THE TRAGEDY OF OTHELLO.

Preface.

The Early Editions. The First Edition of Othello was a Quarto, published in 1622, with the following titlepage:

"THE Tragedy of Othello, | The Moore of Venice. I As it hath beene diuers times acted at the | Globe, and at the Black-Friers, by | his Maiesties Seruants. | Written by William Shakespeare. | [Vignette] | LONDON, | Printed by N. O. for Thomas Walkley, and are to be sold at his | shop, at the Eagle and Child, in Brittans Bursse. | 1622.” *

In 1623 appeared the First Folio, containing Othello among the "Tragedies" (pp. 310-339); the text, however, was not derived from the same source as the First Quarto; an independent MS. must have been obtained. In addition to many improved readings, the play as printed in the Folio contained over one hundred and fifty verses omitted in the earlier edition, while, on the other hand, ten or fifteen lines in the Quarto were not represented in the Folio version. Thomas Walkley had not resigned his interest in the play; it is clear from the Stationers' Regis* Prefixed to this First Quarto were the following lines:"The Stationer to the Reader.

"To set forth a booke without an Epistle, were like to the old English prouerbe, A blew coat without a badge, & the Author being dead, I thought good to take that piece of worke upon mee: To commend it, I will not, for that which is good I hope cuery man will commend, without interaty: and I am the bolder, because the author's name is sufficient to vent his worke. Thus leauing euery one to the liberty of iudgement: I haue ventered to print this play, and leaue it to the generall censure. Yours, Thomas Walkley."

ter that it remained his property until March 1st, 1627 (i.e. 1628) when he assigned "ORTHELLO the More of Venice" unto Richard Hawkins, who issued the Second Quarto in 1630. A Third Quarto appeared in 1655; and later Quartos in 1681, 1687, 1695.

The text of modern editions of the play is based on that of the First Folio, though it is not denied that we have in the First Quarto a genuine play-house copy; a notable difference, pointing to the Quarto text as the older, is its retention of oaths and asseverations, which are omitted or toned down in the Folio version.

Date of Composition. This last point has an important bearing on the date of the play, for it proves that Othello was written before the Act of Parliament was issued in 1606 against the abuse of the name of God in plays. External and internal evidence seem in favour of 1604 as the birth-year of the tragedy, and this date has been generally accepted since the publication of the Variorum Shakespeare of 1821, wherein Malone's views in favour of that year were set forth (Malone had died nine years before the work appeared). After putting forward various theories, he added:-"We know it was acted in 1604, and I have therefore placed it in that year." For twenty years scholars sought in vain to discover upon what evidence he knew this important fact, until at last, about the year 1840, Peter Cunningham announced his discovery of certain Accounts of the Revels at Court, containing the following item:

"By the King's 'Hallamas Day, being the first of Nov, Matis Plaiers. A play at the bankettinge House att Whitehall, called the Moor of Venis

[1604].'"*

We now know that this manuscript was a forgery, but strange to say, there is every reason to believe that though 'the book' itself is spurious, the information which it

*v. Shakespeare Society Publications, 1842.

yields is genuine, and that Malone had some such entry in his possession when he wrote his emphatic statement (vide Grant White's account of the whole story, quoted in Furness' Variorum edition; cp. pp. 351-357).

The older school of critics, and Malone himself at first, assigned the play to circa 1611 on the strength of the lines, III. iv. 46, 47:—

'The hearts of old gave hands;

But our new heraldry is hands not hearts,

which seemed to be a reference to the arms of the order of Baronets, instituted by King James in 1611; Malone, however, in his later edition of the play aptly quoted a passage from the Essays of Sir William Cornwallis, the younger, published in 1601, which may have suggested the thought to Shakespeare:-" They (our forefathers) had wont to give their hands and their hearts together, but we think it a finer grace to look asquint, our hand looking one way, and our heart another."

The Original Othello. From the elegy on the death of Richard Burbage in the year 1618, it appears that the leading character of the play was assigned to this most famous actor:

"But let me not forget one chiefest part

Wherein, beyond the rest, he mov'd the heart,
The grievèd Moor, made jealous by a slave,
Who sent his wife to fill a timeless grave,
Then slew himself upon the bloody bed.

