III.iii.90 (433,2) Excellent wretch!—­Perdition catch my soul,/But I do love thee!] The meaning of the word wretch, is not generally understood.  It is now, in some parts of England, a term of the softest and fondest tenderness.  It expresses the utmost degree of amiableness, joined with an idea, which perhaps all tenderness includes, of feebleness, softness, and want of protection.  Othello, considering Desdemona as excelling in beauty and virtue, soft and timorous by her sex, and by her situation absolutely in his power, calls her Excellent wretch! It may be expressed,

  Dear, harmless, helpless Excellence.

III.iii.91 (433,3) when I love thee not,/Chaos is come again] When my love is for a moment suspended by suspicion, I have nothing in my mind but discord, tumult, perturbation, and confusion.

III.iii.123 (435,4) They are close delations working from the heart,/ That passion cannot rule] They are cold dilations working from the heart,/That passion cannot rule.] I know not why the modern editors are satisfied with this reading, which no explanation can clear.  They might easily have found, that it is introduced without authority.  The old copies uniformly give, close dilations, except that the earlier quarto has close denotements; which was the author’s first expression, afterwards changed by him, not to cold dilations, for cold is read in no ancient copy; nor, I believe, to close dilations, but to close delations; to occult and secret accusations, working involuntarily from the heart, which, though resolved to conceal the fault, cannot rule its passion of resentment.

III.iii.127 (435,5) Or, those that be not, ’would they might seem none!] [W:  seem knaves] I believe the meaning is, would they might no longer seem, or bear the shape of men.

III.iii.140 (436,6) Keep leets and law-days] [i.e. govern.  WARBURTON.] Rather visit than govern, but visit with authoritative intrusion.

III.iii.149 (437,8) From one that so improbably conceits]—­imperfectly conceits,] In the old quarto it is,

  —­improbably conceits,

Which I think preferable.

III.iii.166 (437,9) the green-ey’d monster, which doth make/The meat it feeds on] which doth mock The meat it feeds on.] I have received Hanmer’s emendation ["make"]; because to mock, does not signify to loath; and because, when Iago bids Othello beware of jealousy, the green-eyed monster, it is natural to tell why he should beware, and for caution he gives him two reasons, that jealousy often creates its own cause, and that, when the causes are real, jealousy is misery.

III.iii.173 (438,1) But riches, fineless] Unbounded, endless, unnumbered treasures.

III.iii.180 (438,3)

  Exchange me for a goat,
  When I shall turn the business of my soul
  To such exsuffolate and blown surmises,
  Matching thy inference]