Part 14 (2/2)
But suddenly there appeared something quite different--something which could never have appeared, for example, in Ophelia--a love not only full of romance but showing a strange freedom and energy of spirit, and leading to a most unusual boldness of action; and this action was carried through with a confidence and decision worthy of Juliet or Cordelia. Desdemona does not shrink before the Senate; and her language to her father, though deeply respectful, is firm enough to stir in us some sympathy with the old man who could not survive his daughter's loss. This then, we must understand, was the emergence in Desdemona, as she pa.s.sed from girlhood to womanhood, of an individuality and strength which, if she had lived, would have been gradually fused with her more obvious qualities and have issued in a thousand actions, sweet and good, but surprising to her conventional or timid neighbours. And, indeed, we have already a slight example in her overflowing kindness, her boldness and her ill-fated persistence in pleading Ca.s.sio's cause. But the full ripening of her lovely and n.o.ble nature was not to be. In her brief wedded life she appeared again chiefly as the sweet and submissive being of her girlhood; and the strength of her soul, first evoked by love, found scope to show itself only in a love which, when harshly repulsed, blamed only its own pain; when bruised, only gave forth a more exquisite fragrance; and, when rewarded with death, summoned its last labouring breath to save its murderer.
Many traits in Desdemona's character have been described with sympathetic insight by Mrs. Jameson, and I will pa.s.s them by and add but a few words on the connection between this character and the catastrophe of _Oth.e.l.lo_. Desdemona, as Mrs. Jameson remarks, shows less quickness of intellect and less tendency to reflection than most of Shakespeare's heroines; but I question whether the critic is right in adding that she shows much of the 'unconscious address common in women.' She seems to me deficient in this address, having in its place a frank childlike boldness and persistency, which are full of charm but are unhappily united with a certain want of perception. And these graces and this deficiency appear to be inextricably intertwined, and in the circ.u.mstances conspire tragically against her. They, with her innocence, hinder her from understanding Oth.e.l.lo's state of mind, and lead her to the most unlucky acts and words; and unkindness or anger subdues her so completely that she becomes pa.s.sive and seems to drift helplessly towards the cataract in front.
In Desdemona's incapacity to resist there is also, in addition to her perfect love, something which is very characteristic. She is, in a sense, a child of nature. That deep inward division which leads to clear and conscious oppositions of right and wrong, duty and inclination, justice and injustice, is alien to her beautiful soul. She is not good, kind and true in spite of a temptation to be otherwise, any more than she is charming in spite of a temptation to be otherwise. She seems to know evil only by name, and, her inclinations being good, she acts on inclination. This trait, with its results, may be seen if we compare her, at the crises of the story, with Cordelia. In Desdemona's place, Cordelia, however frightened at Oth.e.l.lo's anger about the lost handkerchief, would not have denied its loss. Painful experience had produced in her a conscious principle of rect.i.tude and a proud hatred of falseness, which would have made a lie, even one wholly innocent in spirit, impossible to her; and the clear sense of justice and right would have led her, instead, to require an explanation of Oth.e.l.lo's agitation which would have broken Iago's plot to pieces. In the same way, at the final crisis, no instinctive terror of death would have compelled Cordelia suddenly to relinquish her demand for justice and to plead for life. But these moments are fatal to Desdemona, who acts precisely as if she were guilty; and they are fatal because they ask for something which, it seems to us, could hardly be united with the peculiar beauty of her nature.
This beauty is all her own. Something as beautiful may be found in Cordelia, but not the same beauty. Desdemona, confronted with Lear's foolish but pathetic demand for a profession of love, could have done, I think, what Cordelia could not do--could have refused to compete with her sisters, and yet have made her father feel that she loved him well.
And I doubt if Cordelia, 'falsely murdered,' would have been capable of those last words of Desdemona--her answer to Emilia's 'O, who hath done this deed?'
n.o.body: I myself. Farewell.
Commend me to my kind lord. O, farewell!
