ible position: and I can make all safe by using language that
implies that Othello has after all been married for some time. If so,
probably he was right. I do not think anyone does notice the
impossibilities either in the theatre or in a casual reading of the
play.

Either of these suppositions is possible: neither is, to me, probable.
The first seems the less unlikely. If the second is true, Shakespeare
did in _Othello_ what he seems to do in no other play. I can believe
that he may have done so; but I find it very hard to believe that he
produced this impossible situation without knowing it. It is one thing
to read a drama or see it, quite another to construct and compose it,
and he appears to have imagined the action in _Othello_ with even more
than his usual intensity.

NOTE J.

THE 'ADDITIONS' TO _OTHELLO_ IN THE FIRST FOLIO. THE PONTIC SEA.

The first printed _Othello_ is the first Quarto (Q1), 1622; the second
is the first Folio (F1), 1623. These two texts are two distinct versions
of the play. Q1 contains many oaths and expletives where less
'objectionable' expressions occur in F1. Partly for this reason it is
believed to represent the _earlier_ text, perhaps the text as it stood
before the Act of 1605 against profanity on the stage. Its readings are
frequently superior to those of F1, but it wants many lines that appear
in F1, which probably represents the acting version in 1623. I give a
list of the longer passages absent from Q1:

(_a_) I. i. 122-138. 'If't' ... 'yourself:'

(_b_) I. ii 72-77. 'Judge' ... 'thee'

(_c_) I. iii. 24-30. 'For' ... 'profitless.'

(_d_) III. iii. 383-390. '_Oth._ By' ... 'satisfied! _Iago._'

(_e_) III. iii. 453-460. 'Iago.' ... 'heaven,'

(_f_) IV. i. 38-44. 'To confess' ... 'devil!'

(_g_) IV. ii. 73-76, 'Committed!' ... 'committed!'

(_h_) IV. ii. 151-164. 'Here' ... 'make me.'

(_i_) IV. iii. 31-53. 'I have' ... 'not next'
and 55-57. '_Des._ [_Singing_]' ... 'men.'

(_j_) IV. iii. 60-63. 'I have' ... 'question.'

(_k_) IV. iii. 87-104. 'But I' ... 'us so.'

(_l_) V. ii. 151-154. 'O mistress' ... 'Iago.'

(_m_) V. ii. 185-193. 'My mistress' ... 'villany!'

(_n_) V. ii. 266-272. 'Be not' ... 'wench!'

Were these passages after-thoughts, composed after the version
represented by Q1 was written? Or were they in the version represented
by Q1, and only omitted in prin