We are fully sensible how much the Monimia of Racine in “Mithridates” is inferior to the Monimia of Mr. Thomas Otway; it is the same author who wrote “Venice Preserved”; it is a pity this “Venice Preserved” has not been translated with exactness; we are deprived of a senator who bites the legs of his mistress, who plays the dog, who barks, and is whipped out of doors; we should likewise have had the pleasure of seeing a scaffold, a wheel, a priest who comes to exhort Captain Pierre at his execution, and who is abused and bidden to go about his business by the latter; there are many other strokes of this nature, which the translator has omitted in compliance with our false delicacy.
We cannot sufficiently lament that the translator has, with the same cruelty, deprived us of the finest scenes of Shakespeare’s “Othello.” With what pleasure should we have seen the first scene at Venice, and the last at Cyprus! First of all, a Moor runs away with the daughter of a senator: Iago, the Moor’s officer, runs to the window of the father’s house; the father appears in his shirt at the window. “Zounds,” says he, “put on your clothes; a black ram has got upon your white ewe; come, come, rise and come down, or the devil will make you a grandsire.”
Senator.
— “What’s the matter, what would you be at? Are you a mad man?”
Iago.
— “Zounds, sir, are you one of those who would not serve God if the devil forbade them? We are come to do you a service, and you take us for ruffians; I tell you your daughter will be covered by a Barbary horse; your grandchildren will neigh after you, and African nags will be your cousins–german.”
Senator.
— “What profane rogue talks to me at this rate?”
Iago.
— “Know that your daughter Desdemona and the Moor Othello now make the beast with two backs.”
This same Iago accompanies to Cyprus the Moor Othello and the lady Desdemona, whom the senate of Venice kindly grants, in spite of the father, for a wife to the Moor, whom they appoint governor of Cyprus.
Scarcely have they arrived in that island, when Iago undertakes to make the Moor jealous of his wife, and to inspire him with a suspicion of her fidelity. The Moor begins to feel some inquietude, he makes the following reflections. “After all,” says he, “what sense had I of the pleasure that others had given her, and of her debauchery? I did not see it, it did not hurt me; I slept as well as usual. When a thing has been stolen from us of which we had no occasion, if we are ignorant of the theft, we have lost nothing. I had been happy if the whole army, and even the pioneers, had enjoyed her, so as I had known nothing of the matter. Oh no — farewell all content — farewell the plumed troops, farewell the proud war that makes a virtue of ambition; farewell the neighing steeds and the shrill trumpets; the fife that pierces the ear, and the drum that excites the courage, the royal banner; and all the rank, pride, pomp, and various circumstances of glorious war; and you, you mortal engines, whose rude throats imitate those of the immortal Jupiter; farewell, Othello has now no occupation.”
This is another of the admirable passages distinguished by Pope’s commas.
Iago.
— “Is it possible, my lord?”
Othello (taking him by the throat).
— “Villain, prove that my wife’s a whore, give me an ocular proof of it; or by the worth of the eternal soul of man, it would have been better for you, you had been born a dog.”
Iago.
— “This office by no means pleases me; but since I have gone so far through pure honesty and friendship for you, I will proceed. I lay the other night with your lieutenant Cassio; and could not sleep for the toothache. You cannot but know that there are people so loose of soul, that in their sleep they talk of their affairs; Cassio is one of these: he said in his sleep, ‘Dear Desdemona, let us be careful, let us hide our loves.’ In speaking, he took me by the hand, he patted me, he cried, ‘Oh, charming creature!’ he kissed me with transport, as if he had by the roots torn up kisses planted upon my lips, he put his thighs upon my legs, he sighed, he breathed short, he kissed me, he cried out, ‘Cursed fate which has given you to the Moor!’”
Upon these proofs, so very decently related, and the handkerchief of Othello, which Cassio had found by accident, the Moorish general strangles his wife in her bed; but he kisses her before he puts her to death. “Come,” says he, “die, thou whore.” “Ah, kill me to–morrow, let me live to–night,” says she. “Wretch, if you stir,” cries he. “Give me but one half hour,” says she. “No,” answers he. “After that I will delay you no longer; let me at least say my prayers,” says she. “No, it is too late,” answers Othello. He strangles her; and Desdemona, after she is strangled, cries out that she is innocent.
When Desdemona is dead, the senate recalls Othello: he is seized in order to be carried to Venice to take his trial. “Hold,” says he, “a word or two. Tell the senate, that one day at Aleppo I found a turbaned Turk, who beat a Venetian, and made a jest of the republic; I took by the beard, the circumcised dog, and smote him thus.” At these words he stabs himself.
A French translator, who has given us sketches of several English pieces, and among others, of the “Moor of Venice,” partly in verse, partly in prose, has not translated any of these important passages which we have laid before our readers; he makes Othello express himself thus:
L’art n’est pas fait pour moi; c’est un fard que je hais,
Dites leur qu’Othello plus amoureux que sage,
Quoique époux adoré, jaloux jusques à la rage,
Trompé par un esclave, aveuglé par l’erreur
Immola son épouse, & se perça le cœur.
Art I detest, I all disguise abhor.
Say that Othello, more in love than wise,
Imposed on by a slave, with error blind,
Murdered his wife, then pierced his guilty breast.
There is not a word of this in the original; “l’art n’est pas fait pour moi,” is taken from the tragedy of “Zaïre,” but the rest is not.
The reader now has it in his power to decide the dispute for pre–eminence between the tragedies of London and Paris.