That with fome mixtures powerful o'er the blood,
Or with fome dram conjur'd to this effect,
He wrought upon her.

Duke. To vouch this 5, is no proof;

Without more certain and more overt teft",
Than these thin habits, and poor likelihoods
Of modern feeming, do prefer against him.
1. Sen. But, Othello, fpeak ;-

Did you by indirect and forced courses

Subdue and poifon this young maid's affections?
Or came it by request, and such fair question
As foul to foul affordeth?

Oth. I do befeech you,

Send for the lady to the Sagittary 3,
And let her speak of me before her father:
If you do find me foul in her report,
The truft, the office, I do hold of you","
Not only take away, but let your fentence
Even fall upon my life.

Duke. Fetch Defdemona hither.

Oth.Ancient, conduct them; you beft know the place.→ [Exeunt IAGO, and Attendants,

5 To vouch, &c.] The firft folio unites this fpeech with the preeeding one of Brabantio; and instead of certain reads wider.

STEEVENS.

6 -overt teft,] Open proofs, external evidence. JOHNSON. 7-thin babits,

Of modern feemings-] Weak fhew of flight appearance.

JOHNSON. So modern is generally ufed by Shakspeare. See Vol. III. p. 396; n. 6. and Vol. IV. p. 409, n. 8. MALONE. The first quarto reads:

Thefe are thin habits, and poore likelihoods

Of modern feemings you prefer against him. STEEVENS. 8 to the Sagittary,] So the folio here and in a former paffage, The quarto in both places reads-the Sagittar. MALONE.

The Sagittary means the fign of the fictitious creature so called, i. e an animal compounded of man and horfe, and armed with a bow and quiver. STEEVENS.

9 The truft, &c.] This line is wanting in the first quarto.

STEEVENS.

And

I

And, till fhe come, as truly as to heaven

I do confefs the vices of my blood,
So justly to your grave ears I'll prefent
How I did thrive in this fair lady's love,
And fhe in mine.

Duke. Say it, Othello.

Oth. Her father

Lov'd me; oft invited me; ftill queftion'd me
The ftory of my life, from year to year;

The battles, fieges, fortunes, that I have pafs'd.
I ran it through, even from my boyish days,
To the very moment that he bade me tell it.
Wherein I fpake of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents, by flood, and field;
Of hair-breadth fcapes i' the imminent deadly breach;
Of being taken by the infolent foe,

And fold to flavery; of my redemption thence,
And portance in my travel's hiftory 3:

Wherein

■ — as truly—] The first quarto reads, as faithful. STEEVENS. I do confefs, &c.] This line is omitted in the first quarto.

3 And portance, &c.] I have restored,

And with it all my travel's biftory:

from the old edition. It is in the rest,

And portance in my travel's biftory.

STEEVENS.

Rymer, in his criticism on this play, has changed it to portents, inftead of portance. POPE.

Mr. Pope has restored a line, to which there is little objection, but which has no force. I believe portance was the author's word in fome revifed copy. I read thus,

Of being

-fold to flavery, of my redemption thence, And portance in't; my travel's history.

My redemption from flavery, and behaviour in it.

JOHNSON.

I doubt much whether this line, as it appears in the folio, came from the pen of Shakspeare. The reading of the quarto may be weak, but it is fenfe; but what are we to understand by my demeanour, or my fufferings, (which ever is the meaning,) in my travel's biftory?

"The apprehenfion of his prefent portance,

MALONE.

❝ Which most gibingly, ungravely, he did fashion," &c.

H h 4

Spenfer

Wherein of antres vaft, and defarts idle,

Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whofe heads touch heaven, It was my hint to speak, fuch was the process;

Spenfer, in the third Canto of the fecond Book of the Faery Queen,

likewife ufes it:

"But for in court gay portaunce he perceiv'd." STEEVENS, 4 Wherein of antres vaft, &c.] Difcourfes of this nature made the fubject of the politeft converfations, when voyages into, and difcoveries of, the new world were all in vogue. So when the Baftard Faulconbridge, in King John, defcribes the behaviour of upstart greatnefs, he makes one of the effential circumstances of it to be this kind of table-talk. The fashion then running altogether in this way, it is no wonder a young lady of quality should be struck with the hiftory of an adventurer. So that Rymer, who profefiedly ridicules this whole circumstance, and the noble author of the Characteristics, who more obliquely fneers at it, only expofe their own ignorance. WARBURTON. Whoever ridicules this account of the progrefs of love, fhews his ignorance, not only of history, but of nature and manners. It is no wonder that, in any age, or in any nation, a lady, reclufe, timorous, and delicate, fhould defire to hear of events and fcenes which the could never fee, and fhould admire the man who had endured dangers, and performed actions, which, however great, were yet magnified by her timidity. JOHNSON.

5-and defarts idle,] Every mind is liable to abfence and inadvertency, elfe Pope [who reads-defarts wild,] could never have rejected a word fo poetically beautiful. Idle is an epithet ufed to exprefs the infertility of the chaotick ftate, in the Saxon tranflation of the Pentateuch. JOHNSON.

