f
(_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 of Shakespeare_, p. 184). I quote these words all the
more gladly because they will remind the reader of my lectures of my
debt to Mr. Swinburne here; and I will only add that the reminiscence
here is of _precisely the same character_ as the reminiscences of the
Arabian trees and the base Indian in Othello's final speech. But I find
it almost impossible to believe that Shakespeare _ever_ wrote the
passage without the words about the Pontic Sea. It seems to me almost an
imperative demand of imagination that Iago's set speech, if I may use
the phrase, should be preceded by a speech of somewhat the same
dimensions, the contrast of which should heighten the horror of its
hypocrisy; it seems to me that Shakespeare must have felt this; and it
is difficult to me to think that he ever made the lines,

In the due reverence of a sacred vow
I here engage my words,

follow directly on the one word 'Never