422
NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. i. MAY 28,
be that befalls me, I am " in sure and certain
hope " that that pathway leads direct to the
City of Truth. J. B. S.
Manchester.
SHAKSPEARIANA.
1 OTHELLO,' I. i. 21 (5 th S. xi. 383 ; 9 th S. i. 83, 283). MR. SPENCE displays a fond parental pride in his misshapen bantling,
A fellow all must damn in affairs wise, but he must not be allowed to father such a line on Shakspeare. It is simply impossible that Shakspeare can have written it. " Wise affairs " does not sound like him, but " affairs wise " is out of the question. MR. SPENCE'S note is well answered by one of Mr. James Platt's, which appeared in another place on almost the same date. Mr. Platt says (Literary World, 8 April) :
" To my mind the line needs no emendation, but is as it stands one of the most suggestive in Eliza- bethan literature. It has at least one obvious meaning, and (like all the best Shakspearian lines) one or more complementary shades of sense. The obvious interpretation is that a fair wife may be a not unmixed blessing. The underlying suggestion is of the popular superstition that a man who is lucky in love will be unlucky in other things. The fact that the commentators have boggled over the line is simply due to the stupidity which is the badge of all their tribe." This was in answer to a suggestion that Shakspeare wrote
A fellow almost damina, fair wife That never set a squadron in the field,
an untenable hypothesis, as Mr. Platt says, because damina is accented on the middle syllable. C. C. B.
Perhaps the following passage from Tasso, 'Ger. Lib.,' x. 39, may help to throw some light on the possible meaning :
Orcano, uom d' alta nobilta famosa, E gia iiell' arme d' alcun pregio avante ; Ma or congiunto a yiovinetta sposa, E lieto omai de' figli, era invilito Negli affetti di padre e di marito. Compare the connexion in which the last three lines are quoted by Montaigne, ii. 8, Essay on ' The Affections of Fathers to their Children.' C. LAWRENCE FORD, B.A.
A few words as to one or two statements made by MR. SPENCE. The line in question may certainly be included in lago's tirade against Cassio. While the fact of agreeable manners or a pleasing exterior may be thereby admitted, to intimate that a man is of such a stripe as wanting only the opportunity to strike his friend through the honour of that friend's fair wife can hardly be considered as paying him a compliment. In the lines
quoted by MR. SPENCE (I. iii. 398) we do,
perhaps, find lago first consciously planning
- o make active use of the situation in order
- o advance his fortunes. We shall not, how-
ever, do lago's character any violence in inderstanding by
A fellow almost damn'd in a fair wife
- hat the thought of a liaison had occurred to
lim before. It was not contended in my >revious note that lago did more than throw ut a hint of this evil thought. It may be added that this line strikes a note that runs 11 through the play, similar to that in Hamlet '(I. i. 9)
And I am sick at heart.
EDWARD MERTON DEY. St. Louis.
' OTHELLO,' V. ii. 1 (9 th S. i. 283). It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul, Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars ! It is the cause.
VI R. MACALISTER would have us read " curse "
- or "cause," and he supposes that Othello
lad suddenly found the cause of Desdemona's infidelity in the "curse placed upon the fatal handkerchief." If this discovery was a ' pleasurable relief " to him, it was surely also a good reason why he should spare Desdemona's life. If she acted under a spell she was not a free agent, and therefore not responsible for anything she did. I believe that the difficulty which MR. MACALISTER and others have found in this passage they have made for themselves from putting the em- phasis on the wrong word on " cause " instead of on " It." Othello had placed him- self before the bar of conscience, and asked its verdict on the justice of the terrible deed he purposed to do. What did he deem the justifiable "cause" of what he now deter- mined to do ? The full and damning proof, as he thought he had, of Desdemona's guilt. " It" her proven guilt, " is the cause "; " it," he emphatically repeats, to confirm his fear- ful resolve, " it is the cause, my soul." Let MR. MACALISTER mark what follows :
Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars !
It is the cause.
What was there so vile that Othello would not affront the " chaste stars" by naming in their presence ? Was it his wife's unchastity or the fatal spell of the handkerchief? leave the answer to MR. MACALISTER. That he may learn that there are some commen- tators to whom this passage has presented no difficulty, I conclude with quoting those excellent commentators the late Mr. and Mrs. Cowden Clarke. Their note on the passage is as follows :