All these and many more with him are dead." *

The Source of the Plot. The story of 'Il Moro di Venezia' was taken from the Heccatommithi of the Italian novelist Giraldi Cinthio; it is the seventh tale of the third decade, which deals with The unfaithfulness of Husbands and Wives." No English translation of the novel

*v. Ingleby's Centurie of Prayse (New Shak. Soc.), 2nd edition, p. 131, where the elegy is discussed, and a truer version printed.

existed in Shakespeare's time (at least we know of none), but a French translation appeared in the year 1584, and through this medium the work may have come to England. Cinthio's novel may have been of Oriental origin, and in its general character it somewhat resembles the tale of The Three Apples in The Thousand and One Nights; on the other hand it has been ingeniously maintained that “a certain Christophal Moro, a Luogotenente di Cipro, who returned from Cyprus in 1508, after having lost his wife, was the original of the Moor of Venice of Giraldi Cinthio." "Fronting the summit of the Giants' Stair,' writes Mr. Rawdon Brown, the author of this theory, "where the Doges of Venice were crowned, there are still visible four shields spotted with mulberries (strawberries in the description of Desdemona's handkerchief), indicating that that part of the palace portal on which they are carved was terminated in the reign of Christopher Moro, whose insignia are three mulberries sable and three bends azure on a field argent; the word Moro signifying in Italian either mulberry-tree or blackamoor." Perhaps Shakespeare learnt the true story of his Othello from some of the distinguished Venetians in England; “Cinthio's novel would never have sufficed him for his Othello" (vide Furness, pp. 372-389. Knowing, however, Shakespeare's transforming power, we may well maintain that, without actual knowledge of Christopher Moro's history, he was capable of creating Othello from Cinthio's savage Moor, Iago from the cunning cowardly ensign of the original, the gentle lady Desdemona from the virtuous lady of marvellous beauty, named Disde*The title of the novel summarises its contents as follows:A Moorish Captain takes to a wife a Venetian Dame, and his Ancient accuses her of adultery to her husband: it is planned that the Ancient is to kill him whom he believes to be the adulterer: the Captain kills the woman, is accused by the Ancient, the Moor does not confess, but after the infliction of extreme torture, is banished; and the wicked Ancient, thinking to injure others, provided for himself a miserable death."

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mona (i.e. the hapless one'),"* who is beaten to death "with a stocking filled with sand," Cassio and Emilia from the vaguest possible outlines. The tale should be read side by side with the play by such as desire to study the process whereby a not altogether artless tale of horrort has become the subtlest of tragedies-" perhaps the greatest work in the world."‡ "The most pathetic of human compositions."§

'Dreams, Books, are each a world: and books, we know,

Are a substantial world, both pure and good;

Round them with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,

Our pastime and our happiness will grow.

There find I personal theme, a plenteous store,

Matter wherein right voluble I am,

To which I listen with a ready ear;

Two shall be named pre-eminently dear,

The gentle Lady married to the Moor;

And heavenly Una, with her milk-white Lamb."

*This is the only name given by Cinthio. Steevens first pointed out that "Othello" is found in Reynold's God's Revenge against Adultery, standing in one of his arguments as follows:-" She marries Othello, an old German soldier." The name "Iago" also occurs in the book. It is also found in "The first and second part of the History of the famous Euordanus, Prince of Denmark. With the strange adventures of Iago, Prince of Saxonie: and of both their several fortunes in Love. At London, 1605."

† Mrs. Jameson rightly calls attention to a striking incident of the original story:-Desdemona does not accidentally drop the handkerchief: it is stolen from her by Iago's little child, an infant of three years old, whom he trains and bribes to the theft. The love of Desdemona for this child, her little playfellow-the pretty description of her taking it in her arms and caressing it, while it profits by its situation to steal the handkerchief from her bosom, are well imagined and beautifully told, etc.

Macaulay.

§ Wordsworth-" The tragedy of Othello, Plato's records of the last scenes in the career of Socrates, and Izaak Walton's Life of George Herbert are the most pathetic of human compositions." (A valuable summary of criticisms, English and foreign, will be found in Furness's Othello, pp. 407-453.)