Duke. Be it as you fhall privately determine,
Or for her stay or going; th' affair cries haste;
And speed must answer. You muft hence to-night.
D. To-night, my Lord?

Duke. This night.

Oth. With all my heart.

Duke. At nine i'th' morning here we'll meet again.
Othello, leave fome officer behind,

And he fhall our commiffion bring to you;
And fuch things elfe of quality and respect

As doth import you.

Oth. Please your Grace, my Ancient;
(A man he is of honefty and truft,)
To his conveyance I affign my wife,

With what elfe needful your good grace shall think
To be fent after me.

Duke. Let it be fo;

Good-night to every one. And, noble Signior,
If virtue no delighted beauty lack,

Your fon-in-law is far more fair than black.
Sen. Adieu, brave Moor, ufe Desdemona well.
Bra. Adieu, brave Moor, if thou haft eyes to fee,
She has deceiv'd her father, and may thee.

[Exit Duke, with Senators.
-Honeft lago,

Oth. My life upon her faith.
My Desdemona must I leave to thee;

I pr'ythee, let thy wife attend on her;
And bring her after in the best advantage.
Come, Desdemona, I have but an hour

Of love, of worldly matter and direction

To speak with thee. We must obey the time. [Exeunt. Marent Rodorigo and lago.

Rod. lago

lago. What fayeft thou, noble heart? Rod. What will I do, thinkeft thou? Iago. Why, go to bed, and fleep.

Rod. I will incontinently drown myself.

lago. Well, if thou doft, I shall never love thee after.

Why, thou filly gentleman!

Rod. It is fillinefs to live, when to live is a torment;

and

and then have we a prescription to die, when death is our phyfician.

Tago. O villainous! I have look'd upon the world for four times feven years, and fince I could diftinguish betwixt a benefit and an injury, I never found man that knew how to love himself. Ere I would fay, I would drown myself for the love of a Guinea-hen, I would change my humanity with a baboon.

Rod. What fhould I do? I confefs, it is my fhame to be fo fond, but it is not in my virtue to amend it.

lago. Virtue a fig: 'tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardners. So that if we will plant nettles, or fow lettice; fet hyffop, and weed up thyme; fupply it with one gender of herbs, or diftract it with many; either have it fteril with idlenefs, or manured with induftry; why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our will. (18) If the beam of our lives

(18) If the balance of our lives bad not one fcale of reafon to poise another of fenfuality.] i. e. If the fcale of our lives had not one fcale, &c. which muft certainly be wrong. Some of the old quartos have it

thus, but the two elder folios read,

If the braine of our lives bad not one fcale, &c.

This is corrupt; and I make no doubt but Shakespeare wrote, as I have reform'd the text,

If the beame of our lives, &c.

And my reason is this; that he generally diftinguishes betwixt the beam and balance, ufing the latter to fignify the fcales; and the former, the fteel-bar to which they are hung, and which poises them. I'll fubjoin a few inftances of his ufage of both terms.

In your lord's fcale is nothing but himself,
And some few vanities that make him light,
But in the balance of great Bolingbroke, &c.
I have in equal balance juftly weigh'd, &c.
Weigh'd between loathnefs and obedience, at
Which end the beam fhould bow.
We, poizing us in her defective scale,
Shall weigh thee to the beam.

We, poize the cause in Juftice' equal fcale,

Whose beam ftands fure.

-thy madness shall be paid with weight, Till our scale turn the beam.

Richard II. 2 Henry IV. Tempeft.

All's Well, &c.

2 Henry VI,

Hamlet.

In like manner, the French always ufe les balances to fignify the

Scales; le fleau, the beam of the balance,

hád

had not one scale of reafon to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us to most prepofterous conclufions. But we have reafon, to cool our raging motions, our carnal ftings, our unbitted lufts; whereof I take this, that you call love, to be a fect, or fyen.

Rod. It cannot be.

Iago. It is merely a luft of the blood, and a permiffion of the will. Come, be a man: drown thyself? drown cats and blind puppies. I have profeft me thy friend, and I confefs me knit to thy deferving with cables of perdurable toughness. I could never better steed thee than now. Put money in thy purse; follow thou these wars; defeat thy favour with an ufurped beard; I say, put money in thy purfe. It cannot be, that Desdemona fhould long continue her love to the Moor-put money in thy purfe- -nor he his to her. It was a violent commencement in her, and thou fhalt fee an answerable fequeftration,put but money in thy purse.

