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RV 199 (Rh) in the Othellos of our theatres is a recent innovation. Down to ’s time, so far as is known, Othello was always quite black. This stage-tradition goes back to the Restoration, and it almost settles our question. For it is impossible that the colour of the original Othello should have been forgotten so soon after Shakespeare’s time, and most improbable that it should have been changed from brown to black.

If we turn to the play itself, we find many references to Othello’s colour and appearance. Most of these are indecisive; for the word ‘black’ was of course used then where we should speak of a ‘dark’ complexion now; and even the nickname ‘thick-lips,’ appealed to as proof that Othello was a Negro, might have been applied by an enemy to what we call a Moor. On the other hand, it is hard to believe that, if Othello had been light-brown, Brabantio would have taunted him with having a ‘sooty bosom,’ or that (as Mr. Furness observes) he himself would have used the words,

These arguments cannot be met by pointing out that Othello was of royal blood, is not called an Ethiopian, is called a Barbary horse, and is said to be going to Mauritania. All this would be of importance if we had reason to believe that Shakespeare shared our ideas, knowledge and terms. Otherwise it proves nothing. And we know that sixteenth-century writers called any dark North-African a Moor, or a black Moor, or a blackamoor. Sir Thomas Elyot, according to Hunter, calls Ethiopians Moors; and the following are the first two illustrations of ‘Blackamoor’ in the Oxford English Dictionary: 1547,