Observe in how many ways Othello is made, first, our acquaintance, then
our friend, then the object of our anxiety, before the deeper interest is
to be approached!
_Ib._—
“_Mont._ But, good lieutenant, is your general wived?
_Cas._ Most fortunately: he hath achieved a maid
That paragons description, and wild fame;
One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens,
And, in the essential vesture of creation,
Does tire the ingener.”
Here is Cassio’s warm-hearted, yet perfectly disengaged, praise of
Desdemona, and sympathy with the “most fortunately” wived Othello;—and yet
Cassio is an enthusiastic admirer, almost a worshipper, of Desdemona. Oh,
that detestable code that excellence cannot be loved in any form that is
female, but it must needs be selfish! Observe Othello’s “honest” and
Cassio’s “bold” Iago, and Cassio’s full guileless-hearted wishes for the
safety and love-raptures of Othello and “the divine Desdemona.” And also
note the exquisite circumstance of Cassio’s kissing Iago’s wife, as if it
ought to be impossible that the dullest auditor should not feel Cassio’s
religious love of Desdemona’s purity. Iago’s answers are the sneers which
a proud bad intellect feels towards women, and expresses to a wife. Surely
it ought to be considered a very exalted compliment to women, that all the
sarcasms on them in Shakespeare are put in the mouths of villains.
_Ib._—
“_Des._ I am not merry; but I do beguile,” &c.
The struggle of courtesy in Desdemona to abstract her attention.
_Ib._—
“(_Iago aside_). He takes her by the palm: Ay, well said, whisper;
with as little a web as this, will I ensnare as great a fly as
Cassio. Ay, smile upon her, do,” &c.
The importance given to trifles, and made fertile by the villany of the
observer.
_Ib._ Iago’s dialogue with Roderigo.
This is the rehearsal on the dupe of the traitor’s intentions on Othello.
_Ib._ Iago’s soliloquy:—
“But partly led to diet my revenge,
For that I do suspect the lusty Moor
Hath leap’d into my seat.”
This thought, originally by Iago’s own confession a mere suspicion, is now
ripening, and gnaws his base nature as his own “poisonous mineral” is
about to gnaw the noble heart of his general.
_Ib._ sc. 3. Othello’s speech:—
“I know, Iago,
Thy honesty and love doth mince this matter,
Making it light to Cassio.”
Honesty and love! Ay, and who but the reader of the play could think
otherwise?
_Ib._ Iago’s soliloquy:—
“And what’s he then that says—I play the villain?
When this advice is free I give, and honest,
Provable to thinking, and, indeed, the course
To win the Moor again.”
He is not, you see, an absolute fiend; or, at least, he wishes to think
himself not so.