Part 41 (1/2)

Why '_For_ I fear Ca.s.sio,' etc.? He can hardly be giving himself an additional reason for involving Ca.s.sio; the parenthesis must be explanatory of the preceding line or some part of it. I think it explains 'rank garb' or 'right garb,' and the meaning is, 'For Ca.s.sio _is_ what I shall accuse him of being, a seducer of wives.' He is returning to the thought with which the soliloquy begins, 'That Ca.s.sio loves her, I do well believe it.' In saying this he is unconsciously trying to believe that Ca.s.sio would at any rate _like_ to be an adulterer, so that it is not so very abominable to say that he _is_ one.

And the idea 'I suspect him with Emilia' is a second and stronger attempt of the same kind. The idea probably was born and died in one moment. It is a curious example of Iago's secret subjection to morality.

NOTE R.

REMINISCENCES OF _OTh.e.l.lO_ IN _KING LEAR_.

The following is a list, made without any special search, and doubtless incomplete, of words and phrases in _King Lear_ which recall words and phrases in _Oth.e.l.lo_, and many of which occur only in these two plays:

'waterish,' I. i. 261, appears only here and in _O._ III. iii. 15.

'fortune's alms,' I. i. 281, appears only here and in _O._ III. iv. 122.

'decline' seems to be used of the advance of age only in I. ii. 78 and _O._ III. iii. 265.

'slack' in 'if when they chanced to slack you,' II.

iv. 248, has no exact parallel in Shakespeare, but recalls 'they slack their duties,' _O._ IV. iii. 88.

'allowance' (=authorisation), I. iv. 228, is used thus only in _K.L._, _O._ I. i. 128, and two places in _Hamlet_ and _Hen. VIII._

'besort,' vb., I. iv. 272, does not occur elsewhere, but 'besort,' sb., occurs in _O._ I. iii. 239 and nowhere else.

Edmund's 'Look, sir, I bleed,' II. i. 43, sounds like an echo of Iago's 'I bleed, sir, but not killed,' _O._ V. ii. 288.

'potential,' II. i. 78, appears only here, in _O._ I. ii. 13, and in the _Lover's Complaint_ (which, I think, is certainly not an early poem).

'poise' in 'occasions of some poise,' II. i. 122, is exactly like 'poise' in 'full of poise and difficult weight,'

_O._ III. iii. 82, and not exactly like 'poise' in the three other places where it occurs.

'conjunct,' used only in II. ii. 125 (Q), V.

i. 12, recalls 'conjunctive,' used only in _H_. IV.

vii. 14, _O._ I. iii. 374 (F).

'grime,' vb., used only in II. iii. 9, recalls 'begrime,' used only in _O._ III. iii. 387 and _Lucrece_.

'unbonneted,' III. i. 14, appears only here and in _O._ I. ii. 23.

'delicate,' III. iv. 12, IV. iii. 15, IV. vi. 188, is not a rare word with Shakespeare; he uses it about thirty times in his plays. But it is worth notice that it occurs six times in _O._

'commit,' used intr. for 'commit adultery,' appears only in III. iv. 83, but cf. the famous iteration in _O._ IV. ii. 72 f.

'stand in hard cure,' III. vi. 107, seems to have no parallel except _O._ II. i. 51, 'stand in bold cure.'

'secure'=make careless, IV. i. 22, appears only here and in _O._ I. iii. 10 and (not quite the same sense) _Tim._ II. ii. 185.

Albany's 'perforce must wither,' IV. ii. 35, recalls Oth.e.l.lo's 'It must needs wither,' V. ii. 15.

'deficient,' IV. vi. 23, occurs only here and in _O._ I. iii. 63.