* * * * * SC. 2. "Nor send you out of the way?--Never, _my lord_." * * * * * "Had it pleased Heavens To try me with afflictions, had they rained." The 4to reads 'had _he ruin'd_.' 'Heavens' is frequently used instead of Heaven. * * * * * "A fixed figure for the Time of scorn To point his slow unmoving finger at." This is the reading of the 4to; the folio has 'The' for 'A,' and '_and_ moving' for 'unmoving.' For 'Time' Rowe, who is generally followed, read _hand_; for 'slow unmoving' Mason read 'slow_ly_ moving'; Hunter read '_of_ the Time for scorn.' I, however, see no need of change. 'The Time of scorn' is the scornful age or world, a frequent sense of 'time'; and we should print "To point his slow--unmoving finger at," the latter term being a correction of the former. * * * * * "Made to write whore upon? What _sin_ committed?" So also in two succeeding lines of this speech, and in all a syllable is wanting. It is really amazing how such an omission--destructive alike of energy and of metre--could not only have been made by the printer, but remain unnoticed by all the editors. As _sin_ is wanting in both 4to and folio, it is clear that the former was printed from the latter, and not from a MS. In the last line I read 'hear _of_ it.' * * * * * SC. 3. "And bade me to dismiss you.--_To_ dismiss me!" * * * * * "She was in love, and he she lov'd prov'd mad And did forsake her." For 'mad,' which is certainly wrong, Theobald read _bad_, and I think he was right. 'Proved bad' answers to our present _turned out bad_. Regarding _bad_ as rather low and trivial, I read in my Edition _false_, as that is the term in the ballad. I thought 'mad' might have been suggested by 'maid' in the preceding line. ACT V. SC. 1. "And your unblest fate hies; strumpet, I come." As 'hies' is always, as far as I am aware, followed by some qualifying term, I add _on_ or with the 4to, 'apace.' * * * * * SC. 2. "Put out the light, and then ... put out the light!" I adopt this punctuation of Warburton's. He was going to say something further, but he stops, and contents himself with repeating his words. * * * * * "Should I repent me: but once put out thine." So the 4to; the folio for 'thine' has 'thy light,' which is far less effective. * * * * * "Oh, falsely, falsely murdered!" It would not be possible, in the whole compass of poetry, to find a more glaring absurdity than this of making Desdemona speak after she had been smothered. * * * * * "Like the base Indian threw a pearl away More worth than all his tribe."