Even now, now, very now, an old black ram BRA. What, have you lost your wits? ROD. My name is Roderigo. BRA. The worser welcome. I have charg'd thee not to haunt about my doors: To start my quiet. ROD. Sir, sir, sir,— BRA. But thou must needs be sure, My spirit and my place have in them power To make this bitter to thee. ROD. Patience, good sir. BRA. What tell'st thou me of robbing? this is Venice; My house is not a grange.a ROD. Most grave Brabantio, In simple and pure soul I come to you. LAGO. Zounds, § sir, you are one of those that will not serve God, if the devil bid you. Because we come to do you service, and you think we are ruffians, you'll have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse; you'll have your nephews neigh to you; you'll have coursers for cousins, and gennets for germans. 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 senator. BRA. This thou shalt answer; I know thee, Roderigo. ROD. Sir, I will answer any thing. But, I beseech you, If't be your pleasure and most wise consent (As partly I find it is) that your fair daughter, At this odd-even and dull watch o' the night, First folio, knaverie. (†) First folio, spirits. () First folio omits, now. this is Venice; My house is not a grange.] Grange, Warton remarks, is strictly and properly the farm of a monastery. But in Lincolnshire, and in other northern counties, they call every lone house, or farm which stands solitary, a grange. What Brabantio means, then, is,-I am in a populous city, not in a place where robbery can be easily committed. b — ruffians,-] Here ruffian is employed in its secondary sense of roisterer, swashbuckler, and the like, though its primary meaning undoubtedly was, pander; the Latin, "leno," the Italian "roffiano." Transported, with no worse nor better guard I thus would play and trifle with your reverence: Tying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes, Of here and everywhere. Straight satisfy yourself: Let loose on me the justice of the state BRA. Strike on the tinder, ho! Give me a taper!-call up all my people!— Belief of it oppresses me already. Light, I say! light! IAGO. [Exit from above. Farewell; for I must leave you: I must show out a flag and sign of love, Which is indeed but sign. That you shall surely find him, Lead to the Sagittary (1) the raised search; And there will I be with him. So, farewell. Enter, below, BRABANTIO, and Servants with torches. BRA. It is too true an evil: gone she is! (*) First folio, producted. (†) First folio, apines. [Exil. • Transported,-] That is, transported herself. Capell, however, inserts De before transported. c from the sense- - extravagant-] Vagabond. d-wheeling-] Mr. Collier's annotator proposes, wheedling; we should much prefer to read,— "6 —an extravagant and whirling stranger Of here and everywhere." • Straight satisfy yourself:] This line and the sixteen preceding lines are not in the quarto 1622. And what's to come of my despised time Is nought but bitterness.-Now, Roderigo, Where didst thou see her?-O, unhappy girl!— With the Moor, say'st thou ?-Who would be a father!— Past thought! What said she to you?-Get more tapers; ROD. Truly, I think they are. BRA. O, heaven!-How got she out?-O, treason of the blood!— Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters' minds By what you see them act.-Are there not charms BRA. Call up my brother.-O, would you had had her!Some one way, some another.-Do you know Where we may apprehend her and the Moor? ROD. I think I can discover him, if you please To get good guard, and go along with me. BRA. Pray you, lead on. At every house I'll call; On, good Roderigo;-I'll deserve your pains. SCENE II.-The same. Another Street. Enter OTHELLO, IAGO, and Attendants with torches. To do no contriv'd murder: I lack iniquity I had thought to have yerk'd him here under the ribs. IAGO. Nay, but he prated, And spoke such scurvy and provoking terms Against your honour, That, with the little godliness I have, I did full hard forbear him. But, I pray you, sir, Let him do his spite: (*) First folio, might. (+) First folio, or. [Exeunt. - his effect,-] His is employed for the then scarce known its, and refers to mouse, My services, which I have done the signiory, I would not my unhoused free condition Put into circumscription and confine, For the sea's worth. But, look! what lights come yond? You were best go in. Отн. Not I; I must be found; My parts, my title, and my perfect soul, Shall manifest me rightly. Is it they? Enter CASSIO, and certain Officers with torches. ОTH. The servants of the duke! and my lieutenant !— The goodness of the night upon you, friends! What is the news? CAS. And he requires your haste-post-haste appearance, Отн. The duke does greet you, general; What is the matter, think you? CAS. Something from Cyprus, as I may divine: It is a business of some heat; the galleys Have sent a dozen sequent messengers This very night at one another's heels; And many of the consuls, rais'd and met, Are at the duke's already. You have been hotly call'd for; The senate hath sent about three several quests To search you out. Отн. I will but spend a word here in the house, "T is well I am found by you. [Exit. and my demerits May speak, unbonneted, to as proud a fortune Demerit now signifies only ill desert; in Shakespeare's day it was used indiscriminately for good or ill deserving. In the present instance it is apparently employed in the good sense, for Othello could hardly mean that his blemishes might stand without concealment beside the dignity he had achieved. The import we take to be,-my services when revealed (unbonneted), may aspire or lay claim to (may speak to) as proud a fortune as this which I have attained. Mr. Fuseli, however, has given another explanation, founded on the fact that at Venice the bonnet has always been a badge of patrician honours-I am his equal or superior in rank; and were it not so, such are my demerits, that, unbonneted, without the addition of patrician or senatorial dignity, they may speak to as proud a fortune, &c. But here, too, it is indispensable for the integrity of the passage that "speak to be understood in the sense just mentioned of aspire, or lay claim to. CAS. Ancient, what makes he here? LAGO. Faith, he to-night hath boarded a land-carack;" If it prove lawful prize, he's made for ever. CAS. I do not understand. IAGO. CAS. He's married. To who? Re-enter OTHELLO. IAGO. Marry, to-Come, captain, will you go? CAS. Here comes another troop to seek for you. ОTH. Have with you. Enter BRABANTIO, RODERIGO, and Officers with torches. ROD. Signior, it is the Moor. BRA. Holla! stand there! Down with him, thief! [They draw on both sides. IAGO. You, Roderigo! come, sir, I am for you. Отн. Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.Good signior, you shall more command with years Than with your weapons. BRA. O, thou foul thief, where hast thou stow'd my daughter? Damn'd as thou art, thou hast enchanted her; For I'll refer me to all things of sense, ■ — a land-carack ;] A carack was a ship of large burden, like the Spanish galleon, but the compound in the text appears to have been a dissolute expression, the meaning of which may be gathered from the following: "Here to his Land-Friggat hee's ferried by Charon, He bords her: a service a hot and a rare one." Verses prefixed to Coryat's Crudities. If she in chains of magic were not bound,-] A line not found in the quarto 1622. curled darlings-] "Curled" was an epithet characteristic of gentility. Thus D'Avenant, in "The Just Italian," Act III. Sc. 1, "the curl'd and silken Nobles of the Town." The folio reads, "dearlings." That waken motion:-] So Hanmer; the original having, "That weakens motion," &c. The upholders of the old reading contend that Brabantio's accusation is that the Moor, by magical devices and the administering of drugs or minerals, had weakened those natural impulses of youth and maidhood in his daughter, which, uncontrolled, VOL. VI. ន |