OTH. Look, how he laughs already! LAGO. I never knew a woman love man so. [Aside. CAS. Alas, poor rogue! I think i'faith, she loves me. OTH. Now he denies it faintly, and laughs it out. IAGO. Do you hear, Cassio? Отн. [Aside. Now he importunes him To tell it o'er: Go to; well said, well said. [Aside. LAGO. She gives it out, that you shall marry her: Do you intend it ?. CAS. Ha, ha, ha! OTH. Do you triumph, Roman? do you triumph1? [Aside. CAS. I marry her!-what? a customer! I pr'ythee, bear some charity to my wit; do not think it so unwholesome. Ha, ha, ha! OTH. So, so, so, so: They laugh that win. [Aside. LAGO. 'Faith, the cry goes, that you shall marry her. CAS. Pr'ythee, say true. IAGO. I am a very villain else. OTH. Have you scored me? Well. [Aside. 1 Do you triumph, ROMAN? do you TRIUMPH ?] Othello calls him Roman ironically. Triumph, which was a Roman ceremony, brought Roman into his thoughts. "What (says he) you are now triumphing as great as a Roman?" JOHNSON. 2 - a CUSTOMER !] A common woman, one that invites custom. JOHNSON. So, in All's Well That Ends Well: STEEVENS. "I think thee now some common customer." 3 Have you scored me?] Have you made my reckoning? have you settled the term of my life? The old quarto reads-stored me? Have you disposed of me? have you laid me up? JOHNSON. To score originally meant no more than to cut a notch upon a tally, or to mark out a form by indenting it on any substance. Spenser, in the first canto of his Fairy Queen, speaking of the Cross, says: "Upon his shield the like was also scor'd." CAS. This is the monkey's own giving out: she is persuaded I will marry her, out of her own love and flattery, not out of my promise. OTH. Iago beckons me; now he begins the story. [Aside. CAS. She was here even now; she haunts me in every place.. I was, the other day, talking on the sea-bank with certain Venetians; and thither comes this bauble *; by this hand, she falls thus about my neck;- ОTн. Crying, O dear Cassio! as it were: his gesture imports it. [Aside. CAS. So hangs, and lolls, and weeps upon me; so hales, and pulls me: ha, ha, ha! OTH. Now he tells, how she plucked him to my chamber: O, I see that nose of yours, but not that dog I shall throw it to. CAS. Well, I must leave her company. Again, in book ii. c. ix. : 66 why on your shield, so goodly scor'd, "Bear you the picture of that lady's head? [Aside. But it was soon figuratively used for setting a brand or mark of disgrace on any one. "Let us score their backs," says Scarus, in Antony and Cleopatra; and it is employed in the same sense on the present occasion. STEEVENS. In Antony and Cleopatra, we find: "What counts harsh fortune casts upon my face," &c. But in the passage before us our poet might have been thinking of the ignominious punishment of slaves. So, in his Rape of Lucrece : "Worse than a slavish wipe, or birth-hour's blot." MALONE. I suspect that-wipe, in the foregoing passage from The Rape of Lucrece, was a typographical depravation of-wispe. See Henry VI. Part III. Act II. Sc. II. STEEVENS. 4 THIS bauble ;] So the quarto. The folio-the bauble. 5 by this hand,] This is the reading of the first quarto. STEEVENS. Instead of which, the editor of the folio, or rather the licenser of plays, substituted-thither comes the bauble, and falls me thus, &c. MALONE. IAGO. Before me! look, where she comes. Enter BIANCA. CAS. 'Tis such another fitchew! marry, a perfumed one. What do you mean by this haunting of me? BIAN. Let the devil and his dam haunt you! What did you mean by that same handkerchief, you gave me even now? I was a fine fool to take it. I must take out the whole work?