That is, a rheum obstinately troublesome. I think this better.
III.iv.70 (459,8)
A Sybil, that had numbred in the world
The sun to course two hundred compasses]
The expression is not very infrequent; we say, I counted the clock to strike four; so she number'd the sun to course, to run two hundred compasses, two hundred annual circuits.
III.iv.79 (460,1) Why do you speak so startingly, and rash?] Is vehement, violent.
III.iv.103 (461,2) 'Tis not a year, or two, shews us a man] From this line it may be conjectured, that the author intended the action of the play to be considered as longer than is marked by any note of time. Since their arrival at Cyprus, to which they were hurried on their wedding-night, the fable seems to have been in one continual progress, nor can I see any vacuity into which a year or two, or even a month or two, could be put. On the night of Othello's arrival, a feast was proclaimed; at that feast Cassio was degraded, and immediately applies to Desdemona to get him restored. Iago indeed advises Othello to hold him off a while, but there is no reason to think, that he has been held off long. A little longer interval would increase the probability of the story, though it might violate the rules of the drama. See Act. 5. Sc. 2. (see 1765, VIII, 416, 1)
III.iv.113 (461,3) the duty of my heart] —the office of my heart.] The elder quarto reads,
—the duty of my heart.
The author used the more proper word, and then changed it, I suppose, for fashionable diction; but, as fashion is a very weak protectress, the old word is now ready to resume its place.