Sivut kuvina
PDF
ePub

And fearful to be granted.

Отн. I will deny thee nothing: Whereon, I do beseech thee, grant me this, To leave me but a little to myself.

DES. Shall I deny you? no: Farewell, my lord. Отн. Farewell, my Desdemona: I will come to thee straight.

DES. Emilia, come :-Be it as your fancies teach

you;

Whate'er you be, I am obedient.

[Exit, with EMILIA. OTH. Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul, But I do love thee! and when I love thee not, Chaos is come again".

Again :

[ocr errors]

But we are all prest down with other poize." STEEVens. Excellent WRETCH!-Perdition catch my soul,

But I do love thee! &c.] The meaning of the word wretch, is not generally understood. It is now, in some parts of England, a term of the softest and fondest tenderness. It expresses the utmost degree of amiableness, joined with an idea which perhaps all tenderness includes, of feebleness, softness, and want of protection. Othello, considering Desdemona as excelling in beauty and virtue, soft and timorous by her sex, and by her situation absolutely in his power, calls her, Excellent wretch! It may be expressed:

[ocr errors]

Dear, harmless, helpless excellence." JOHNSON.

Sir W. D'Avenant uses the same expression in his Cruel Brother, 1630, and with the same meaning. It occurs twice: "Excellent wretch! with a timorous modesty she stifleth up her ut

terance."

I am assured by Dr. Farmer, that wretch is provincial in Staffordshire for a young woman. STEEVENS.

when I love thee not,

Chaos is come again.] When my love is for a moment suspended by suspicion, I have nothing in my mind but discord, tumult, perturbation, and confusion. JOHNSON.

66

when I love thee not,

"Chaos is come again." There is another meaning possible: "When I cease to love thee, the world is at an end ; " i. e. there remains nothing valuable or important. The first explanation may

IAGO. My noble lord,

Отн.

What dost thou say, Iago?

LAGO. Did Michael Cassio, when you woo'd my

lady,

Know of your love?

ОTн. He did, from first to last: Why dost thou

ask?

LAGO. But for a satisfaction of my thought; No further harm.

Отн.

Why of thy thought, Iago? LAGO. I did not think, he had been acquainted

with her.

Отн. O, yes; and went between us very oft.
LAGO. Indeed?

be more elegant, the second is perhaps more easy. Shakspeare has the same thought in his Venus and Adonis :

"For he being dead, with him is beauty slain,

"And, beauty dead, black Chaos comes again." STEEVENS. This passage does not strike me in the same light in which it appeared to Dr. Johnson; as Othello had not yet any experience of that perturbation and discord, by which he afterwards is so fatally agitated. He means, I think, to say," and ere I cease to love thee, the world itself shall be reduced to its primitive chaos." Shakspeare probably preferred-" chaos is come again," to "chaos shall come again," as more bold and expressive. Muretus, a poet of the 16th century, has exactly the same thought:

Tune meo elabi possis de pectore, Lacci,

Aut ego, dum vivam, non meminisse tui ?
Ante, vel istius mundi compage soluta,

Tetras in antiquum sit reditura Chaos.

The meaning of Shakspeare appears very clearly from the following passage in The Winter's Tale, where the same thought is more fully expressed :

"It cannot fail, but by

"The violation of my faith,-and then

"Let nature crush the sides o'the earth together,

"And mar the seeds within!" MALONE.

There is the same thought in Buchanan :

Cesset amor, pariter cessabunt foedera rerum ;

In chaos antiquum cuncta elementa ruent.
Vol. II. 400, 1725, 4to.

HOLT WHITE.

OTH. Indeed! ay, indeed:-Discern'st thou aught

[blocks in formation]

By heaven, he echoes me,

As if there were some monster in his thought
Too hideous to be shown.-Thou dost mean some-

thing:

I heard thee say but now,-Thou lik'dst not that, When Cassio left my wife; What did'st not like? And, when I told thee-he was of my counsel

4 Iago. Indeed?

Oth. Indeed! ay, indeed, &c.] I cannot help supposing that this passage is interpolated, and originally stood thus: "Iago. Indeed!

"Oth.

Indeed :-Discern'st thou ought in that?"

See the next note. STEEVENS.

s Ay, honest.] The old copies, violating the measure, read: "Honest? ay, honest."

It appears from many instances, that where words were to be repeated at all, our old blundering printers continued the repetition beyond propriety. Mr. Malone has elsewhere the same remark. STEEVENS.

