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I'll fetch the general's surgeon.-For you, mistress,

[TO BIANCA Save you your labour.-He that lies slain here,

Cassio,

Was my dear friend: What malice was between

you?

CAS. None in the world; nor do I know the

man.

LAGO. [TO BIAN.] What, look you pale ?—O, bear him out o'the air.

[CASSIO and ROD. are borne off. Stay you, good gentlewoman:-Look you pale, mistress ?

Do you perceive the gastness of her eye ?Nay, if you stare', we shall hear more anon:Behold her well; I pray you, look upon her;

8 good GENTLEMEN :] Thus the folio. The quarto reads -gentlewoman. STEEVENS.

That the reading of the quarto is right, may be collected from the situation and feelings of the parties on the scene. No reason can be assigned why Lodovico and Gratiano should immediately quit the spot where they now are, before they had heard from lago further particulars of the attack on Cassio, merely because Cassio was borne off: whereas, on the other hand, his mistress, Bianca, who has been officiously offering him assistance, would naturally endeavour to accompany him to his lodgings. MALONE.

There seems to me to be a very good reason assignable why these two gentlemen should immediately quit the spot on Cassio's being borne off, viz. to assist him or see him properly taken care of, rather than to stay and gratify their curiosity. Respect for the person appointed Othello's successor, if not personal regard, would, I should think, naturally have dictated such a proceeding, had they not been stopped by lago's desiring them not to go.

REED.

Iago stops Bianca under a pretended suspicion that she would endeavour to escape, and then proceeds in taunting language to accuse her of guilt. BOSWELL.

9.

the GASTNESS -] So the folio. The quartos readjestures. STEEvens.

I Nay, if you STARE,] So the folio. The quartos read-stirre,

STEEVENS.

Do you see, gentlemen? nay, guiltiness will speak, Though tongues were out of use 2.

Enter EMILIA.

EMIL. 'Las, what's the matter; what's the matter, husband?

LAGO. Cassio hath here been set on in the dark, By Roderigo, and fellows that are scap'd; He's almost slain, and Roderigo dead.

EMIL. Alas, good gentleman! alas, good Cassio! LAGO. This is the fruit of whoring.-Pr'ythee, Emilia,

Go know of Cassio where he supp'd to-night3:What, do you shake at that?

{

BIAN. He supp'd at my house; but I therefore shake not.

2

IAGO. O, did he so? I charge you, go with me.
EMIL. Fye, fye upon thee, strumpet!

3

guiltiness will speak,

Though tongues were out of use.] So, in Hamlet:

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For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak "With most miraculous organ." STEEVENS.

Pr'ythee, Emilia,

Go know of Cassio where he supp'd to-night :] In the last scene of the preceding Act Iago informs Roderigo, that Cassio was to sup with Bianca; that he would accompany Cassio to her house, and would take care to bring him away from thence between twelve and one. Cassio too had himself informed Iago, Act IV. Sc. I. that he would sup with Bianca, and Iago had promised to meet him at her house. Perhaps, however, here Iago chose to appear ignorant of this fact, conscious that he had waylaid Cassio, and therefore desirous of being thought ignorant of his motions during the evening. MALONE.

Yet, how happens it, that Bianca, instead of replying-He supp'd, &c. did not answer, addressing herself to Iago: "Why, you well know,

"He supp'd," &c? The former line being imperfect, some such words might have been omitted. Or, perhaps, our author was unwilling that Bianca should say, in the presence of Iago's wife, that he too had been of Cassio's supper-party; and hence this seeming inconsistency.

STEEVENS.

BIAN. I am no strumpet: but of life as honest, As you that thus abuse me.

EMIL.

As I? foh! fye upon thee! LAGO. Kind gentlemen, let's go see poor Cassio dress'd :

Come, mistress, you must tell us another tale.-
Emilia, run you to the citadel,

And tell my lord and lady what has happ'd.-
Will you go on, I pray ?-This is the night, [Aside.
That either makes me, or fordoes me quite *.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

A Bedchamber: DESDEMONA in bed asleep. A Light burning.

Enter OTHEllo.

OTH. It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul,— Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars' !—

4 or FORDOES me quite.] To fordo, is to undo, to ruin, to destroy. So, in Hamlet:

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did with desperate hand,

"Fordo its own life."

Again, in the Interlude of Jacob and Esau, 1578:

"If God were so pleased, I would that were fordonne."

5 It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul,

STEEVENS.

