The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume Ii Part 31

If ever I did dream of such a matter, abhor me,--

which falling in with the a.s.sociative link, determines Roderigo's continuation of complaint--

Thou told'st me, thou didst hold him in thy hate--

elicits at length a true feeling of Iago's mind, the dread of contempt habitual to those, who encourage in themselves, and have their keenest pleasure in, the expression of contempt for others. Observe Iago's high self-opinion, and the moral, that a wicked man will employ real feelings, as well as a.s.sume those most alien from his own, as instruments of his purposes:--

--And, by the faith of man, I know my place, I am worth no worse a place.

I think Tyrwhitt's reading of 'life' for 'wife'--

A fellow almost d.a.m.n'd in a fair _wife_--

the true one, as fitting to Iago's contempt for whatever did not display power, and that intellectual power. In what follows, let the reader feel how by and through the gla.s.s of two pa.s.sions, disappointed vanity and envy, the very vices of which he is complaining, are made to act upon him as if they were so many excellences, and the more appropriately, because cunning is always admired and wished for by minds conscious of inward weakness;--but they act only by half, like music on an inattentive auditor, swelling the thoughts which prevent him from listening to it.

Ib.

'Rod'. What a full fortune does the 'thick-lips' owe, If he can carry't thus.

Roderigo turns off to Oth.e.l.lo; and here comes one, if not the only, seeming justification of our blackamoor or negro Oth.e.l.lo. Even if we supposed this an uninterrupted tradition of the theatre, and that Shakspeare himself, from want of scenes, and the experience that nothing could be made too marked for the senses of his audience, had practically sanctioned it,--would this prove aught concerning his own intention as a poet for all ages? Can we imagine him so utterly ignorant as to make a barbarous negro plead royal birth,--at a time, too, when negros were not known except as slaves?--As for Iago's language to Brabantio, it implies merely that Oth.e.l.lo was a Moor, that is, black. Though I think the rivalry of Roderigo sufficient to account for his wilful confusion of Moor and Negro,--yet, even if compelled to give this up, I should think it only adapted for the acting of the day, and should complain of an enormity built on a single word, in direct contradiction to Iago's 'Barbary horse.' Besides, if we could in good earnest believe Shakspeare ignorant of the distinction, still why should we adopt one disagreeable possibility instead of a ten times greater and more pleasing probability? It is a common error to mistake the epithets applied by the 'dramatis personae' to each other, as truly descriptive of what the audience ought to see or know. No doubt Desdemona saw Oth.e.l.lo's visage in his mind; yet, as we are const.i.tuted, and most surely as an English audience was disposed in the beginning of the seventeenth century, it would be something monstrous to conceive this beautiful Venetian girl falling in love with a veritable negro. It would argue a disproportionateness, a want of balance, in Desdemona, which Shakspeare does not appear to have in the least contemplated.

'Ib.' Brabantio's speech:--

This accident is not unlike my dream:--

The old careful senator, being caught careless, transfers his caution to his dreaming power at least.

'Ib.' Iago's speech:--

--For their souls, Another of his fathom they have not, To lead their business:--

The forced praise of Oth.e.l.lo followed by the bitter hatred of him in this speech! And observe how Brabantio's dream prepares for his recurrence to the notion of philtres, and how both prepare for carrying on the plot of the arraignment of Oth.e.l.lo on this ground.

'Ib.' sc. 2.

'Oth'. 'Tis better as it is.

How well these few words impress at the outset the truth of Oth.e.l.lo's own character of himself at the end--'that he was not easily wrought!'

His self-government contradistinguishes him throughout from Leontes.

'Ib.' Oth.e.l.lo's speech:--

--And my demerits May speak, _unbonnetted_--

The argument in Theobald's note, where 'and bonnetted' is suggested, goes on the a.s.sumption that Shakspeare could not use the same word differently in different places; whereas I should conclude, that as in the pa.s.sage in Lear the word is employed in its direct meaning, so here it is used metaphorically; and this is confirmed by what has escaped the editors, that it is not 'I,' but 'my demerits' that may speak unbonnetted,--without the symbol of a pet.i.tioning inferior.

'Ib.' Oth.e.l.lo's speech:--

Please your grace, my ancient; A man he is of honesty and trust: To his conveyance I a.s.sign my wife.

Compare this with the behaviour of Leontes to his true friend Camillo.

'Ib.' sc. 3.

'Bra'. Look to her, Moor; have a quick eye to see; She has deceiv'd her father, and may thee.

'Oth'. My life upon her faith.

In real life, how do we look back to little speeches as presentimental of, or contrasted with, an affecting event! Even so, Shakspeare, as secure of being read over and over, of becoming a family friend, provides this pa.s.sage for his readers, and leaves it to them.

'Ib.' Iago's speech:--

Virtue? a fig! 'tis in ourselves, that we are thus, or thus, &c.

This speech comprises the pa.s.sionless character of Iago. It is all will in intellect; and therefore he is here a bold partizan of a truth, but yet of a truth converted into a falsehood by the absence of all the necessary modifications caused by the frail nature of man. And then comes the last sentiment,--

Our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted l.u.s.ts, whereof I take this, that you call--love, to be a sect or scion!

Here is the true Iagoism of, alas! how many! Note Iago's pride of mastery in the repet.i.tion of 'Go, make money!' to his antic.i.p.ated dupe, even stronger than his love of lucre: and when Roderigo is completely won--

I am chang'd. I'll go sell all my land--