So, in the Comedy of Errors:

"Ufurping ivy, briar, or idle mofs."

Mr. Pope might have found the epithet wild in all the three last folios. STEEVENS.

The epithet, idle, which the ignorant editor of the fecond folio did not understand, and therefore changed to wild, is confirmed by another paffage in this act << either to have it steril with idleness, or manured with induftry." MALONE.

--

-antres Caves and dens. JOHNSON.

It was my hint to speak,] Thus the folio. The quarto, 1622 reads, It was my bent to fpeak. MALONE.

Hent occurs at the conclufion of the fourth A&t of Measure for Meafure. It is derived from the Saxon Hentan, and means, to take bold of so feize.

the graveft citizen

"Have bent the gates.

But in the very next page Othello says:

Upon this bint Ifpake.

It is certain therefore that change is unneceffary. STEEVENS.

And of the Cannibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads

Do grow beneath their fhoulders. These things to hear,
Would Desdemona feriously incline:

But ftill the houfe affairs would draw her thence;
Which ever as she could with hafte dispatch,
She'd come again, and with a greedy ear
Devour up my difcourfe : Which I observing,
Took once a pliant hour; and found good means

7

men whose beads

Do grow beneath their shoulders.] Of these men there is an account in the interpolated travels of Mandeville, a book of that time. JOHNSON.

The Cannibals and Anthropophagi were known to an English audience before Shakspeare introduced them. In the Hiftory of Orlando Furiofo, play'd for the entertuinment of Queen Elizabeth, they are mentioned in the very first scene; and Raleigh speaks of people whose heads appear not above their fhoulders.

Again, in the Tragedy of Locrine, 1595:

"Or where the bloody Anthropophagi

"With greedy jaws devour the wand'ring wights."

The poet might likewife have read of them in Pliny's Nat. Hift. tranflated by P. Holland, 1601, and in Stowe's Chronicle.

STEEVENS.

Our poet has again in The Tempeft mentioned "men whofe heads ftood in their breafts." He had in both places probably Hackluyt's Voyages, 1598, in view :-"On that branch which is called Caora, are a nation of people rubofe beades appeare not above their shoulders:they are reported to have their eyes in their fhoulders, and their mouthes in the middle of their breafts."

Raleigh alfo has given an account of men whofe heads do grow be neath their shoulders, in his Defcription of Guiana, published in 1596, a book that without doubt Shakspeare had read. MALONE.

and with a greedy ear

Devour up my difcourfe:] So, in Marlowe's Luft's Dominion, written before 1593:

"Hang both your greedy ears upon my lips;

"Let them devour my speech."

Again, in Spenfer's Faery Queene, B. VI. c. ix.

"Whyleft thus he talkt, the knight with greedy eare

"Hong still upon his melting mouth attent."

Iliacofque iterum demens audire labores

MALONE.

❝ Expofcit, pendetque iterum narrantis ab ore." Virg.

MASON.

Το

To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart,
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,
Whereof by parcels the had fomething heard,
But not intentively 9: I did confent;
And often did beguile her of her tears,
When I did fpeak of some diftressful stroke,
That my youth fuffer'd. My ftory being done,
She gave me for my pains a world of fighs':

She fwore,-In faith, 'twas ftrange, 'twas paffing strange; 'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:

She wifh'd, fhe had not heard it; yet the wifh'd

That heaven had made her fuch a man: fhe thank'd me; And bade me, if I had a friend that lov'd her,

I fhould but teach him how to tell my ftory,

And that would woo her. Upon this hint, I fpake:
She lov'd me for the dangers I had past;
And I lov'd her, that the did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have us'd;

Here comes the lady, let her witness it.

Enter DESDEMONA, IAGO, and Attendants. Duke. I think, this tale would win my daughter too. Good Brabantio,

9 But not intentively:-] Thus the eldeft quarto. The folio reads inftinctively. Perhaps it should be, diftinctively.

The old word, however, may ftand. Intention and attention were once fynonymous. So, in a play called The Ile of Gulls, 1633: "Grace! at fitting down they cannot intend it for hunger," i. e. attend to it. Defdemona, who was often called out of the room on the fcore of houfe-affairs, could not have heard Othello's tale intentively, i. e. with attention to all its parts.

Again, in Chapman's Verfion of the Odyffey, B. VIII.

For our fhips know th' expreffed minds of men;

"And will so most intentively retaine

"Their scopes appointed, that they never erre." STEEVENS. Shakspeare has already ufed the word in the fame fenfe in his Merry Wives of Windfor: "— fhe did courfe over my exteriors with such a greedy intention." See alfo Vol. VIII. p. 48, n. 4.

Diftinctively was the conjectural emendation of the editor of the fecond folio, who never examined a fingle quarto copy. MALONE.

1- a world of fighs :] It was kiffes in the later editions: but this is evidently the true reading. The lady had been forward indeed to give him a world of kiffes upon the bare recital of his story; nor does it agree with the following lines. POPE.

Sigbs is the reading of the quarto, 1622; kisses of the folio. MALONE.

Take