Thefe Moors are changeable in their wills;fill thy purfe with money. (19) The food, that to him now is as luscious as locufts, fhall fhortly be as bitter as coloquintida. When fhe is fated with his body, fhe will find the errors of her choice. -She must have change, she must therefore put money in thy purfe.thou wilt needs damn thyself, do it a more delicate

If

(19) The food, that to him now is as lufcious as locufts, fall shortly be as bitter as coloquintida.] Mr. Warburton has fufpected this paffage, and attempted an emendation; which I ought to fubjein, with his reasoning upon it. "Tho' fome kind of locufts have been sometimes

eaten, I think, they cannot be given as an inftance of very delicious food. Befides, how comes locufts, a kind of infect, to be op"pos'd to coloquintida, a medicinal drug? Be affur'd, the true read"ing is not locufts, but loches, a very pleasant confection, introduced "into medicine by the Arabian phyficians; and fo is very fitly op

pos'd both to the bitterness, and the ufe of coloquintida."have not, however, disturb'd the text for two reafons; because all the printed copies agree in one reading without any variation: and because I am not fure, that by locufts the Poet means the infect, but the fruit of the locust tree; which is fweet and luscious in the fame degree, as coloquintida, the fruit of the wild gourd, is acerb and bitter.

way

way than drowning. Make all the money thou canft. If fanctimony and a frail vow, betwixt an erring Barbarian and a fuper-fubtle Venetian, be not too hard for my wits, and all the tribe of hell, thou fhalt enjoy her; therefore make money. A pox of drowning thyfelf! it is clean out of the way. Seek thou rather to be hang'd in compaffing thy joy, than to be drown'd and go without her.

Rod. Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend on the iffue?

Iago. Thou art sure of me. -Go, make money.I have told thee often, and I re-tell thee again and again, I hate the Moor. My caufe is hearted; thine hath no lefs reafon. Let us be conjunctive in our revenge against him. If thou canst cuckold him, thou doft thyself a pleasure, and me a fport. There are many events in the womb of time, which will be delivered. Traverse, go, provide thy money. We will have more of this to-morrow. Adieu.

Rod. Where fhall we meet i'th' morning?
Jago. At my lodgings.

Rod. I'll be with thee betimes.

Iago. Go to, farewel.

Rod. What fay you?

Do you hear, Rodorigo?

you hear.

Iago. No more of drowning, do

Rad. I am chang'd; I'll go fell all my land. [Exit.

Manet Iago.

lago. Go to, farewel, put money enough in your purfeThus do I ever make my fool my purfe;

For I mine own gain'd knowledge fhould prophane,
If I should time expend with fuch a fnipe,

But for my fport and profit. I hate the Moor,
And it is thought abroad, that 'twixt my sheets
He has done my office. I know not, if't be true-
But I, for mere fufpicion in that kind,

Will do, as if for surety. He holds me well-
The better fhall my purpose work on him;
Caffio's a proper man: let me fee now ;-
To get his place, and to plume up my will,

8

A double

A double knavery- How? how?-let's fee-
After fome time, t'abuse Othello's ear,
That he is too familiar with his wife-
He hath a perfon, and a smooth dispose,
To be fufpected: fram'd to make women false.
The Moor is of a free and open nature,
That thinks men honeft that but seem to be fo;
And will as tenderly be led by th' nofe,

As affes are:

I hav't-it is ingender'd-Hell and night

Muft bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.

[Exit,

ACT II.

SCENE, The capital City of Cyprus.

Enter Montano Governor of Cyprus, and Gentlemen.

WHA

ΜΟΝΤΑΝΟ.

WHAT from the cape can you discern at sea ? I Gent. Nothing at all, it is a high-wrought I cannot 'twixt the heaven and the main [flood; Defcry a fail.

Mont. Methinks the wind hath spoke aloud at land; A fuller blaft ne'er shook our battlements;

If it hath ruffian'd fo upon the fea,

What ribs of oak, when mountains melt on them, (20) Can hold the mortife? what shall we hear of this?

(20) What ribs of oak, when the huge mountains melt,

2 Gent.

Can bold the mortife?] This is an arbitrary change of Mr. Pope's, without any authority or reafon, but the fmoothing the ver fification. But, I am afraid, this great critick was dreaming of mountains at land; and thefe, he thought, could not well melt on ribs of oak (i. e. fhips) at fea. But our Poet happens to mean, waves as big as mountains; and these are often known to melt on fhips: nor is any metaphor more common in poetry. So, again, afterwards, in this very play;

And