THE HE action, passion, variety and pathos of "Othello" are wonderful in their wealth, and in their sympathetic quality; and dramatic genius will always find ample scope for its expression, in the Moor's lofty magnanimity and subsequent terrible anguish, and in Iago's concentrated, wily, diabolical intellect. Yet the total effect of the tragedy is hard, unrelieved, harrowing pain. Other great tragedies of Shakespeare may, indeed, saturate the observant mind with a tearful sense of desolation; but the feeling they leave, at last, is always exalted, and sometimes is sublime. "Othello," on the contrary, burdens the soul with unmitigated agony, and crushes it with a cruel, bitter sense of all that is wicked and hideous in possible human nature and conduct. subject is the darkest and most miserable that is known to humanity; and respecting that subject it displays the entire and unvarnished truth. The work, however, was needful to the completeness of Shakespeare's transcript of mankind; and-writing it without disguises-he has given voice to the greatest elemental passions that agitate the human race: and this he has done with a skilfulness of combination, a power of directness and simplicity, and a splendour of language which are invincible. For these reasons, 66 Othello," notwithstanding it covers our hearts with a pall, must always maintain its place at the head of the acted drama. It is the Its 4 foremost, the widest, the deepest, and the best existing analysis and picture, in all literature, of the passions of love and jealousy. It holds, indeed, the mirror up to nature. There is something awfully bleak in the clear atmosphere of truth that Shakespeare has herein shed upon the supreme ecstasy of happiness and the vileness and darkness of sensuality, mischief and murder. His eyes see everything; his thought comprehends all; his words take no gloss, but burn with the white fire of honesty. So clear has he been in his execution,— so accurate in mechanism and so terse and well-knit in style,—that, in adapting "Othello" for even the impatient and decorous stage of to-day, but little of its text needs to be cut, either to accelerate its movement or to soften its grossness. The present version, which gives the text as used by Edwin Booth, and as illustrated by his stage-business, will be found to differ somewhat from other stage-copies of the piece; to present certain novel features of treatment, which are thought to be improvements; and to be a full, adequate, correct, and satisfactory practical presentation of Shakespeare's magnificent work. The text of Charles Knight's standard edition, which is based on the Folio of 1623, has, with but little exception, been herein followed. Certain expatiative lines, and certain explanatory and reiterative passages-particularly in the Fourth Act-have been omitted. It has been thought best, because most direct and expeditious, to make the assassination of Cassio a subject of verbal and immediate agreement between Iago and Roderigo, and not to view it as a subject of epistolary discussion. The scene of the Willow Song, not usually acted, has been restored—in a condensed form. Those portions of the text which cannot, and should not, be spoken, have been either lopped away or suitably changed. The name of Paulo has been given to a Senator who participates in the colloquy that precedes the scene of the Council. Bianca and the Clown have been expunged. The hateful passages of Act Fourth, in which Iago still further poisons the already jealous mind of Othello, by making him overhear and misconstrue Cassio's talk of Bianca, were long ago found, in the representation, to be needless and tedious; and they are, accordingly, omitted. The sum of the excisions is about nine hundred lines. In the Appendix will be found a mass of commentary upon the tragedy,-much condensed,-which, it is hoped, the student will find useful. "Othello" was first acted in 1602, by the dramatic company from the Blackfriars and Globe, before Queen Elizabeth and her court, at Harefield; and Burbage was the original representative of the Moor. more recent time the character of Othello has become greatly and inseparably associated with the names of Edmund Kean, Edwin Forrest, and Thomas Salvini. New-York, June 27th, 1878. W. W. 5 |