it was--they were able to disentangle the early love-play from the latter
work in which Iago was principally concerned. There was at least fifteen
years' growth between them, the steps of which could he traced in the
poet's intermediate plays by any one who chose to work carefully enough
at them. Set any of the speeches addressed in the Shakespeare part of
the last act by Othello to Desdemona beside the consolatory address of
the Duke to Brabantio, and see the difference of the rhetoric and style
in the two. If they turned to characters, Othello and Desdemona were
even more clearly the companion pair to Biron and Rosaline of _Love's
Labour's Lost_ than were Falstaff and Doll Tearsheet the match-pair
(_sic_) of Romeo and Juliet. In _Love's Labour's Lost_ the question of
complexion was identical, though the parts were reversed. He would cite
but a few parallel passages in evidence of this relationship between the
subjects of the two plays.

_Love's Labour's Lost_, iv. 3. _Othello_.
1. "By heaven, thy love is black 1. "An old black ram." i. 1.
as ebony."
2. "No face is _fair_ that is not 2. "Your son-in-law is far more
full so black." _fair_ than black." i. 3.
3. "O paradox! Black is the 3. "How if she be black and
badge of hell." witty?" ii. 1.
4. "O, _if_ in black my lady's 4. "_If_ she be black, and thereto
brows be decked." have a wit." id.
5. "And therefore is she born 5. "A measure to the health of
to make black fair." black Othello." ii. 3.
6. "Paints itself black to 6. "For I am black." iii, 3.
imitate her brow."
7. "To look like her are 7. "_Begrimed_ and black." id.
_chimney-sweepers_ black."

Now, with these parallel passages before them, what man, woman, or child
could bring himself or herself to believe that the connection of these
plays was casual or the date of the first Othello removable from the date
of the early contemporary late-first-period-but-one play _Love's Labour's
Lost_, or that anybody's opinion that they were so was worth one straw?
When therefore by the introduction of the Iago episode Shakespeare in his
later days had with the assistance of three fellow-poets completed the
unfinished work of his youth, the junction thus effected of the Brabantio
part of the play with this