Читать книгу The Shakespeare-Expositor - Thomas Keightley - Страница 34

Editions. 4to, 1622; in the folio, 1623. There is also a 4to, 1630; but it is of little value, as it was evidently made not from a MS., but from the two preceding editions with some conjectural emendations. To the 4to, 1622, is prefixed—as to Troilus and Cressida—an Epistle "from the Stationer [Thos. Walkley] to the Reader."

Date. From the Accounts of the Revels, we learn that this play was performed at Court, November 1st, 1604; and if the Egerton Papers, published by Mr. Collier, can be relied on, it had been performed before Queen Elizabeth. In them we meet as follows:—"6 August, 1602. Rewards to the vaulters, players, and dancers—of this x^li to Burbidge's players for Othello—lxiiii^li xviii^s x^d." "The part of the memorandum which relates to Othello," says Mr. Collier, "is interlined as if added afterwards." Mr. Halliwell asserts that Othello must have been written even before 1600; for in a MS. of that date, entitled The Newe Metamorphosis, &c., is a passage evidently, he thinks, imitated from "who steals my purse steals trash" in Othello. But, though Mr. Halliwell thinks otherwise, this passage may have been a later insertion; or it may be a mere coincidence, a thing much more common than is usually supposed. At all events Othello was written, at latest, in 1604. I know not if it has been observed that Voltaire evidently had Othello in his mind when writing his Zaïre.

Origin. The only known source of this play is a tale in the Hecatommithi of Cinthio; and as no English translation of it is known to have existed, the obvious and natural inference is that Shakespeare had read it in the original. There was, however, it seems, a French translation: Paris, 1584.