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Ep 79 - The Tragedy of Othello (Shakespeare)
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The tragedy of Othello marks the beginning of the most sublime series of consecutive dramatic works in the history of literature. We're talking about the tragic procession. In an astonishing burst of genius that will sustained for 14 months, the playwright wrote four works back to back that would change the landscape of literature forever. After the books of the Bible, it is these four tragedies that would exert the most extensive, the deepest and most profound influence on every great writer that came after Shakespeare. I read these works as secular scripture, and I strongly believe that you can reread and rewatch these plays all the days of your life. You can study these aesthetic and cognitive marvels, these inexhaustible masterpieces year after year, and you will always draw wisdom from them. The four works are Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra. To experience these tragedies back to back is to experience the human condition at its most powerfully expressed. And we cannot help but wonder, as we immerse ourselves in the dark universe of the tragic procession, what life looked like for the great writer. Well, in order to peek in on Will dipping his quill into his pot of ink and ferociously scrawling the opening of Othello, we need to take a trip to Stratford upon Avon. The year is 1603. Queen Elizabeth is dead, and King James I of England and 6th of Scotland is on the throne. Shakespeare and his troop, the king's men, are royally appointed. And one of the new monarchs first actions was to order the Jacobean version of lockdown, as bubonic plague tears through London. If a citizen were to fall ill, their house had to be closed for six weeks, and they were asked not to interact with other people. If they did leave their house, they had to wear marked clothing as a warning that they carried the disease. Now, James ordered collections to be made to provide for those with plague who couldn't work. Doctors tried frantically to provide cures through bloodletting, applying leeches, and herbal remedies. But the country's best efforts were in vain, and 25 to 35,000 would die in one year alone. Now, there had been a plague epidemic, a really bad one, the year before Will was born. And miraculously, he survived, which tragically could not be said for his son, Hamnet, who died at the tender age of 11. But this was the worst plague outbreak the country had seen for a very long time. And from here on out, from 1603 up until the time of Will's death, the playhouses would be shut for more than 60% of the time. Cumulatively, they were closed for 78 months. For their safety, James ordered his troupe of players to leave London. They went on tour to the unaffected areas of the country. They went to cities like Oxford and Bath. And this also meant that Will was spending more, much needed time at home. He was finally able to enjoy his recent property purchase in Stratford, the biggest house in town where his family resided. And Will would have enjoyed seeing his family again. His wife Anne, his daughters, Susanna and Judith, his mother, and of course his brothers and their partners. He would have enjoyed telling them all about what life was like in the inner circle of the new monarch. He would have enjoyed their company and the catch up. After having spent most of the previous years living in London and enjoying the success of the Globe Theatre. He would have enjoyed it for about three, maybe four days. And then the petty pace of day after day after day, then the boredom would begin to creep in. Because the way you write four tragic masterpieces back to back is to compound real life trauma. Yeah. Friends dropping dead, illness ravishing the land. You compound that with all consuming ennui. That's fertile creative soil. Will had time on his hands and a lot of material ripe for for his poetic commentary on the human condition. Now, my most recent re reading and viewing of Othello as part of the Shakespeare project that we've been following at the hardcore Literature Book club. We've been reading the entire works of William Shakespeare in a proposed chronological order. And so many readers have said that this has been the most significant reading journey they have ever undertaken. It's certainly been my personal favourite project and you can enjoy the lecture for the plays we've covered thus far and join that read through at your own pace at patreon.com Hardcore literature at time of recording Our next play is Coriolanus and that's coming out this month and I'm very excited about that. But my most recent engagement with Othello ended up being a peak literary experience for me. I've experienced this play countless times now. I've lost count of how many times I've read it and I know the story intimately and yet it still surprises me. One of the things I find most rewarding is the fact that when you rewatch Othello, you tune in to a different character each time. Each rewatching of Othello becomes a different character's play. It becomes their story, their tragedy. On my first readings, my attention was always with Iago, the Machiavellian webspinner who passed over for the position of Lieutenant in favour of Cassio tricks his commander Othello into believing his wife Desdemona to be unfaithful. Then, after Iago, upon subsequent readings, my attention was with Othello. Firstly, his lines, the Othello music, as G. Wilson Knight perfectly puts it, his lines are startlingly beautiful and strangely beautiful. They possess the cold, strange poetry of a man of war, a man who has seen battle all his life, who was raised in the tented field, a man who may be experienced in matters of war, but is naive in matters of love. And secondly, I found the more I re read, the more sympathy I had for Othello. My first readings had me thinking the man a furious, jealous fool, a crazed, easily duped and possessive madman. And yes, he is all of those things. But the more I re read, the more my relationship with him deepened. It became more complex, and I began to feel extraordinary amounts of pity for him. And as Aristotle teaches us, pity is instrumental when it comes to the mechanics of tragedy. We need to feel pity in order to experience catharsis. I feel pity despite his hasty, rash, fiery and homicidal actions. Paul Robeson, who played Othello alongside Dame Peggy Ashcroft as Desdemona and Ralph Richardson as Roderigo. Robeson, who, by the way, has the most beautiful baritone voice, absolutely perfect for Shakespeare. In an interview, he would talk through not only the majesty of Mr. Shakespeare's music, but his motivations as well, whilst playing the character of Othello. And Robeson would say that Othello does not kill for jealousy or out of jealousy primarily, but for honour, out of a sense of being dishonoured. Paul Robeson stresses the fact that Othello is an outsider in Renaissance Venice. He comes from a different culture and he is looking for cultural clues about how to behave. And taking those from his