Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1864-04-07

the compound word black-a-moor." Thus Pands
rus, in the play of Troizus a.d CJessida, testil.
says Of his fair niece, "I care not an she we're
black-a-moor; 'tis all one to mo-" The disgusting
Aaron, in Titus Andronicus, is such blsck and
moor. He speaks himself Of his deece Of WOOL.
hair" (act II, scene 8 } Bassisnus calls him th
4 "swarth Cimmeran J" Lavinis styles him "raven
colored Titus invokes vengeance on him Is one VII.
"oomes in likeness of coal-blaok Moor" and il
the second soene Of the 4th act Shakespeare labor
to portray the union of Tamora and Aaron in color.
designed to represent it Is most repulsiye and un
natural. 4 a @
| Now, it is plain that Othello is not such Moor
as Aaron, but, because he bore in his visage the
Swallowed livery of the FURNISHED SUM-" he waa
subject in the diction of poetic exaggeration, in
the contumelious dialect Of his enemies, and in the
language Of selfdepreciation inspired by his own
misgivings on the score of his swarthy complex
ion, to all the epithets which might have been
used to characterize an African. And, while We
must presume that Shakespeare knew enough Of
the Moors to be aware that they were not negroes,
it is quite probable, as Mr.. Richard Grant White
suggests, that his notion of their distinctive
traits [physologioalIy speakiDg] was perhaps nei-
ther very true nor very clear"
But his notion of Othello was true and clear
enough, we think, to discriminate between Moor,
properly so-called, and one who was blacka-m
There is direct evidence that Othello was Mau-
rtanan and therefore not negro) Of lofty lineage
When defending his right and title to love and
espouse Desdemona, he is bold to say, (act I, Sc.
%" fetch my life and being from men Of royal
siege" and Iago, when speaking of Othellos contia-
gent retirement from the active command Of the We
netian army in the Island of Cyprus points in the
following language to Mauritanis as the destined
and natural place of his retreat. We quote from
act w, SC. 2:
Iago Sir there is especial commission come from We
nice to depute Casio IN Othelo's place.
Rodsrge. Is that true1 Why, then Othello aad Des-
demona return again TO Venice.
Lago. o. he goes Maaritania, and takes away with
him the fair Desdemons his abode be fingered here
BY accidents wherein be determinste
the removing of Casio.
Mauritania, then, was the home of Othello, and
the Mauritanians, it is unnecessary to say, were
not negroes. Least of all is it likely that
Mauritanian who derived his lineage from "men
of royal SIEGE" that u.s. from the kingly line of the
country, would be negro. tF1s s.
1t may be very true, as Mr.. White suggests,
that Shakespeare had never seen either Moor or
negro, and hence he might very naturally confuse
their physiological traits but we do not think
any such explanation is necessary to account for
the epithets applied to Othello, nor are these cpl
thets incompatible with Shakespeare's recognition
of his hero's Moorish quality rs distinct from
the physiological characteristics which compose
the type of the negro race. That man of his
perspioacity and learning should oonfound .
prince of the nation which built the Alhambra
with representative of that degraded race which,
when he wrote, Was supplying slaves to the British
plantations in the West Indies is hardly possible.
From such an error he would be preserved not so
much, it may be admitted, by the instructive pre-
judice which perhaps causes most American read
ers to revolt at the thought, as by his general
knowledge Of history and by his regard for the
dramatic proprieties and probabilities Of his story
He may have thought the Moors of his day blacker
than they really were, but he could not have sup
posed that they were identical with the negro
race.
If the Great Dramatst was without the social
prejudices engendered by the visible enslavement
of the negro race and by contact with its degraded
subjects, he has at least made it plain that he
no advocate of what Mr.. Wendell Phillips calls, in
the latest political sense, "the sublime mingling
of races" Else there would be no point in the
reply he puts in the mouth of Claudio when, in
the play of Much Ado About Nothing" that
young lord Of Florence being asked by Lconato
if he is "yet determined to marry certain
lady, AYERS the desperation of his constancy by
saying "Pll hold my mind acere she an EMiope.'
THE CoENECTICUT ELECTION.