obvious reason for Iago’s words, ‘I see, Sir, you are eaten up with passion,’ disappears, and so does the reference of his word ‘satisfied’ in 393 to Othello’s ‘satisfied’ in 390. (e) is the famous passage about the Pontic Sea, and I reserve it for the present. (f) As Pope observes, ‘no hint of this trash in the first edition,’ the ‘trash’ including the words ’Nature would not invest herself in such shadowing passion without some instruction.  It is not words that shake me thus’!  There is nothing to prove these lines to be original or an after-thought.  The omission of (g) is clearly a printer’s error, due to the fact that lines 72 and 76 both end with the word ‘committed.’  No conclusion can be formed as to (h), nor perhaps (i), which includes the whole of Desdemona’s song; but if (j) is removed the reference in ‘such a deed’ in 64 is destroyed. (k) is Emilia’s long speech about husbands.  It cannot well be an after-thought, for 105-6 evidently refer to 103-4 (even the word ‘uses’ in 105 refers to ‘use’ in 103). (l) is no after-thought, for ‘if he says so’ in 155 must point back to ’my husband say that she was false!’ in 152. (m) might be an after-thought, but, if so, in the first version the ending ‘to speak’ occurred twice within three lines, and the reason for Iago’s sudden alarm in 193 is much less obvious.  If (n) is an addition the original collocation was: 

                          but O vain boast! 
     Who can control his fate?  ’Tis not so now. 
     Pale as thy smock!

which does not sound probable.

Thus, as it seems to me, in the great majority of cases there is more or less reason to think that the passages wanting in Q1 were nevertheless parts of the original play, and I cannot in any one case see any positive ground for supposing a subsequent addition.  I think that most of the gaps in Q1 were accidents of printing (like many other smaller gaps in Q1), but that probably one or two were ’cuts’—­e.g. Emilia’s long speech (k).  The omission of (i) might be due to the state of the MS.:  the words of the song may have been left out of the dialogue, as appearing on a separate page with the musical notes, or may have been inserted in such an illegible way as to baffle the printer.

I come now to (e), the famous passage about the Pontic Sea.  Pope supposed that it formed part of the original version, but approved of its omission, as he considered it ’an unnatural excursion in this place.’  Mr. Swinburne thinks it an after-thought, but defends it.  ’In other lips indeed than Othello’s, at the crowning minute of culminant agony, the rush of imaginative reminiscence which brings back upon his eyes and ears the lightning foam and tideless thunder of the Pontic Sea might seem a thing less natural than sublime.  But Othello has the passion of a poet closed in as it were and shut up behind the passion of a hero’ (Study