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OTHELLO'S APOLOGY FOR HIS MARRIAGE.

1. Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,
My very noble and approved good masters,
That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter,
It is most true; true, I have married her;
The very head and front of my offending
Hath this extent, no more.

2.

Rude am I in speech,
And little bless'd with the set phrase of peace;
For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith,
Till now some nine moons wasted, they have us'd
Their dearest action in the tented field;
And little of this great world can I speak,

More than pertains to feats of broil and battle;
And therefore little shall I grace my cause,

In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,

I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver

Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms, What conjuration and what mighty magic,

(For such proceedings I'm charged withal,)

I won his daughter with.

3. Her father lov'd me; oft invited me ; Still questioned me the story of my life,

4.

From year to year; the battles, sieges, fortunes,
That I have pass'd.

I ran it through, even from my boyish days,
To the very moment that he bade me tell it.
Wherein I spoke of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents, by flood, and field;

Of hair-breadth 'scapes in the imminent deadly breach;
Of being taken by the insolent foe,

And sold to slavery; of my redemption thence,
And with it all my travel's history.

These things to hear,

Would Desdemona seriously incline:

But still the house affairs would draw her thence;
Which ever as she could with haste despatch,

5.

6.

She'd come again, and with a greedy ear
Devour up my discourse: which I observing,
Took once a pliant hour; and found good means
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart,
That I would all my prilgrimage dilate,

Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
But not attentively.

I did consent;

And often did beguile her of her tears,

When I did speak of some distressful stroke,
That my youth suffer'd. My story being done,
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs;

She swore,-In faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange;

"Twas pitiful, 'twas wonderous pitiful:

She wish'd she had not heard it; yet she wish'd
That heaven had made her such a man.

She thank'd me;

And bade me if I had a friend that lov'd her

I should teach him how to tell my story

And that would woo her. On this hint, I spake ;
She lov'd me for the danger I had pass'd;

And I lov❜d her, that she did pity them.

This only is the witchcraft I have us'd.-Shakspeare.

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The reader is referred to my observations relating to Othello in the chapter on emphatic pause. The apology is one of Shakspeare's best efforts. Othello was charged by Brobantio, Desdemona's father, with having "enchanted her," with "drugs," as a practiser of arts inhibited and out of warrant. 19 Upon that charge, he was apprehended and brought before the duke and senators. The duke inquired of Othello what, on his part, he could say to the charge; and the apology above given, was his answer. It should be read or recited in a pleasant and yet animated manner. That part of it in which he narrates the scenes through which he passed, requires rather a hurried rate of utterance. Where he says: "Little of this great world can I boast," it is better to make a gentle gesture with the right arm, than to extend both.

CATO'S SOLILOQUY ON THE IMMORTALITY OF

THE SOUL.

1. It must be so.-Plato, thou reasonest well!
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?

Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
Of falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'Tis the divinity that stirs within us

"T is heaven itself that points out an hereafter:
And intimates eternity to man.

2. Eternity!-thou pleasing, dreadful thought!
Through what variety of untried being,

Through what new scenes and changes must we pass?
The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me:
Here will I hold. If there's a power above us,
And that there is, all nature cries aloud

Through all her works, he must delight in virtue;
And that which he delights in, must be happy.

But when! or where! This world was made for Cæsar.
I'm weary of conjectures-this must end them.

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3. Thus I am doubly arm'd. My death and life,
My bane and antidote, are both before me.
This, in a moment, brings me to my end
But this informs me I shall never die.
The soul, secur'd in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years;
But thou shall flourish in immortal youth;
Unhurt amidst the war of elements,

The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds.-Addison.

Marcus Portius Cato, a distinguished Roman philosopher, general, and patriot, was born 94 years before Christ. After the battle of Pharsalia, he fled to Utica, in Africa; and, retiring to his apartment, read Plato on the Immortality of the Soul, twice over, and then, rather than to fall into the hands of Julius Caesar, by whom he was pursued, stabbed himself with his sword, and died at the age of 48. He thought, moreover, that the toils of life would be succeeded by a happy immortality. He ought not, however, to have committed suicide. Socrates was accustomed to

say, "That God has put us in this life, as in a post which we cannot quit without his leave." If an individual knew that death would be more agreeable than life, or that somebody else would take his life, unless he did it himself, even then suicide would not be justifiable. Cato certainly found nothing in Plato's writings in favor of it. He only found the glorious doctrine of the immortality of the soul maintained, by arguments which carried conviction of its truth to his mind. The "Soliloquy" is from the excellent Addison's Tragedy of Cato." It should be given deliberately; the countenance and voice should indicate that the mind is employed in solemn contemplation.

IMAGINARY MEETING OF SATAN, SIN, AND DEATH.

1. Meanwhile the adversary of God and man,
Satan, with thoughts inflamed of highest design,
Puts on swift wings, and towards the gates of hell,
Explores his solitary flight: sometimes.

He scours the right hand coast, sometimes the left;
Now shaves with level wing the deep, then soars
Up to the fiery concave towering high.

2. As when far off at sea, a fleet descried,
Hangs on the cloud, by equinoctial winds
Close sailing from Bengala, or the isles

3.

4.

Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring
Their spicy drugs; they, on the trading flood,
Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape,

Ply stemming nightly toward the pole: so seem'd
Far off the flying fiend.

At last appear

Hell bounds, high reaching to the horrid roof,

And thrice three-fold the gates; three folds were brass, Three iron, three of adamatine rock

Impenetrable, impaled with circling fire,

Yet unconsumed.

Before the gates there sat,

On either side, a formidable shape:

The one seem'd woman to the waist, and fair
But ended foul in many a scaly fold
Voluminous and vast; a serpent arm'd

5.

6.

With mortal sting; about her middle round,
A cry of hell-hounds never ceasing bark'd,
With wide Cerberian mouths full loud, and rung
A hideous peal.

Far less abhor'd than these,
Vex'd Scylla, bathing in the sea that parts
Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore;
Nor uglier follow the night hag, when, call'd
In secret, riding through the air she comes,
Lured with the smell of infant blood, to dance
With Lapland witches, while the laboring moon
Eclipses at their charms.

The other shape,
If shape it might be call'd that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb;
Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd,
For each seem'd either; black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,

And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head,
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.

7. Satan was now at hand, and from his seat
The monster moving onward, came as fast
With horrid strides; hell trembled as he strode.
The undaunted fiend what this might be, admired;
Admired, not feared; God and his Son except,
Created thing nought valued he, nor shunn'd;
And with disdainful look thus first began:

8. "Whence and what art thou, execrable shape!
That dar'st, though grim and terrible, advance
Thy miscreated front athwart my way
To yonder gates? through them I mean to pass,
That be assured, without leave ask'd of thee:
Retire or taste thy folly; and learn by proof,
Hell-born! not to contend with spirits of heaven.”
9. To whom the goblin, full of wrath, replied:
"Art thou the traitor-angel, art thou he

Who first broke peace in heaven, and faith, till then Unbroken; and in proud rebellious arms

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