts. There is a passage in the Essays of Sir William Cornwallis the younger, 1601, which may have suggested to Shakspeare the mention of this new heraldry: We of these later times, full of a nice curiositie, mislike all the performances of our forefathers; we say they were honest plaine men, but they want the capering wits of this ripe age. They had wont to give their hands and hearts together, but we think it a finer grace to looke asquint, our hand looking one way and our heart another.' 5 The folio reads 'sorry.' Rider explains sullen by acerbus, Latin. She was a charmer, and could almost read The thoughts of people: she told her, while she kept it, "Twould make her amiable, and subdue my father Entirely to her love; but if she lost it, Or made a gift of it, my father's eye Should hold her loathly, and his spirits should hunt And bid me, when my fate would have me wive, Des. Is it possible? Oth. 'Tis true: there's magick in the web of it: A sibyl, that had number'd in the world The sun to make two hundred compasses, In her prophetick fury sew'd the work; The worms were hallow'd, that did breed the silk; And it was dyed in mummy7, which the skilful Conserv'd of maidens' hearts. Des. Indeed! is't true? Oth. Most veritable; therefore look to't well. 6 A charmer, for an enchanter, is of common occurrence in the Psalms. So in Perkins's Discourse on Witchcraft, 1610:By witches we understand not only those which kill and torment, but all charmers, jugglers, all wizards, commonly called wise men and wise women,' &c. 7 The balsamic liquor running from mummies was formerly celebrated for its anti-epileptick virtues. We are now wise enough to know that the qualities ascribed to it are all imaginary; yet this fanciful medicine held a place in the druggists' shops till lately. It was much coveted by painters, as a transparent brown colour that threw a warmth into the shadows of a picture. 8 The quarto reads 'with the skilful conserves,' &c. So in The Microcosmos of John Davies of Hereford, 4to. 1605 : |