The character of Iago is one of the supererogations of Shakspeare's
genius. Some persons, more nice than wise, have thought this whole
character unnatural, because his villainy is _without a sufficient
motive_. Shakspeare, who was as good a philosopher as he was a poet,
thought otherwise. He knew that the love of power, which is another name
for the love of mischief, is natural to man. He would know this as well or
better than if it had been demonstrated to him by a logical diagram,
merely from seeing children paddle in the dirt or kill flies for sport.
Iago in fact belongs to a class of character, common to Shakspeare and at
the same time peculiar to him; whose heads are as acute and active as
their hearts are hard and callous. Iago is to be sure an extreme instance
of the kind; that is to say, of diseased intellectual activity, with the
most perfect indifference to moral good or evil, or rather with a decided
preference of the latter, because it falls more readily in with his
favourite propensity, gives greater zest to his thoughts and scope to his
actions. He is quite or nearly as indifferent to his own fate as to that
of others; he runs all risks for a trifling and doubtful advantage; and is
himself the dupe and victim of his ruling passion--an insatiable craving
after action of the most difficult and dangerous kind. "Our ancient" is a
philosopher, who fancies that a lie that kills has more point in it than
an alliteration or an antithesis; who thinks a fatal experiment on the
peace of a family a better thing than watching the palpitations in the
heart of a flea in a microscope; who plots the ruin of his friends as an
exercise for his ingenuity, and stabs men in the dark to prevent _ennui_.
His gaiety, such as it is, arises from the success of his treachery; his
ease from the torture he has inflicted on others. He is an amateur of
tragedy in real life; and instead of employing his invention on imaginary
characters, or long-forgotten incidents, he takes the bolder and more
desperate course of getting up his plot at home, casts the principal parts
among his nearest friends and connections, and rehearses it in downright
earnest, with steady nerves and unabated resolution. We will just give an
illustration or two.
One of his most characteristic speeches is that immediately after the
marriage of Othello.
"_Roderigo._ What a full fortune does the thick lips owe.
If he can carry her thus!
_Iago._ Call up her father:
Rouse him (_Othello_) make after him, poison his delight,
Proclaim him in the streets, incense her kinsmen,
And tho' he in a fertile climate dwell,
Plague him with flies: tho' that his joy be joy,
Yet throw such changes of vexation on it,
As it may lose some colour."
In the next passage, his imagination runs riot in the mischief he is
plotting, and breaks out into the wildness and impetuosity of real
enthusiasm.
"_Roderigo._ Here is her father's house: I'll call aloud.
_Iago._ Do, with like timourous accent and dire yell
As when, by night and negligence, the fire
Is spied in populous cities."
One of his most favourite topics, on which he is rich indeed, and in
descanting on which his spleen serves him for a Muse, is the
disproportionate match between Desdemona and the Moor. This is a clue to
the character of the lady which he is by no means ready to part with. It
is brought forward in the first scene, and he recurs to it, when in answer
to his insinuations against Desdemona, Roderigo says,
"I cannot believe that in her--she's full of most blest conditions.
_Iago._ Bless'd fig's end. The wine she drinks is made of grapes.
If she had been blest, she would never have married the Moor."
And again with still more spirit and fatal effect afterwards, when he
turns this very suggestion arising in Othello's own breast to her
prejudice.
"_Othello._ And yet how nature erring from itself--
_Iago._ Ay, there's the point;--as to be bold with you,
Not to affect many proposed matches
Of her own clime, complexion, and degree," etc.
This is probing to the quick. Iago here turns the character of poor
Desdemona, as it were, inside out. It is certain that nothing but the
genius of Shakspeare could have preserved the entire interest and delicacy
of the part, and have even drawn an additional elegance and dignity from
the peculiar circumstances in which she is placed.--The habitual
licentiousness of Iago's conversation is not to be traced to the pleasure
he takes in gross or lascivious images, but to his desire of finding out
the worst side of everything, and of proving himself an over-match for
appearances. He has none of "the milk of human kindness" in his
composition. His imagination rejects everything that has not a strong
infusion of the most unpalatable ingredients; his mind digests only
poisons. Virtue or goodness or whatever has the least "relish of salvation
in it," is, to his depraved appetite, sickly and insipid: and he even
resents the good opinion entertained of his own integrity, as if it were
an affront cast on the masculine sense and spirit of his character. Thus
at the meeting between Othello and Desdemona, he exclaims--"Oh, you are
well tuned now: but I'll set down the pegs that make this music, _as
honest as I am_"--his character of _bonhommie_ not sitting at all easy
upon him. In the scenes, where he tries to work Othello to his purpose,
he is proportionably guarded, insidious, dark, and deliberate. We believe
nothing ever came up to the profound dissimulation and dextrous artifice
of the well-known dialogue in the third act, where he first enters upon
the execution of his design.
"_Iago._ My noble lord.
_Othello._ What dost thou say, Iago?
_Iago._ Did Michael Cassio,
When you woo'd my lady, know of your love?
_Othello._ He did from first to last.
Why dost thou ask?
_Iago._ But for a satisfaction of my thought,
No further harm.
_Othello._ Why of thy thought, Iago?
_Iago._ I did not think he had been acquainted with it.
_Othello._ O yes, and went between us very oft--
_Iago._ Indeed!
_Othello._ Indeed? Ay, indeed. Discern'st thou aught of that?
Is he not honest?
_Iago._ Honest, my lord?
_Othello._ Honest? Ay, honest.
_Iago._ My lord, for aught I know.
_Othello._ What do'st thou think?
_Iago._ Think, my lord!
_Othello._ Think, my lord! Alas, thou echo'st me,
As if there was some monster in thy thought
Too hideous to be shewn."--
The stops and breaks, the deep workings of treachery under the mask of
love and honesty, the anxious watchfulness, the cool earnestness, and if
we may so say, the _passion_ of hypocrisy, marked in every line, receive
their last finishing in that inconceivable burst of pretended indignation
at Othello's doubts of his sincerity.
"O grace! O Heaven forgive me!
Are you a man? Have you a soul or sense?
God be wi' you: take mine office. O wretched fool,
That lov'st to make thine honesty a vice!
Ob monstrous world! Take note, take note, O world!
To be direct and honest, is not safe.
I thank you for this profit, and from hence
I'll love no friend, since love breeds such offence."
If Iago is detestable enough when he has business on his hands and all his
engines at work, he is still worse when he has nothing to do, and we only
see into the hollowness of his heart. His indifference when Othello falls
into a swoon, is perfectly diabolical.
"_Iago._ How is it, General? Have you not hurt your head?
_Othello._ Do'st thou mock me?
_Iago._ I mock you not, by Heaven," etc.
The part indeed would hardly be tolerated, even as a foil to the virtue
and generosity of the other characters in the play, but for its
indefatigable industry and inexhaustible resources, which divert the
attention of the spectator (as well as his own) from the end he has in
view to the means by which it must be accomplished.--Edmund the Bastard in
_Lear_ is something of the same character, placed in less prominent
circumstances. Zanga is a vulgar caricature of it.