porary authors, the date of whose works happens to be known, so that we can prove the one by the other; (c) Internal (1) diction, simple at first, then more elaborate and complicated, thought following thought in such quick succession as to block the sentences; (2) Metre, the gradual disappearance of rhyme; (3) Freedom gradually increasing as to lines unstopped at the end, and in the use of light endings (auxiliary verbs, pronouns, &c.) and weak endings (prepositions and conjunctions connected with the following line); (4) The habit of punning is dropped. In applying these tests to Othello we find (a) A suspicious entry in the "account of the Revels at Court" to the effect that a play called the Moor of Venis 66 was performed on Kallamas Day being the first of November at the bankettinge house att Whitehall" [1604]. Though seen by the Duke of Wurtemburg at the Globe in 1610, and acted before the king in 1613, it was not registered till 1621, nor printed till 1622. (b) The misleading passage – "Our new heraldry is hands, not hearts" (iii. 4, 47), which some have wrongly taken as a reference to the arms of Baronets (instituted 1611); also possible allusions to Raleigh's Discovery of Guiana, 1600, and to Holland's Translation of Pliny, 1601, in the simile of the Pontic sea. (iii. 3, 453.) 66 (c) The proportion of rhymes to the whole play, 86 to 2672, is very nearly the same as in Hamlet and Lear; while the fact that there are only 2 "light" and no "weak" endings precludes us from ranking this play with those of the fourth period, in which such endings abound, the former amounting to 42 and 78 in Tempest and Cymbeline respectively, the latter to 25 and 42. Again the plays of this last group end in "reconciliation and peace" (Stokes); and herein alone we have sufficient reason for rejecting the heraldry argument, as to which may be ventured a guess that the allusion contained in this passage was merely an allusion to the arms of the wife being united to those of the husband-heraldry is used by Shakspere as equal to union (of colours, Lucr.)— or possibly an after-thought of the author's on the reproduction of the play in 1613. The play then belongs to the third period, and its probable date is 1604. For the beginner to learn the principles by which the order of the plays can be approximately fixed, is more important than for him to learn by a mere effort of memory a particular date. The basis of his plot the poet found in an Italian novel contained in the Hecatommitti (Hundred Tales) of Geraldo Cinthio (edition 1565), which was done into French in 1584. Upon this novel Shakspere felt himself free to improve.* (In the case of historical facts, as in Julius Cæsar, it is well observed by Gervinus, that he gives proof of his art in restraining his fancy, and closely following his authority.) It has been urged, as an objection against the perfection of the plot, that Shakspere has made the punishment of the daughter's elopement far heavier than justice demands, or at least than nineteenth century justice would demand. "We stumble at the heavy punishment of the lovers." Herein we may be wrong, and Shakspere (always "free from the prejudices of his age") may be right. Parental checks upon children's freedom as to marriage may cause misery in some cases; the wilfulness of the child causes misery in many more. "Men who disturb the peace of a family are little calculated to maintain peace in their own." On the other side, deceit once practised may be tried again; there would always be fear that e.g. Act i. 3, 230 note. passion once uncontrolled might never be absolutely in certain subjection. The result is misery for every one concerned. The poet has to bring before us, as brought by jealousy to destroy the objects of his love, not a drunkard in a fit of mad frenzy, but a man who excites so much interest in our minds that even after the murder we feel pity for him; a man who since his "arms had seven years' pith " had been trained in the "tented field;" a man for whom "The tyrant custom Had made the flinty and steel couch of war My thrice-driven bed of down. I do agnize a man who had acquired such a balance of conduct that he could speak as he does in act i. scene 3, 260 sq. Yet in the particular point on which he prides himself in this passage we find him not entirely consistent. On meeting Desdemona at Cyprus (ii. 1, 190 sq.) he is losing his balance. and- "Not another comfort like to this "Oh, my sweet, I prattle out of fashion, and I dote An unexpected shock might upset his equilibrium entirely, and then "All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven." He is credulous, even to believing in enchantments and mummies conserved of maiden's hearts, and his "southern fancy" had seen cannibals and anthropophagi. "And men whose heads Do grow beneath their shoulders." Place this "simple and magnificent" nature in the way of an Iago, stung by a grievance or two, and the result begins to be foreseen even by the least experienced in tragedy. First mark Iago's double character, which, having fully persuaded himself of his own honesty, he forgets to keep within bounds, To Othello "Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, Is the immediate jewel of their souls. Who steals my purse steals trash; But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him, And makes me poor indeed." But to Cassio "As I am an honest man I thought you had received some bodily wound; there is more sense in that than in reputation. Reputation is an idle and most false imposition," &c. And that his audience may the earlier understand his baseness, the curtain rises on his incapacity to admire fidelity "Whip me, such honest knaves." While those that "Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves. But he is worse than the man who ingratiates himself with both sides by his double face; worse than the man who is actuated by the desire to strike at the backs of those who pass by him on fortune's road. He is "devoid of all faith in beauty and in virtue," and is so far like him who accuseth our brethren day and night that Othello may well "Look down towards his feet." "Virtue is a fig." "Didst thou not see her paddle with the palm of his hand?" And this from a man of eight and twenty! * But it is, as Gervinus points out, in the first scene of act v. that he outdoes himself; he sees his way to "killing two birds with one stone; he excites Roderigo against Cassio; he sees Roderigo fall; he hears that Cassio's coat is proof against a thrust, and gives him a wound in the leg; immediately afterwards he reappears in his shirt, and stabs the hitherto only wounded Roderigo, reflecting that if repentant he might confess everything." This readiness of device bewilders us; we do not grasp it at the first reading. Desdemona's charms are sung not once nor twice in the play. She is conquered by the unlikeness of the Moor to the supersubtle Venetians and to herself, and every male reader must envy the Moor his listener, who "Would come again, and with a greedy ear Devour up his discourse." But she helps on the course of the tragedy by ill-timed advocacy of Cassio (iii. 4, 90 sq.), and indiscreet, yet perfectly innocent, acts and words. (iv. 1, 244 and 2, 70.) Her match is fatal to her father, who yet is spared the last sight which would make him curse his better angel from his side. (v. 2, 204.) Emilia is by no means a walking lady. She is thoughtless, and even worse, about the handkerchief; but at the close she helps considerably to enlighten the Moor, and by her own death she expiates her fault. Roderigo is less deceived by Iago than is Othello. He comes back dissatisfied and distrustful again and again. Contrast Iago with Othello. Iago lives a life from which every notion of the good and pure is banished. Iago suspects his wife, and lives on with "intensified malignity." Othello suffers agony in thinking ill of Desdemona, and * Act i. 3, 313 note. |