Let me not name it] The abruptness of this soliloquy makes it obscure. The meaning, I think, is this:-I am here (says Othello in his mind) overwhelmed with horror. What is the reason of this perturbation? Is it want of resolution to do justice? Is it the dread of shedding blood? No; it is not the action that shocks me, but "it is the cause, it is the cause, my soul; let me not name it to you, ye chaste stars! it is the cause." JOHNSON.

Othello, full of horror at the cruel action which he is about to perpetrate, seems at this instant to be seeking his justification, from representing to himself the cause, i. e. the greatness of the

It is the cause.-Yet I'll not shed her blood;
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
And smooth as monumental alabaster.

[Takes off his Sword. Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men'. Put out the light, and then put out the light":

provocation he had received. He may, however, mean-It is the cause of chastity and virtue, that I maintain. STEEVENS.

Surely Mr. Steevens's first explanation is the true one. There could be no reason why the cause of chastity and virtue should not be named to the chaste stars. Boswell.

6

you CHASTE stars] For the epithet-chaste, applied to the stars, there is perhaps no classical authority. Statius, when Achilles, disguised in a female habit, had proved his manhood on Deidamia, observes that

· risit chorus omnis ab alto

Astrorum, et tenera rubuerunt cornua Lunæ.

Hence we may infer that an occurrence offensive to the moon, was anciently supposed to put the less prudish stars (“ Diana's waiting-women") in good humour. STEEVENS.

7 Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men.] This is the second attempt of Othello to justify what he has undertaken. First he says, It is the cause, i. e. his own cause; now he is willing to suppose himself the preventer of mischief to others. STEEVENS.

* Put out the light, and then put out the light :] It should be thus printed:

"Put out the light, and then-Put out the light! " The meaning is, I will put out the light, and then proceed to the execution of my purpose. But the expression of putting out the light, bringing to mind the effects of the extinction of the light of life, he breaks short, and questions himself about the effects of this metaphorical extinction, introduced by a repetition of his first words, as much as to say,-But hold, let me first weigh the reflections which this expression so naturally excites.

WARBURTON.

This has been considered as a very difficult line. Fielding makes Betterton and Booth dispute about it with the author himself in the other world. The punctuation recommended by Dr. Warburton, gives a spirit to it which I fear was not intended. It seems to have been only a play upon words. To put the light out was a phrase for to kill. In The Maid's Tragedy, Melantius

says:

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-'Tis a justice, and a noble one,

"To put the light out of such base offenders." FARMER.

If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
I can again thy former light restore,

This phrase is twice used in Sidney's Arcadia, for killing a lady, p. 460 and 470, edit. 1633.

Again, in an unpublished play called The Second Maiden's Tragedy, by George Chapman, licensed by Sir George Buc, October 31st, 1611: (now in the library of the Marquis of Lansdowne, who honoured me with the use of it :)

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O soul of cunning!

"Came that arch subtlety from thy lady's counsel,
"Or thine own sudden craft? confess to me

"How oft thou hast been a bawd to their close actions,
"Or all thy light goes out." STEEVENS.

"Put out the light, and then put out the light." This is one of the passages to which I have alluded in a note on As You Like It, on the word quintaine (see the end of that play), in which, by a modern regulation, our poet's words have obtained a meaning, which in my opinion was not in his thoughts. Mr. Upton, I had imagined, was the first person who introduced the conceit in this line, which has been adopted since his book appeared, by pointing it thus:

"Put out the light, and then-Put out the light!" &c. but I have since discovered it in Ayres's Life of Pope.

I entirely agree with Dr. Farmer, that this regulation gives a spirit to this passage that was not intended. The poet, I think, meant merely to say,-"I will now put out the lighted taper which I hold, and then put out the light of life;" and this introduces his subsequent reflection and comparison, just as aptly, as supposing the latter words of the line to be used in the same sense as in the beginning of it, which cannot be done without destroying that equivoque and play of words of which Shakspeare was so fond.

There are few images which occur more frequently in his works than this. Thus, in King Henry VI. Part III. the dying Clifford says:

"Here burns my candle out, ay, here it dies." Again, in Macbeth :

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Out, out, brief candle!"

Again, in King Henry VIII.:

"This candle burns not clear; 'tis I must snuff it;
"Then out it goes."

Again, in his Rape of Lucrece :

"Fair torch, burn out thy light, and lend it not

"To darken her, whose light excelleth thine!

Let the words "put out her light," stand for a moment in the place of "darken her," and then the sense will run-" Burn out thy light, fair torch, and lend it not to put out her light, whose

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