Then Desdemona says-- "How now, my lord? I have been talking with a suitor here, A man _that languishes in your displeasure_." I cannot listen to that line, even now, without a feeling of the heart-sickness of protracted time--"hope deferred maketh the heart sick"--_languishes!_ even unto death. I think of that fine line in Wordsworth-- "So fades--_so languishes_--grows dim, and dies." SEWARD. Poo! NORTH. Seward, the remark is a fine one. TALBOYS. Far on in this Scene, Othello says to Iago-- "If more thou dost perceive, let me know more: Set on thy wife to observe." Iago has not said that he had perceived anything, but Othello, greatly disturbed, speaks as if Iago had said that he had perceived a good deal; and we might believe that they had been a long time at Cyprus. Othello then says-- "This honest creature, doubtless, Sees and knows more, much more, than he unfolds." In all this, sir, we surely have a feeling of longish time. SEWARD. Poo! NORTH. Heed him not--English manners. We have-- TALBOYS. "O curse of marriage! That we can call those delicate creatures ours-- And not their appetites." This is the language of a some time married man--not of a man the morning after his nuptials. NORTH. The Handkerchief. TALBOYS. Ay--Emilia's words. "I am glad I have found this napkin; This was her first remembrance from the Moor-- My wayward husband hath a hundred times Woo'd me to steal it; but she so loves the token, (For he conjur'd her, she would ever keep it,) That she reserves it evermore about her, To kiss, and talk to." Here we have long time, and no mistake. Iago has wooed her to steal it a hundred times! When and where? Since their arrival at Cyprus. SEWARD. I don't know that. TALBOYS. Nor do I. But I say the words naturally give us the impression of long time. In none of his soliloquies at Venice, or at Cyprus on their first arrival, has Iago once mentioned that Handkerchief as the chief instrument of his wicked design--and therefore Emilia's words imply weeks at Cyprus,-- "What will you give me now For that same handkerchief? _Iago._ What handkerchief? _Emilia._ Why, that the Moor first gave to Desdemona; That which so often you did bid me steal." NORTH. Go on. TALBOYS. "What sense had I of her stolen hours of lust? I saw it not--thought it not--it harm'd not me-- _I slept the next night well_--was free and merry; I found not Cassio's kisses on her lips." Next night--night after night--many nights--many _wedded_ nights--long time at Cyprus. NORTH. And then Cassio's dream. TALBOYS. "I lay with Cassio--_lately_." Where, but at Cyprus? "Cursed fate! that _gave thee to the Moor_." SEWARD. Of that by-and-by. TALBOYS. Of that now. What? SEWARD. By-and-by. NORTH. Better be a dumb dog, Seward, than snarl so. TALBOYS.