To make this bitter to thee. Rod. Patience, good Sir. Bra. What tell'st thou me of robbing? This is Venice, My houfe is not a grange. Rod. Moft grave Brabantio, In fimple and pure foul, I come to you. Iago. Sir, you are one of those that will not serve God, if the Devil bid you. Because we come to do you fervice, you think we are ruffians. You'll have your daughter cover'd with a Barbary horse, you'll have your nephews neigh to you; you'll have courfers for coufins, and gennets for germanes. Bra. What profane wretch art thou? Iago. I am one, Sir, that comes to tell you, your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs. Bra. Thou art a villain. lago. You are a fenator. Bra. This thou fhalt anfwer. I know thee, Rodo rigo. Rod. Sir, I will answer any thing. But I beseech you, * If't be your pleasure and most wife consent, What profane wretch art thou? That is, what wretch of grofs and licentious language? In that fenfe Shakespeare often ufes the word profane. The lines printed in Italicks Y 3 are not in the first edition, but in the folio of 1623. 3-this odd ev n-] The even of night is midnight, the time when night is divided into even parts. But But if you know not this, my manners tell me, We have your wrong rebuke Do not believe, That from the fenfe of all civility I thus would play and trifle with your reverence. Bra. Strike on the tinder, ho! Give me a taper. Call up all my people. Light! I fay, light! lago. Farewel; for I must leave you. It seems not meet, nor wholefome to my place, Against the Moor. For I do know, the State, To lead their bufinefs. In which regard, I muft fhew out a flag and fign of love: Which is, indeed, but fign. That you may furely find him, Lead to the Sagittary the rais'd search; And there will I be with him. So, farewel. [Exit. buke. -fome cleck,] Some re 5-caf him.-] That is, dif miss him; reject him. We ftill fay, a cat coat, and a cast serv ing man. SCENE SCENE III. Enter Brabantio, and fervants with torches. ; Bra. It is too true an evil. Gone the is With the Moor, faidft thou? Who would be a father? How didft thou know 'twas fhe? Oh, thou deceiv'ft me Paft thought. What faid the to you?-Get more tapers, Raife all my kindred.-Are they married, think Bra. Oh heaven! how gat fhe out? Oh treafon of my blood! you? Fathers, from hence truft not your daughters' minds By what you fee them act. Are there not charms, 7 ? By which the property of youth and maidhood May be abus'd? Have you not read, Rodorigo, Of fome fuch thing? Rod. Yes, Sir, I have, indeed. Bra. Call up my brother.-Oh, 'would you had had her. -Some one way, fome another-Do you know Bra. Pray you, lead on. At ev'ry house I'll call, On, good Rodorigo, I'll deferve your pains. [Exeunt. SCENE IV. Changes to another STREET, before the Sagittary. Enter Othello, Iago, and attendants with Torches. Iago. HO' in the trade of war I have flain men, 8 Yet do I hold it very ftuff o' th' conscience To do no contriv'd murder. I lack iniquity I thought to've jerk'd him here under the ribs, Iago. Nay, but he prated, And fpoke fuch scurvy and provoking terms That, with the little godlinefs I have, I did full hard forbear him. But I pray, Sir, 3 fluff o' th' confcience] This expreffion to common readers appears harth. Stuff of the confcience is, fubftance, or effence, of the confcience. Stuff is a word of great force in the Teutonick languages. The elements are called in Dutch, boefd ftoffen, or head fluffs. That That the Magnifico is much belov'd, As double as the Duke's: he will divorce you, Oth. Let him do his fpight: My fervices, which I have done the Signory, 9 As double as the Duke's :-] Rymer feems to have had his eye on this paffage, amongst others, where he talks fo much of the impropriety and barbarity in the ftyle of this play. But it is an elegant Grecifm. As double fignifies as large, as extenfive; for thus the Greeks ufe dins. Diofc. 1. 2. c. 213. And in the fame manner and conftruction, the Latins fometimes ufed duplex. And the old French writers fay, La plus double. Dr. Bentley has been as fevere on Milton for as elegant a Grecism, Yet Virgin of Proferpina from Jove. lib. 9. ver. 396. 'Tis an imitation of the Пapor in baráμs of Theocritus for an unmarried virgin. WARB. This note has been much cenfured by Mr. Upton, who denies, that the quotation is in Diofcrides, and difputes, not without reason, the interpretation of Theocritus. All this learning, if it had even been what it endeavours to be thought, is, in this place, fuperfluous. There is no ground of fuppofing, that our author copied or knew the Greek phrafe; nor does it follow, that, because a word has two fenfes in one language, the word which in another anfwers to one fenfe, should anfwer to both. Manus, in Latin, fignifies both a band and troop of Soldiers, but we cannot say, that the captain marched at the head of his hand; or, that he laid his troop upon his fword. It is not always in books that the meaning is to be fought of this writer, who was much more acquainted with naked reafon and with living manners. Double has here its natural fenfe. The prefident of every deliberative affembly has a double voice. In our courts, the chief juftice and one of the inferiour judges, prevail over the other two, because the chief justice has a double voice. Brabantio had, in his effect, tho' not by law yet by weight and influence, a voice not actual and formal, but potential and operative, as double, that is, a voice that when a queftion was fufpended, would turn the balance as effectually as the Duke's. Potential is ufed in the fenfe of science; a cauftick is called potential fire. Shall |