In the first alteration Mr. Steevens is supported by the quarto 1622, not in the second. BOSWELL.

6 By heaven, he echoes me,

As if there were some monster in his thought, &c.] Thus the eldest quarto. The second quarto reads :

[blocks in formation]

"As if there were some monster in thy thought," &c. The folio reads:

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

This is one of the numerous alterations made in the folio copy by the licenser. MALONE.

In my whole course of wooing, thou cry'dst, Indeed?
And did'st contract and purse thy brow together,
As if thou then had'st shut up in thy brain
Some horrible conceit *: If thou dost love me,
Show me thy thought.

LAGO. My lord, you know I love you.

Отн. I think, thou dost ; And, for I know thou art full of love and honesty, And weigh'st thy words before thou giv'st them breath,

Therefore these stops of thine fright me the more: For such things, in a false disloyal knave,

Are tricks of custom; but, in a man that's just, They are close denotements, working from the heart,

That passion cannot rule".

* Quarto, counsell.

7 They are CLOSE DENOTEMENTS, working from the heart, That passion cannot rule.] Thus the earliest quarto. But let Dr. Warburton be heard in defence of "cold dilations," the reading of the second folio.

I should willingly, however, have adopted an emendation proposed by Dr. Johnson, in the subsequent note, could I have discovered that the word-delation was ever used in its Roman sense of accusation, during the time of Shakspeare. Bacon frequently employs it, but always to signify carriage or conveyance.

STEEVENS.

These stops and breaks are cold dilations, or cold keeping back a secret, which men of phlegmatick constitutions, whose hearts are not swayed or governed by their passions, we find, can do: while more sanguine tempers reveal themselves at once, and without reserve. WARBURTON.

That dilations anciently signified delays, may be ascertained, by the following passage in the Golden Legend, Wynken de Worde's edit. fo. 186: "And y felony of this kyng suffred not to abyde only dilacyon of vengeance. For the nexte daye folowynge he made to come the kepers for to begyn to turment them,"

&c.

Again, ibid. p. 199: "And Laurence demaunded dylacyon of thre dayes." Again, in Candlemas Day, &c. p. 9:

66 That

- I warne you without delacion,

ye

VOL. IX.

make serch thurgh out all my region." STEEVENS.

2 A

LAGO.

For Michael Cassio,

I dare be sworn*, I think that he is honest.

ОTH. I think so too.

LAGO.

Men should be what they seem; Or, those that be not, 'would they might seem none !

* Quarto, presume,

The old copies give,-dilations, except that the earlier quarto has-denotements; which was the author's first expression, afterwards changed by him, not to dilations, but to delations; to occult and secret accusations, working involuntarily from the heart, which, though resolved to conceal the fault, cannot rule its passion of resentment. JOHNSON.

66

They are close denotements, &c." i. e. indications, or recoveries, not openly revealed, but involuntarily working from the heart, which cannot rule and suppress its feelings.

The folio reads-They are close dilations; but nothing is got by the change, for dilations was undoubtedly used in the sense of dilatements, or large and full expositions. See Minsheu's Dict. 1617: "To dilate or make large."

Dilatement is used in the sense of dilation by Lodge, our poet's contemporary: "After all this foul weather follows a calm dilatement of others too forward harmfulness." Rosalynde, or Euphues Golden Legacie, 4to. 1592.

Dr. Johnson very elegantly reads-They are close delations.

But the objection to this conjectural reading is, that there is strong ground for believing that the word was not used in Shakspeare's age. It is not found in any Dictionary of the time, that I have seen, nor has any passage been quoted in support of it. On the contrary, we find in Minsheu the verb, "To delate," not signifying, to accuse, but thus interpreted: "to speak at large of any thing, vid. to dilate:" so that if even delations were the word of the old copy, it would mean no more than dilations. To the reading of the quarto no reasonable objection can be made. MALONE.

Mr. Todd, in his additions to Johnson's Dictionary, has produced an authority for the use of the word delations, in the sense of accusations, from Wotton's Remains, p. 307, edit. 1685, p. 460, edit. 1651. BOSWELL.

[ocr errors]

8 Or, those that be not, 'would they might seem NONE!] I believe the meaning is, 'would they might no longer seem, or bear the shape of men.' JOHNSON.

May not the meaning be, 'Would they might not seem honest!' Malone.

« EdellinenJatka »