LOD. O thou Othello, that waft once fo good, Fall'n in the practice of a curfed slave, What fhall be faid to thee? Отн. Why, any thing: An honourable murderer, if you will; For nought I did in hate, but all in honour. LOD. This wretch hath part confefs'd his villainy: Did you and he confent in Caffio's death? CAS. Dear general, I never gave you cause.® Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil, From this time forth I never will speak word. LOD. What? not to pray? GRA. Torments will ope your lips. OTH. Well, thou dost beft. LOD. Sir, you fhall understand what hath be fall'n, Which, as I think, you know not: Here is a letter, Found in the pocket of the flain Roderigo; 7 -in the practice-] In the fnare, by the ftratagem. See Vol. XIV. p. 121, n. 3. MALONE. JOHNSON. 8 Dear general, I never gave you caufe.] Our poet, probably without knowing it, has ufed the words of The Spanish Tragedy, 1605: "Hieronymo, I never gave thee caufe?" MALONE. This phrafe, a very familiar one, is alfo employed in p. 570, 1. 3 : Alas, the day! I never gave him caufe." STEEVENS. And here, another: the one of them imports By Roderigo. ОTH. O villain! CAS. Most heathenish, and moft grofs!" LOD. Now here's another difcontented paper, Found in his pocket too; and this, it feems, Roderigo meant to have fent this damned villain; But that, belike, Iago in the interim2 Came in and fatisfied him. And he himself confefs'd, but even now,3 Отн. O fool! fool! fool! CAS. There is, befides, in Roderigo's letter,How he upbraids Iago, that he made him Brave me upon the watch; whereon it came That I was caft: And even but now he fpake, After long feeming dead,-Iago hurt him, lago fet him on. Oth. O villain! Caf. Moft heathenifh, and moft grofs!] Read, for the fake of both fenfe and metre: 2 Oth. O villainy! Caf. Moft heathenish, and most gross! RITSON. in the interim-] The firft copy has,—in the nick. It was, I fuppofe, thought upon revifal, that nick was too familiar. JOHNSON. 3 — confefs'd, but even now,] The quarto, 1622, readsconfefs'd it even now. The folio-confefs'd it, but even now. The word it was manifeftly caught by the compofitor's eye glancing on the fubfequent line. MALONE. 7 LOD. You must forfake this room, and go with us; Your power and your command is taken of, 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 it; No more of that:-I pray you, in your letters, Richer than all his tribe; of one, whofe fubdu'd eyes, 4 Speak of me as I am;] The first quarto reads,-Speak of them as they are. The prefent reading, which is the reading of the folio, has more force. JOHNSON. 3. of one, whofe hand, Like the bafe Judean, threw a pearl away, Richer than all his tribe ;] I have restored Judian, from the elder quarto, as the genuine and more eligible reading. Mr. Pope thinks this was occafioned probably by the word tribe just after: I have many reafons to oppofe this opinion. In the first place, the moft ignorant Indian, I believe, is fo far the reverfe of the dungbill-cock in the fable, as to know the estimation of a pearl beyond that of a barley corn. So that, in that refpect, the thought itself would not be juft. Then, if our author had defigned to reflect on the ignorance of the Indian without any farther reproach, he would have called him rude, and not bafe. Again, I am perfuaded, as my friend Mr. Warburton long ago obferved, the phrafe is not Albeit unused to the melting mood," here literal, but metaphorical; and, by his pearl, our author very properly means a fine woman. But Mr. Pope objects farther to the reading Judian, because, to make sense of this, we must prefuppofe fome particular ftory of a Jew alluded to; which is much lefs obvious: but has Shakspeare never done this, but in this fingle inftance? I am fatisfied, in his Judian, he is alluding to Herod; who, in a fit of blind jealoufy, threw away fuch a jewel of a wife as Mariamne was to him. What can be more parallel in circumstance, than the conduct of Herod and Othello? Nor was the ftory fo little obvious as Mr. Pope feems to imagine: for, in the year 1613, the lady Elizabeth Carew publifhed a tragedy called MARIAM, the Fair Queen of JEWRY. I shall only add, that our author might write Judian, or Judean, (if that should be alledged as any objection) instead of Judean, with the fame licence and change of accent, as, in his Antony and Cleopatra, he shortens the fecond fyllable of Euphrates in pronunciation: which was a liberty likewife taken by Spenfer, of whom our author was a ftudious imitator. THEOBALD. Like the bafe Júdean,] Thus the folio. The first quarto, 1622, reads-Indian. Mr. Theobald therefore is not accurate in the preceding note, in his account of the old copies. MALONE. The elder quarto reads Judian, and this is certainly right. And by the Judian is meant Herod, whofe ufage to Mariamne is fo appofite to the fpeaker's cafe, that a more proper inftance could. not be thought of. Befides, he was the subject of a tragedy at that time, as appears from the words in Hamlet, where an ill player is defcribed, 66 to out-herod Herod.” The metaphorical term of a pearl for a fine woman, is so common as fcarce to need examples. In Troilus and Creffida, a lover says of his mistress, “There she lies a PEARL.”— And again, "Why fhe is a pearl, whofe price" &c. WARBURTON. I cannot join with the learned criticks in conceiving this paffage to refer either to the ignorance of the natives of India, in respect 6 — whose subdu'd eyes, Albeit unused to the melting mood,] So, in our poet's 30th Sonnet: "Then can I drown an eye unus'd to flow." MALONE. VOL. XV. U u Drop tears as faft as the Arabian trees of pearls, or the well-known ftory of Herod and Mariamne. The poet might juft as fairly be fuppofed to have alluded to that of Jephthah and his daughter. Othello, in deteftation of what he had done, feems to compare himfelf to another perfon who had thrown away a thing of value, with feme circumstances of the meanest villainy, which the epithet base seems to imply in its general fenfe, though it is fometimes used only for low or mean. The Indian could not properly be termed bafe in the former and most common fenfe, whofe fault was ig norance, which brings its own excufe with it; and the crime of Herod furely deferves a more aggravated distinction. For though in every crime, great as well as fmall, there is a degree of bafeneis, yet the furiis agitatus amor, fuch as contributed to that of Herod, feems to afk a ftronger word to characterize it; as there was spirit at least in what he did, though the fpirit of a fiend, and the epithet bafe would better fuit with petty larceny than royal guilt. Befides, the fimile appears to me too appofite almoft to be used on the occafion, and is little more than bringing the fact into comparifon with itself. Each through jealoufy had deftroyed an innocent wife, circumftances fo parallel, as hardly to admit of that variety which we generally find in one allufion, which is meant to illuftrate another, and at the fame time to appear as more than a fuperfluous ornament. Of a like kind of imperfection, there is an initance in Virgil, Book XI. where after Camilla and her attendants have been defcribed as abfolute Amazons: "At medias inter cædes exultat Amazon, “Unum exerta latus pugnæ pharetrata Camilla.— we find them, nine lines after, compared to the Amazons themfelves, to Hippolyta or Penthefilea, furrounded by their com panions: "Quales Threiciæ, cum flumina Thermodontis "Seu circum Hippolyten, feu cum fe martia curru What is this but bringing a fact into comparifon with itself? Neither do I believe the poet intended to make the prefent fimile coincide with all the circumftances of Othello's fituation, but merely with the fingle act of having bafely (as he himself terms it) destroyed that on which he ought to have fet a greater value. As the pearl may bear a literal as well as a metaphorical fenfe, I would rather choose to take it in the literal one, and receive Mr. Pope's rejected explanation, pre-fuppofing fome flory of a Jow alluded to, which might be well understood at that time, though now perhaps for |