Shakespearean Tragedy Part 40

_Oth._ No, his mouth is stopp'd: Honest Iago hath ta'en order for 't.

_Des._ O! my fear interprets: what, is he dead?

_Oth._ Had all his hairs been lives, my great revenge Had stomach for them all.

_Des._ Alas! he is _betray'd_ and _I_ undone.

It is a ghastly idea, but I believe Shakespeare means that, at the mention of Iago's name, Desdemona suddenly sees that _he_ is the villain whose existence he had declared to be impossible when, an hour before, Emilia had suggested that someone had poisoned Oth.e.l.lo's mind. But her words rouse Oth.e.l.lo to such furious indignation ('Out, strumpet! Weep'st thou for him to my face?') that 'it is too late.'

(2) V. ii. 286 f.

_Oth._ I look down towards his feet; but that's a fable.

If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee.

[_Wounds Iago._

_Lod._ Wrench his sword from him.

_Iago._ I bleed, sir, but not killed.

Are Iago's strange words meant to show his absorption of interest in himself amidst so much anguish? I think rather he is meant to be alluding to Oth.e.l.lo's words, and saying, with a cold contemptuous smile, 'You see he is right; I _am_ a devil.'

NOTE O.

OTh.e.l.lO ON DESDEMONA'S LAST WORDS.

I have said that the last scene of _Oth.e.l.lo_, though terribly painful, contains almost nothing to diminish the admiration and love which heighten our pity for the hero (p. 198). I said 'almost' in view of the following pa.s.sage (V. ii. 123 ff.):

_Emil._ O, who hath done this deed?

_Des._ n.o.body; I myself. Farewell: Commend me to my kind lord: O, farewell! [_Dies._

_Oth._ Why, how should she be murdered?[267]

_Emil._ Alas, who knows?

_Oth._ You heard her say herself, it was not I.

_Emil._ She said so: I must needs report the truth.

_Oth._ She's, like a liar, gone to burning h.e.l.l: 'Twas I that kill'd her.

_Emil._ O, the more angel she, And you the blacker devil!

_Oth._ She turn'd to folly, and she was a wh.o.r.e.

This is a strange pa.s.sage. What did Shakespeare mean us to feel? One is astonished that Oth.e.l.lo should not be startled, nay thunder-struck, when he hears such dying words coming from the lips of an obdurate adulteress. One is shocked by the moral blindness or obliquity which takes them only as a further sign of her worthlessness. Here alone, I think, in the scene sympathy with Oth.e.l.lo quite disappears. Did Shakespeare mean us to feel thus, and to realise how completely confused and perverted Oth.e.l.lo's mind has become? I suppose so: and yet Oth.e.l.lo's words continue to strike me as very strange, and also as not _like_ Oth.e.l.lo,--especially as at this point he was not in anger, much less enraged. It has sometimes occurred to me that there is a touch of personal animus in the pa.s.sage. One remembers the place in _Hamlet_ (written but a little while before) where Hamlet thinks he is unwilling to kill the King at his prayers, for fear they may take him to heaven; and one remembers Shakespeare's irony, how he shows that those prayers do _not_ go to heaven, and that the soul of this praying murderer is at that moment as murderous as ever (see p. 171), just as here the soul of the lying Desdemona is angelic _in_ its lie. Is it conceivable that in both pa.s.sages he was intentionally striking at conventional 'religious'

ideas; and, in particular, that the belief that a man's everlasting fate is decided by the occupation of his last moment excited in him indignation as well as contempt? I admit that this fancy seems un-Shakespearean, and yet it comes back on me whenever I read this pa.s.sage. [The words 'I suppose so' (l. 3 above) gave my conclusion; but I wish to withdraw the whole Note]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 267: He alludes to her cry, 'O falsely, falsely murder'd!']

NOTE P.

DID EMILIA SUSPECT IAGO?

I have answered No (p. 216), and have no doubt about the matter; but at one time I was puzzled, as perhaps others have been, by a single phrase of Emilia's. It occurs in the conversation between her and Iago and Desdemona (IV. ii. 130 f.):

I will be hang'd if some eternal villain, Some busy and insinuating rogue, Some cogging, cozening slave, _to get some office_, Have not devised this slander; I'll be hang'd else.

Emilia, it may be said, knew that Ca.s.sio was the suspected man, so that she must be thinking of _his_ office, and must mean that Iago has poisoned Oth.e.l.lo's mind in order to prevent his reinstatement and to get the lieutenancy for himself. And, it may be said, she speaks indefinitely so that Iago alone may understand her (for Desdemona does not know that Ca.s.sio is the suspected man). Hence too, it may be said, when, at V. ii. 190, she exclaims,

Villany, villany, villany!

I think upon't, I think: I smell't: O villany!

_I thought so then:_--I'll kill myself for grief;

she refers in the words italicised to the occasion of the pa.s.sage in IV.

ii., and is reproaching herself for not having taken steps on her suspicion of Iago.

I have explained in the text why I think it impossible to suppose that Emilia suspected her husband; and I do not think anyone who follows her speeches in V. ii., and who realises that, if she did suspect him, she must have been simply _pretending_ surprise when Oth.e.l.lo told her that Iago was his informant, will feel any doubt. Her idea in the lines at IV. ii. 130 is, I believe, merely that someone is trying to establish a ground for asking a favour from Oth.e.l.lo in return for information which nearly concerns him. It does not follow that, because she knew Ca.s.sio was suspected, she must have been referring to Ca.s.sio's office. She was a stupid woman, and, even if she had not been, she would not put two and two together so easily as the reader of the play.

In the line,

I thought so then: I'll kill myself for grief,

I think she certainly refers to IV. ii. 130 f. and also IV. ii. 15 (Steevens's idea that she is thinking of the time when she let Iago take the handkerchief is absurd). If 'I'll kill myself for grief' is to be taken in close connection with the preceding words (which is not certain), she may mean that she reproaches herself for not having acted on her general suspicion, or (less probably) that she reproaches herself for not having suspected that Iago was the rogue.

With regard to my view that she failed to think of the handkerchief when she saw how angry Oth.e.l.lo was, those who believe that she did think of it will of course also believe that she suspected Iago. But in addition to other difficulties, they will have to suppose that her astonishment, when Oth.e.l.lo at last mentioned the handkerchief, was mere acting. And anyone who can believe this seems to me beyond argument. [I regret that I cannot now discuss some suggestions made to me in regard to the subjects of Notes O and P.]

NOTE Q.

IAGO'S SUSPICION REGARDING Ca.s.sIO AND EMILIA.

The one expression of this suspicion appears in a very curious manner.

Iago, soliloquising, says (II. i. 311):

Which thing to do, If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trash For his quick hunting, stand the putting on, I'll have our Michael Ca.s.sio on the hip, Abuse him to the Moor in the rank [F. right] garb-- For I fear Ca.s.sio with my night-cap too-- Make the Moor thank me, etc.