Were we intended to remember, as we hear this last 'falsehood,' that other falsehood, 'It is not lost,' and to feel that, alike in the momentary child's fear and the deathless woman's love, Desdemona is herself and herself alone?[106]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 85: One instance is worth pointing out, because the pa.s.sage in _Oth.e.l.lo_ has, oddly enough, given trouble. Desdemona says of the maid Barbara: 'She was in love, and he she loved proved mad And did forsake her.' Theobald changed 'mad' to 'bad.' Warburton read 'and he she loved forsook her, And she proved mad'! Johnson said 'mad' meant only 'wild, frantic, uncertain.' But what Desdemona says of Barbara is just what Ophelia might have said of herself.]
[Footnote 86: The whole force of the pa.s.sages referred to can be felt only by a reader. The Oth.e.l.lo of our stage can never be Shakespeare's Oth.e.l.lo, any more than the Cleopatra of our stage can be his Cleopatra.]
[Footnote 87: See p. 9.]
[Footnote 88: Even here, however, there is a great difference; for although the idea of such a power is not suggested by _King Lear_ as it is by _Hamlet_ and _Macbeth_, it is repeatedly expressed by persons _in_ the drama. Of such references there are very few in _Oth.e.l.lo_. But for somewhat frequent allusions to h.e.l.l and the devil the view of the characters is almost strictly secular. Desdemona's sweetness and forgivingness are not based on religion, and her only way of accounting for her undeserved suffering is by an appeal to Fortune: 'It is my wretched fortune' (IV. ii. 128). In like manner Oth.e.l.lo can only appeal to Fate (V. ii. 264):
but, oh vain boast!
Who can control his fate?]
[Footnote 89: Ulrici has good remarks, though he exaggerates, on this point and the element of intrigue.]
[Footnote 90: And neither she nor Oth.e.l.lo observes what handkerchief it is. Else she would have remembered how she came to lose it, and would have told Oth.e.l.lo; and Oth.e.l.lo, too, would at once have detected Iago's lie (III. iii. 438) that he had seen Ca.s.sio wipe his beard with the handkerchief 'to-day.' For in fact the handkerchief had been lost _not an hour_ before Iago told that lie (line 288 of the _same scene_), and it was at that moment in his pocket. He lied therefore most rashly, but with his usual luck.]
[Footnote 91: For those who know the end of the story there is a terrible irony in the enthusiasm with which Ca.s.sio greets the arrival of Desdemona in Cyprus. Her s.h.i.+p (which is also Iago's) sets out from Venice a week later than the others, but reaches Cyprus on the same day with them:
Tempests themselves, high seas and howling winds, The gutter'd rocks and congregated sands-- Traitors ensteep'd to clog the guiltless keel-- As having sense of beauty, do omit Their mortal natures, letting go safely by The divine Desdemona.
So swiftly does Fate conduct her to her doom.]
[Footnote 92: The dead bodies are not carried out at the end, as they must have been if the bed had been on the main stage (for this had no front curtain). The curtains within which the bed stood were drawn together at the words, 'Let it be hid' (V. ii. 365).]
[Footnote 93: Against which may be set the scene of the blinding of Gloster in _King Lear_.]
[Footnote 94: The reader who is tempted by it should, however, first ask himself whether Oth.e.l.lo does act like a barbarian, or like a man who, though wrought almost to madness, does 'all in honour.']
[Footnote 95: For the actor, then, to represent him as violently angry when he cas.h.i.+ers Ca.s.sio is an utter mistake.]
[Footnote 96: I cannot deal fully with this point in the lecture. See Note L.]
[Footnote 97: It is important to observe that, in his attempt to arrive at the facts about Ca.s.sio's drunken misdemeanour, Oth.e.l.lo had just had an example of Iago's unwillingness to tell the whole truth where it must injure a friend. No wonder he feels in the Temptation-scene that 'this honest creature doubtless Sees and knows more, much more, than he unfolds.']
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