Emil. Disprove this villain, if thou be'st a man: Iago. I told him what I thought; and told no more Than what he found himself was apt and true. Emil. But did you ever tell him she was false? Emil. You told a lie; an odious, damned lie; She false with Cassio!-Did you say with Cassio? Lago. With Cassio, mistress: Go to, charm your tongue. Emil. I will not charm my tongue; I am bound to speak; My mistress here lies murther'd in her bed. All. O heavens forfend! Emil. And your reports have set the murther on. Emil. Villainy, villainy, villainy!1 think upon 't,-I think,-I smell 't-Ö villainy!I thought so then;-I 'll kill myself for grief.— O villainy, villainy! Iago. What, are you mad? I charge you, get you home. Emil. Good gentlemen, let me have leave to speak; 'Tis proper I obey him, but not now : Perchance, Iago, I will ne'er go home. Oth. Oh! Oh! Oh! Emil. Nay, lay thee down, and roar : For thou hast kill'd the sweetest innocent, I scarce did know you, uncle: there lies your niece, Whose breath, indeed, these hands have newly stopp'd: I know this act shows horrible and grim. Gra. Poor Desdemon! I am glad thy father's dead; Thy match was mortal to him, and pure grief Shore his old thread in twain: did he live now, This sight would make him do a desperate turn, Yea, curse his better angel from his side, And fall to reprobance. Oth. T is pitiful; but yet Iago knows, A thousand times committed; Cassio confess'd it: Emil. O heaven! O heavenly powers! No, I will speak as liberal as the north;a Emil. I will not. [IAGO offers to stab his wife. Gra. Your sword upon a woman? Fie! Emil. O thou dull Moor! that handkerchief thou speak'st of husband I found by fortune, and did give my Jugo. Villainous whore! Emil. By heaven, I do not; I do not, gentlemen: O murderous coxcomb! what should such a fool Do with so good a wife? [IAGO stabs EMIL, then runs out. Are there no stones in heaven, Oth. But what serve for the thunder?—Precious villain! Gra. The woman falls; sure he has kill'd his wife. Emil. Ay, ay: O, lay me by my mistress' side! Gra. He's gone, but his wife 's kill'd. Mon. "T is a notorious villain. Take you this wea pon, Which I have here recover'd from the Moor: Oth. I am not valiant neither, But every puny whipster gets my sword:But why should honour outlive honesty? Let it go all. Emil. What did thy song bode, lady? Hark, canst thou hear me? I will play the swan, And die in music;-" Willow, willow, willow."Moor, she was chaste; she lov'd thee, cruel Mour; So come my soul to bliss, as I speak true; So speaking as I think, alas, I die. Oth. I have another weapon in this chamber, It is a sword of Spain, the ice-brook's temper;-" O, here it is:-Uncle, I must come forth. [Dies. Gra. If thou attempt it, it will cost thee dear; Thou hast no weapon, and perforce must suffer. Oth. Look in upon me then, and speak with me, Or, naked as I am, I will assault thee. Gra. What is the matter? Oth. Behold! I have a weapon: A better never did itself sustain O cursed, cursed slave!-Whip me, ye devils, Oth. That's he that was Othello; here I am. If that thou be'st a devil I cannot kill thee. [OTH. wounds IAGO. Lod. Wrench his sword from him. Iago. I bleed, sir; but not kill'd. Oth. I am not sorry neither; I'd have thee live; For, in my sense, 't is happiness to die. a Ice-brook's temper. The practice of the Spaniards to terper their swords by plunging them, when hot from the forge, 180 waters of an icy coldness, is noticed by Martial and Justia. Lod. This wretch hath part confess'd his villainy: Did you and he consent in Cassio's death? Oth. Ay. Cas. Dear general, I never gave you cause. And Cassio rules in Cyprus. For this slave,- That can torment him much, and hold him long, Oth. Soft you; a word or two, before you go. I have done the state some service, and they know 't; Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak Iago. Demand me nothing: what you know, you Of one, not easily jealous, but, being wrought, know : From this time forth I never will speak word. Lod. What? not to pray? Torments will ope your lips. Perplex'd in the extreme; of one, whose hand, Richer than all his tribe; of one, whose subdu'd eyes, Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees Lod. O bloody period! [Stabs himself. All that is spoke is marr'd. Oth. I kiss'd thee, ere I kill'd thee;-No way but this, Cas. This did I fear, but thought he had no weapon; For he was great of heart. [To IAGO. Lod. [Exeunt. a Indian. Boswell, in a very sensible note, shows that tribe meant in Shakspere's day kindred; that base is used in the sense of ignorant; and, what is very important, that two poets after Shakspere have described the Indians as casting away jewels of which they knew not the value. The ordinary reading is "Judean." INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. THE first edition of 'King Lear' was published in 1608; two other editions were published by Butter in the same year. It is remarkable that a play of which three editions were demanded in one year should not have been reprinted till it was collected in the folio of 1623. Whether Lear' was piratical, or whether a limited | publication was allowed, it is clear, we think, that by some interference the continued publication was stopped. The text of the folio, in one material respect, differs considerably from that of the quartos. Large passages which are found in the quartos are omitted in the folio: there are, indeed, some lines found in the folio which are not in the quartos, amounting to about fifty. These are scattered passages, not very remarkable when detached, but for the most part essential to the progress of the action or to the development of character. On the other hand the lines found in the quartos which are not in the folio amount to as many as two hundred and twenty-five; and they comprise one entire scene and one or two of the most striking connected passages in the drama. It would be easy to account for these omissions, by the assumption that in the folio edition the original play was cut down by the editors; for Lear,' without the omissions, is perhaps the longest of Shakspere's plays, with the exception of 'Hamlet.' But this theory would require us to assume, also, that the additions to the folio were made by the editors. These comprise several such minute touches as none but the hand of the master could have superadded. The story of Lear' belongs to the popular literature of Europe. It is a pretty episode in the fabulous chronicles of Britain; and whether invented by the monkish historians, or transplanted into our annals from some foreign source, is not very material. In the Gesta Romanorum,' the same story is told of Theodosius, "a wise emperor in the city of Rome." · the most perfect specimen of the dramatic art existing in the world." We can understand this now. But if any writer before the commencement of the present century, and indeed long after, had talked of the comedy of Lear' as being "universal, ideal, and sublime," and had chosen that as the excellence to balance against "the intense power of the choral poetry" of Eschylus and Sophocles, he would have been referred to the authority of Voltaire, who, in his letter to the Academy, describes such works of Shakspere as forming "an obscure chaos, composed of murders and buffooneries, of heroism and meanness." In certain schools of criticism, even yet, the notion that Lear' "may be judged to be the most perfect specimen of the dramatic art existing in the world ** would be treated as a mere visionary conceit; and we should still be reminded that Shakspere was a “wild and irregular genius," producing these results because he could not help it. In France are still heard the feeble echoes of the contest between the disciples of the romantic and the classic schools. Poor Nahum Tate did not unfitly represent his age when he said of Lear,' "It is a heap of jewels, unstrung and unpolished, yet so dazzling in their disorder that I soon perceived I had seized a treasure." There is only one mode in which such a production as the Lear' of Shakspere can be understood-by study, and by reverential reflection. The age which produced the miserable parody of Lear' that till within a few years had banished the Lear' of Shakspere from the stage, was, as far as regards the knowledge of the highest efforts of intellect, a presumptuous, artificial, and therefore empty age. Tate was tolerated because Shakspere was not read. We have arrived, in some degree, to a better judgment, because we have learnt to judge more humbly. We have learnt to compare the Shelley, in his eloquent Defence of Poetry,' pub-highest works of the highest masters of poetry, not by the lished in his Posthumous Essays,' &c., has stated the grounds for his belief that the Lear' of Shakspere may sustain a comparison with the master-pieces of the Greek tragedy. "The modern practice of blending comedy with tragedy, though liable to great abuse in point of practice, is undoubtedly an extension of the dramatic circle; but the comedy should be as in 'King Lear, universal, ideal, and sublime. It is, perhaps, the interveLion of this principle which determines the balance in favour of King Lear' against the 'Edipus Tyrannus' or the 'Agamemnon,' or, if you will, the trilogies with which they are connected; unless the intense power of the choral poetry, especially that of the latter, should be considered as restoring the equilibrium. 'King Lear, if it can sustain that comparison, may be judged to be pedantic principle of considering a modern great only to the extent in which he is an imitator of an ancient, but by endeavouring to comprehend the idea in which the modern and the ancient each worked. The Cordelia of Shakspere and the Antigone of Sophocles bave many points of similarity; but they each belong to a different system of art. It is for the highest minds only to carry their several systems to an approach to the perfection to which Shakspere and Sophocles have carried them. It was for the feeblest of imitators, in a feeble age, to produce such parodies as those of Tate, under the pretence of substituting order for irregularity, but in utter ignorance of the principle of order which was too skilfully framed to be visible to the grossness of their taste. |