This is perhaps the only insertion made in the latter editions which has improved the play. The rest seem to have been added for the sake of amplification, or of ornament. When the imagination had subsided, and the mind was no longer agitated by the horror of the action, it became at leisure to look round for specious additians. This addition is natural. Desdemona can at first hardly forbear to sing the song; she endeavours to change her train of thoughts, but her imagination at last prevails, and she sings it. IV.iii.41 (491,4) _Des._ "The poor soul sat singing by a sycamore-tree, "Sing all a green willow] This song, in two parts, is printed in a late collection of old ballads; the lines preserved here differ somewhat from the copy discovered by the ingenious collector. IV.iii.55 (491,5) _Des._ "I call'd my love false love; but what said "he then? "Sing willow, &c.] This couplet is not in the ballad, which is the complaint, not of a woman forsaken, but of a man rejected. These lines were probably added when it was accommodated to a woman. IV.iii.94 (493,6) our former having] Our former allowance of experience. IV.iii.107 (493,7) heaven me such usage send] --_heaven me such_ uses _send_,] Such is the reading of the folio, and of the subsequent editions; but the old quarto has, --_such_ usage _send_.-- _Usage_ is an old word for _custom_, and, I think, better than _uses_. V.i.11 (494,1) I have rubb'd this young quat _almost to the sense_] In some editions, _I've rubb'd this young_ gnat _almost to the sense, And he grows angry_.] This is a passage much controverted among the editors. Sir T. Hanner reads _quab_, a _gudgeon_; not that a gudgeon can be _rubbed_ to much _sense_, but that a man grossly deceived is often called a _gudgeon_. Mr. Upton reads _quail_, which he proves, by much learning, to be a very choleric bird. Dr. Warburton retains _gnat_, which is found in the early quarto. Theobald would introduce _knot_, a small bird of that name. I have followed the text of the folio, and third and fourth quartos. A _quat_ in the midland counties is a _pimple_, which by rubbing is made to smart, or is _rubbed to sense_. Roderigo is called a _quat_ by the same mode of speech, as a low fellow is now termed in lay language a _scab. To rub to the sense_, is _to rub to the quick_. V.i.37 (496,2) No passage?] No passengers? No body going by? V.i.42 (499,4) a heary night] A _thick cloudy_ night, in which an ambush may be commodiously laid.