DES.

Alas! thrice-gentle Cassio,

My advocation is not now in tune;

My lord is not my lord; nor should I know him,
Were he in favour, as in humour, alter'd.
So help me, every spirit sanctified,

As I have spoken for you all my best;

And stood within the blank of his displeasure

6

For my free speech! You must a while be patient : What I can do, I will; and more I will,

Than for myself I dare; let that suffice you.

"And shoot myself upon some other course,

"To fortune's alms."

To fortune's alms means, waiting patiently for whatever bounty fortune or chance may bestow upon me.

We have the same uncommon phrase in King Lear :

Let your study

"Be to content your lord, who hath receiv'd you
"At fortune's alms." MALONE.

I cannot agree with Steevens in approving of the present reading, nor of course, in his explanation of this passage, but think the quarto right, which reads shoot instead of shut.-To say that a man will shut himself up in a course of life, is language such as Shakspeare would never make use of, even in his most whimsical or licentious moments.

One of the meanings of the verb to shoot, is to push suddenly, or to push forward; and in that sense it is used in this place. Cassio means to say, that if he finds he has no chance of regaining the favour of the general, he will push forward into some other line of life, and seek his fortune; but I think it probable we ought to read :

"And shoot myself upon some other course," instead of up in some other course. M. MASON.

Mr. M. Mason's explanation is a very forced one.-It appears from the information of Iago, that Cassio had not long been a soldier. Before Othello promoted him, for his good offices in respect to Desdemona, he was a great arithmetician, a countercaster;" and now, being discarded from the military line, he purposes to confine or shut himself up, as he formerly had, within the limits of a new profession. HENLEY.

-in FAVOUR,] In look, in countenance.

See p. 285. STEEVENS.

JOHNSON.

6 within the blank of his displeasure,] Within the shot of his anger. JOHNSON.

See vol. vii. p. 410, n. 9. STEEVENS.

LAGO. Is my lord angry?
EMIL.

He went hence but now,

And, certainly, in strange unquietness.

LAGO. Can he be angry? I have seen the cannon, When it hath blown his ranks into the air'; And, like the devil, from his very arm

Puff'd his own brother ;-And can he be angry? Something of moment, then: I will go meet him; There's matter in't indeed, if he be angry.

state,

DES. I pr'ythee, do so.-Something, sure, of
Exit LAGO.
Either from Venice; or some unhatch'd practice,
Made démonstrable here in Cyprus to him,-
Hath puddled his clear spirit: and, in such cases,
Men's natures wrangle with inferior things,
Though great ones are their object. 'Tis even so;
For let our finger ache, and it indues

Our other healthful members ev`n to that sense
Of pain: Nay, we must think, men are not gods;

7 - I have seen the cannon,

When it hath blown, &c.] In Jago's speech something is suppressed. He means to say, I have seen his ranks blown into the air, and his own brother puff'd from his side,—and meanwhile have seen him cool and unruffled. And can he now be angry? MALONE.

9 For let our finger ache, and it INDUES

Our other healthful members ev'n to that sense

Of pain:] I believe it should be rather, Subdues our other healthful members to a sense of pain. JOHNSON.

Dr. Johnson's conjecture may be supported by a passage in one of Desdemona's speeches to the Senate:

"My heart's subdued

"Even to the very quality of my lord."

Again, in p. 400 :

66

66

and subdue my father

Entirely to her love." STEEVENS.

The meaning is, this sensation so gets possession of, and is so infused into the other members, as to make them all participate of the same pain:

Nor of them look for such observances

As fit the bridal '.-Beshrew me much, Emilia,
I was (unhandsome warrior as I am 2,)
Arraigning his unkindness with my soul;
But now I find, I had suborn'd the witness,
And he's indited falsely.

EMIL. Pray heaven, it be state matters, as you think;

And no conception, nor no jealous toy,

Concerning you.

DES. Alas, the day! I never gave him cause. EMIL. But jealous souls will not be answer'd so; They are not ever jealous for the cause,

But jealous for they are jealous: 'tis a monster,
Begot upon itself, born on itself.

DES. Heaven keep that monster from Othello's mind!

EMIL. Lady, amen.

DES. I will go seek him.-Cassio, walk hereabout:

- totumque infusa per artus,

Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet.

Dr. Johnson would probably not have proposed any alteration here, if he had recollected the following passage in Hamlet, which exhibits a similar phraseology, as far as relates to the only difficulty of the sentence before us-to the sense of its own pain: the dram of base

66

"Doth all the noble substance of worth dout,

"To his own scandal." MALONE.

See vol. vii. p. 229, for the very difficult and contested passage which Mr. Malone has produced in support of his interpretation of the present text. BOSWELL.

-the BRIDAL.] i. e. the nuptial feast; a Saxon word. Thus, in the ancient romance of Ywain and Gawain:

"The bridal sat, for soth to tell

"Till king Arthur come," &c.

Again, in Gamelyn, or the Coke's Tale:

"At every bridale he would sing and hop." STEEVENS. Unhandsome warrior,

2- (unhandsome WARRIOR as I am,)]

is evidently unfair assailant. JOHNSON.

See note on the same expression, Act II. Sc. I. STEEVENS.

If I do find him fit, I'll move your suit,
And seek to effect it to my uttermost.
CAS. I humbly thank your ladyship.

[Exeunt DESDEMONA and EMILIA.

Enter BIANCA.

BIAN. Save you, friend Cassio!

CAS. How is it with you, I'faith, sweet love, I was coming to your house. 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!

What makes you from home? my most fair Bianca ?

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 4.

3 in a more CONTINUATE time,] Thus the folio. The quarto 1622 has-a more convenient time. MAlone.

A more continuate time is time less interrupted, time which I can call more my own. It gives a more distinct image than convenient. JOHNSON.

The word occurs again in Timon of Athens, Sc. I.:

66

breath'd, as it were,

"To an untirable and continuate goodness."

See Timon of Athens, Act I. Sc. I.

STEEVENS.

4 Take me this work out.] The meaning is not, "Pick out the work, and leave the ground plain; " but, "Copy this work in another handkerchief." JOHNSON.

So, in a comedy, by Middleton, called, Women Beware of Women :

"To take out other works in a new sampler." Again, in the preface to P. Holland's Pliny, 1601: "Nicophanes (a famous painter) gave his mind wholly to antique pictures, partly to exemplifie and take out their patterns, after that in long conti

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 5 ! 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 remem

brance:

No, in good troth*, Bianca.

BIAN.

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.

BIAN.

CAS. Not that I love you not.
BIAN.

Why, I pray you?

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.

* Quarto, No, by my faith.

† First folio, neither.

nuance of time they were decaied." Again, in Sidney's Arcadia, book ii. : "why doest thou in thy beautiful sampler set such a work for my desire to take out?" STEEVENS.

So, in Hearne's Liber Niger Scaccarii, vol. ii. p. 578, 581, and 585: "to take out the arms," means, to copy them. TOLLET. 5 Woman, go to !] Old copies, unmetrically

"Go to, woman!" STEEVENS.

Mr. Capell made the alteration which Mr. Steevens has adopted. BOSWELL. "Why, I pray you?] This and the following speech are wanting in the first quarto. STEEVENS.