Part 30 (1/2)

”No, when light-winged toys Of feathered Cupid seel anton dullness My speculative and officed instruments, That my disports corrupt and taint my business, Let housewives n and base adversities Make head against ain when he says--

”Come, Desdemona: I have but an hour Of love, of worldly matters and direction To spend with thee; we et to work such as Hotspur felt, but a certain reluctance to leave his love--a natural touch which indicates that the poet was thinking of himself and not of his puppet

The first scene of the second act shows us how Shakespeare, the dramatist, worked Cassio is plainly Shakespeare the poet; any of his speeches taken at haphazard proves it When he hears that Iago has arrived he breaks out:

”He has had h seas, and howling winds, The guttered rocks and congregated sands-- Traitors ensteeped to clog the guiltless keel-- As having sense of beauty, do oo safely by The divine Desdemona”

And when Desdemona lands, Cassio's first exclamation is sufficient to establish the fact that he is merely the poet's mask:

”O, behold, The riches of the shi+p is come on shore!”

And just as clearly as Cassio is Shakespeare, the lyric poet, so is Iago, at first, the eo has been described as immoral; he does not seem to me to be immoral, but amoral, as the intellect always is He says to the women:

”Come on, come on; you're pictures out of doors, Bells in your parlours, wild cats in your kitchens, Saints in your injuries, devils being offended, Players in your housewifery, and housewives in your beds”

Iago sees things as they are, fairly and notif not critical,” but his criticism has a touch of Shakespeare's erotic mania in it Think of that ”housewives in your beds”! He will not deceive himself, however; in spite of Cassio's adine that Cassio is in love with her; ”well kissed,” he says, ”an excellent courtesy,” finding at once the true explanation

[Footnote: At the end of this scene Iago says:

”That Cassio loves her I do well believe it,”

but that is merely one of the o There are others; at one time he talks of Cassio as a mere book soldier, at another equals hie noted these contradictions he would have declared theical unity, and there is soh in these instances I think the contradictions are due to Shakespeare's carelessness rather than to his deeper insight]

But having taken up this intellectual attitude in order to create Iago, Shakespeare tries next to e for a soul, but in this he does not succeed, for intellect is not o lives for us; ”drown cats and blind puppiesput ht us; but when he pursues Desdenity is inhuman Shakespeare was so little inclined to evil, knew so little of hate and revenge that his villain is unreal in his cruelty Again and again the reader asks hio is so venomous He hates Othello because Othello has passed him over and preferred Cassio; because he thinks he has had reason to be jealous of Othello, because-----but every one feels that these are reasons supplied by Shakespeare to explain the inexplicable; taken all together they are inadequate, and we are apt to throw the of nity” is not in nature, Iago's villainy is too cruel, too steadfast to be hunity is as io and Othello hold the stage for nine-tenths of the play Shakespeare does not realize theether subordinate character The drinking episode of Cassio was not found by Shakespeare in Cinthio, and is, I think, clearly the confession of Shakespeare hih aptly invented to explain Cassio's dised, and thus constitutes perhaps the most important fault in the construction of the play Consider, too, how the land in especial, hich country neither Iago nor the story has anything whatever to do

Othello's appearance stilling the riot, his words to Iago and his dismissal of Cassio are alike honest work The subsequent talk between Cassio and Iago about ”reputation” is scarcely more than a repetition of what Falstaff said of ”honour”

Coleridge has reat deal of the notion that Othello was justified in describing hie's perverse ingenuity never led him further astray The exact contrary must, I think, be admitted; Othello was surely very quick to suspect Desdeo's first suspicious phrase, ponders it and asks its ; he is as quick as Posthuen, as quick as Richard II to suspect his friends Bagot and Green of traitorism, and this proneness to suspicion is the soul of jealousy And Othello is not only quick to suspect but easy to convince--impulsive at once and credulous His quick wits juo, ”this honest creature!” doubtless

”Sees and knows more, much more, than he unfolds”

On hinted imputation he is already half persuaded, and persuaded as only a sensualist would be that it is lust which has led Desdee!

That we can call these delicate creatures ours, And not their appetites”

He is, indeed, so disposed to catch the foul infection that Iago cries:

”Trifles light as air Are to the jealous confir As proofs of holy writ”