Bian. And I was going to your lodging, Cassio. What! keep a week away? seven days and nights? Eight score eight hours? and lovers' absent hours, More tedious than the dial eight score times? O weary reckoning!

Cas.

Pardon me, Bianca;

I have this while with leaden thoughts been press'd; But I shall, in a more continuate time,

Strike off this score of absence. Sweet Bianca, [Giving her DESDEMONA'S Handkerchief.

Take me this work out 19.

Bian.

O, Cassio, whence came this?

This is some token from a newer friend.
To the felt absence now I feel a cause:
Is it come to this? Well, well.

Cas.

Go to! woman, Throw your vile guesses in the devil's teeth, From whence you have them. You are jealous now, That this is from some mistress, some remembrance: No, in good troth, Bianca.

Bran.

Why, whose is it?

Cas. I know not, sweet: I found it in my chamber. I like the work well; ere it be demanded,

(As like enough, it will), I'd have it copied : Take it, and do't; and leave me for this time. Bian. Leave you! wherefore?

Cas. I do attend here on the general; And think it no addition, nor my wish, To have him see me woman'd.

19 i. e. copy this work in another handkerchief. See Act iii. Sc. 3, note 42. So in Middleton's Women beware Women :

To take out other works in a new sampler.'

Again in the Preface to Holland's Pliny, 1601 :-' Nicophanes (a famous painter) gave his mind wholly to antique pictures, partly to exemplify and take out patterns, after that in long continuance of time they were decayed.'

Bian.

Why, I pray you 20

Cas. Not that I love you not.

Bian.

But that you do not love me.

I pray you, bring me on the way a little;

And say, if I shall see you soon at night.

Cas. Tis but a little way, that I can bring you, For I attend here: but I'll see you soon.

Bian. 'Tis very good; I must be circumstanc'd. [Exeunt.

Iago. Or to be naked with her friend abed, An hour, or more, not meaning any harm?

Oth. Naked abed, Iago, and not mean harm? It is hypocrisy against the devil1:

They that mean virtuously, and yet do so,

The devil their virtue tempts, and they tempt heaven:

20 This and the following speech are wanting in the first quarto. 1We must suppose that Iago had been applying cases of false comfort to Othello; as that though the parties had been even found in bed together, there might be no harm done: it might be only for trial of their virtue; as was reported of the Romish saint, Robert D'Arbrissel, and his nuns.'-Warburton.

2 The devil tempts their virtue by stirring up their passions, and they tempt heaven by placing themselves in a situation which makes it scarcely possible to avoid falling by the gratification

Jago. So they do nothing, 'tis a venial slip: But if I give my wife a handkerchief,

Oth. What then?

Iago. Why then 'tis hers, my lord; and, being hers, She may, I think, bestow't on any man.

Oth. She is protectress of her honour too; May she give that?

Iago. Her honour is an essence that's not seen; They have it very oft, that have it not:

But, for the handkerchief,

Oth. By heaven, I would most gladly have forgot it:

Thou said'st,-O, it comes o'er my memory,
As doth the raven o'er the infected house,
Boding to all3,-he had my handkerchief.
Iago. Ay, what of that?

Oth.

That's not so good, now.

Iago. What, if I had said, I had seen him do

wrong?

Or heard him say,—As knaves be such abroad,
Who having, by their own importunate suit,
Or voluntary dotage of some mistress,
Convinced or supplied them, cannot choose
But they must blab-

4

you

of them. Perhaps the story of St. Adhelm, related in Bale's Actes of Englysh Votaries, is referred to:-This Adhelmus never refused women, but wold have them commonly both at borde and bedde, to mocke the devyll with,' &c. See also Fabian's Chronicle, Part IV. ch. 141.

3 The raven was thought to be a constant attendant on a house infected with the plague.

4 i. e. having by their own importunacy overcome the resisttance of a mistress, or, in compliance with her own request, and in consequence of her unsolicited fondness, gratified her desires. Mariana tells Angelo, in Measure for Measure :—

And did supply thee at thy garden house.' Theobald thought that supplied should be suppled, i. e. " made her pliant to his desires.'

Oth.

Hath he said any thing?

Iago. He hath, my lord; but be you well assur'd,

No more than he'll unswear.

Oth.

What hath he said?

Iago. 'Faith, that he did,-I know not what he did. Oth. What? what?

Iago. Lie

Oth.

Iago.

With her?

With her, on her; what you will. Oth. Lie with her! lie on her!-We say, lie on her, when they belie her: Lie with her! that's fulsome. Handkerchief,-confessions, handkerchief. To confess, and be hanged for his labour 5.

First to be hanged, and then to confess :-I tremble at it. Nature would not invest herself in such shadowing passion, without some instruction. It is not words, that shake me thus:-Pish!

5 This proverbial saying is used in Marlowe's Jew of Malta: 'Blame us not, but the proverb-Confess and be hanged.' And in one of the old collections there is an epigram on it.—AII that remains of this speech from to confess is wanting in the 4to.

6 The starts and broken reflections in this speech (says Warburton) have something in them very terrible, and show the mind of the speaker to be in inexpressible agonies.'

6

There is a difference of opinion between the commentators, some thinking with Warbuton that the words, Nature would not invest herself in such shadowing passion, without some instruction,' allude to his own feelings; others that they advert to the story about Cassio's dream, which had been invented and told him by Iago. I must confess that I incline to the latter opinion: Nature would not express such adumbrations of passion without some former experience.' I think this view of the passage confirmed by these words in a former scene :

Oth. But this denoted a foregone conclusion.' For (as Sir Joshua Reynolds observes) Othello, in broken sentences and single words, all of which have a reference to the cause of his jealousy, shows that all the proofs are present at once to his mind, which so overpower it that he falls into a trance.'

Noses, ears, and lips: Is it possible?-Confess! -Handkerchief!-O devil! [Falls in a Trance. Iago. Work on,

My medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught;

And many worthy and chaste dames, even thus, All guiltless meet reproach.-What, ho! my lord!

Enter CASSIO.

My lord, I say! Othello!-How now, Cassio?
Cas. What is the matter?

Iago. My lord is fallen into an epilepsy;
This is his second fit; he had one yesterday.
Cas. Rub him about the temples.

Iago.

No, forbear: The lethargy must have his quiet course: If not, he foams at mouth; and, by and by, Breaks out to savage madness. Look, he stirs : Do you withdraw yourself a little while, He will recover straight; when he is gone,

I would on great occasion speak with you.

[Exit CASSIO. How is it, general? have you not hurt your head? Oth. Dost thou mock me?

Iago. I mock you! no, by heaven: 'Would, you would bear your fortunes like a man. Oth. A horned man's a monster, and a beast. Iago. There's many a beast then in a populous city, And many a civil monster.

Oth. Did he confess it?

Iago.

Good sir, be a man;

Think, every bearded fellow, that's but yok'd,
May draw with you; there's millions now alive,
That nightly lie in those unproper7 beds,

7 Unproper for common. So in The Mastive, a collection of Epigrams and Satires:

Rose is a fayre, but not a proper woman;
Can any creature proper be that's common?'