—A likely piece of work, that you should find it in your chamber, and not know who left it there! This is some minx's token, and I must take out the work? There,— give it your hobby-horse: wheresoever you had it, I'll take out no work on't. CAS. How now, my sweet Bianca? how now? how now? OTн. By heaven, that should be my handkerchief! [Aside. BIAN. An you'll come to supper to-night, you may: an you will not, come when you are next prepared for. LAGO. After her, after her. [Exit. CAS. 'Faith I must, she'll rail in the street else. LAGO. Will you sup there? CAS. 'Faith, I intend so. LAGO. Well, I may chance to see you; for I would very fain speak with you. CAS. Pr'ythee, come; Will 6fitchew!] A pole-cat. PoPE. you? Shakspeare has in another place mentioned the lust of this animal. He tells Iago that she is as lewd as the polecat, but of better scent, the polecat being a very stinking animal. JOHNSON. By" another place," Dr. Johnson means-King Lear: "The fitchew, nor the soiled horse, goes to't "With a more riotous appetite." A polecat therefore was anciently one of the cant terms for a strumpet. STEEVENS. IAGO. Go to; say no more. [Exit CASSIO. OTH. How shall I murder him, Iago? LAGO. Did you perceive how he laughed at his vice ? OTH. O, Iago! LAGO. And did you see the handkerchief? OTH. Was that mine? LAGO. Yours, by this hand": and to see how he prizes the foolish woman, your wife! she gave it him, and he hath given it his whore. OTH. I would have him nine years a killing :A fine woman! a fair woman! a sweet woman! IAGO. Nay, you must forget that. ОTH. Ay, let her rot, and perish, and be damned to-night; for she shall not live: No, my heart is turned to stone; I strike it, and it hurts my hands. O, the world hath not a sweeter creature: she might lie by an emperor's side, and command him tasks. LAGO. Nay, that's not your way. ОTн. Hang her! I do but say what she is:-So delicate with her needle !—An admirable musician! O, she will sing the savageness out of a bear !-Of so high and plenteous wit and invention ! LAGO. She's the worse for all this. 7 Yours, by this hand :] This speech is not in the original quarto 1622. MALONE. 8 No, my heart is turned to stone; I strike it, and it hurts my hand.] This thought, as often as it occurs to Shakspeare, is sure to be received, and as often counteracts his pathos. So, in Antony and Cleopatra, Act IV. Sc. VIII. : 66 throw my heart Against the flint and hardness of my fault, "Which, being dried with grief, will break to powder, "And finish all foul thoughts." STEEVENS. 9 O, she will sing the savageness out of a bear!] So, in Venus and Adonis : when he hath sung 66 66 The tiger would be tame." MALONE. ОTH. O, a thousand, a thousand times :-And then, of so gentle a condition'! LAGO. Ay, too gentle. ОTH. Nay, that's certain:-But yet the pity of it, Iago!-O, Iago, the pity of it, Iago! LAGO. If you are so fond over her iniquity, give her patent to offend; for, if it touch not you, it comes near nobody. OTH. I will chop her into messes :-Cuckold me! OTH. With mine officer! Oтн. Get me some poison, Iago; this night I'll not expostulate with her, lest her body and beauty unprovide my mind again:- this night, Iago. IAGO. Do it not with poison, strangle her in her bed, even the bed she hath contaminated. OTH. Good, good: the justice of it pleases; very good. LAGO. And, for Cassio,-let me be his undertaker: You shall hear more by midnight. [A Trumpet within. OTH. Excellent good.-What trumpet is that same? LAGO. Something from Venice, sure. 'Tis Lo dovico, Come from the duke: and, see, your wife is with him. Enter LODOVICO, DESDEMONA, and Attendants. LOD. 'Save you, worthy general3 ! 1 - And then, of so gentle a CONDITION!] i. e. of so sweet a disposition. So, in King Henry V.: "Our tongue is rough, coz, and my condition is not smooth." MALone. 2 If you are so fond over her INIQUITY, GIVE HER PATENT TO OFFEND;] So, in King Edward III. a tragedy, 1596 : 'Why then give sin a passport to offend." MALONE. |