dishonest advisor Iago is a grand mistake, compounding that with the sting of dishonour. You have everything necessary for a tragedy to take place. All of that aside, however, I think many men will be able to sympathize with Othello whether they want to or not, if they dare to look into the darkest potential parts of themselves. Because Othello's rage is a male rage and his martial attitude may be a benefit on the battlefield, but it's out of place in the bedroom, especially when compounded with sexual inexperience and naivety about people and society. It is a male rage, and any man being truly honest with themselves will recognise their shadow self. The circumstances need not be the same, but that sense of anger over dishonour. Men die over matters of respect or feeling disrespected. The sense of crazed wrath over the sting of being slighted is something that I think we can all recognize, which I guess means we can sympathise with Iago, too. Though I believe men are more likely to be Othello, or indeed Cassiope or Roderigo, then they are Iago. So on my first viewing, it was all about Iago. Then it shifted to Othello for me. And I've noticed that this is different for men than for women. I find women bar dollaters give their focus first, typically to the women of the play. And that's understandable. And that is where my focus went next. My heart went out to Desdemona. The play is called the Tragedy of Othello, but it could and should be called the Tragedy of Desdemona, because the tragedy is hers. Now, we've said before that it's the ending that defines the genre. A tragedy is a comedy all the way up until the end, and vice versa. And this typically means that tragedies are ferociously funny for the first few acts, and then they take a dark turn. This also means that the comedies are often very cruel. And Shakespeare had been training for Othello his entire playwriting career, and much of his training took place in his comedies. Much Ado About Nothing, which he wrote back during the lighter years under the reign of Elizabeth, contains sketches for this tragedy. The villainous Don John is a poor man's Iago. Of course, we can go back further to Richard iii, which, although a history, is very funny. And we see that Shakespeare's Richard is also an early training ground for Iago, one that still feels the influence of Christopher Marlowe's ranting, raving and bombastic antagonists. And I personally love Richard. I love how he makes the audience complicit in the evil, the very same way that Iago does. Another comedy. Where we can see Will training for the Tragedy of Othello is A Midsummer Night's Dream. You can read these two plays up against each other as evidence for the idea that the ending defines the genre. They both begin in the same way. A father's complaint about his daughter and his disagreement with her choice of marriage partner and his belief that she has been bewitched. The difference is that the dream starts off in a curious vein, veers into absurdity, and then is resolved. The threat of death and banishment looms over Hermia from the start, whilst in Othello, the father's complaint is quickly resolved, which only paves the way for a steady ramping up in Tragic Incident. I say all of this to stress the fact that the play Othello for the first half and as it involves Othello and Iago and Roderigo, is a comedy, whilst for for Desdemona it is a devastating tragedy midway through onto the end. And I think we can mark the point in which the play turns from comedy to tragedy. But I'll return to that in a moment. We say it's comic because the play is actually based on a typical comedic conceit, the Jealous Lover. We can look back through Chaucer and Boccaccio and we can see the oldest tales of tales of cuckoldry and mistaken cuckoldry. All of this lends itself to frantic farce. And tragedies are very often, if anything, incredibly farcical. Tolstoy too would take the comic and make it tragic. And he would say that man can endure earthquake, epidemic, dreadful disease, every form of spiritual torment, but the most dreadful tragedy that can befall him is and will remain the tragedy of the bedroom. And by the way, for most of my previous readings, I must say I actually didn't find this play funny. But my recent viewing had me laughing at the beginning. Just from the absurdity of it all. Shakespeare makes us laugh because if we didn't, we would weep and not stop weeping. Though indeed, my recent viewing also choked me up too. You need comedy in a tragedy for it to be an effective tragedy. It's the juxtaposition, it's the contrast. If it's all devastating all the way through, then it ceases to be devastating. You need both kinds of tears, tears of laughter and tears of pain for a tragedy to be effective. So on my previous readings and viewings, the play belonged to Desdemona. For me, I really felt her plight. I felt the injustice of it all, the injustice of the situation. And then on my most recent viewing, the character who I was most captivated by wasn't Iago. It wasn't Othello or Desdemona, but it was Desdemona's lady in waiting and Iago's wife, Emilia. And to me, she is the true hero or true heroine of the play. Let the play belong to Emilia, who I think we can see as a feminist hero. She is the strongest, wisest, most virtuous character. She has the virtue of courage and she is also the most level headed character in the play. As usual, Shakespeare chooses to imbue the most admirable qualities into his women characters, Shakespeare's men, are very frequently malicious or ignorant, cowardly and deceitful. They're self consumed, nasty, narcissistic and a danger to themselves and society. Shakespeare's women, more often than not live in a world where they have everything their male counterparts lack. And yet society still considers them and their identity only in their relation to a man. They are smarter than the men, they have greater inter and intrapersonal intelligence than the men, they are more courageous, they are wise, and they are grossly and tragically wrong. And as Emilia is all of these things, it begs the question as to why she is married to Iago. But let's talk about Iago, because he is the destructive centre of the play. And it's interesting to note that Shakespeare got Iago right the first time around. He's all there, as we have him right from the first draft. As you know, Shakespeare reworked his plays endlessly. And this means that we can read some of his earlier plays and it can be a little bit confusing to date them because some of them feel incredibly polished very early on. And that's typically because he's gone back and he has polished them when he was a better playwright. So he got Iago right from the start. But we can see that in his revisions, Shakespeare reworked Othello and Desdemona and he put a lot of work into making Emilia more pronounced. But it's interesting because Iago had clearly been lingering in his consciousness for a while and so he emerged fully formed. A.C. bradley said that Iago is one of the four inexhaustible characters in Shakespeare. You have Falstaff, Hamlet, Iago and then Cleopatra. Now, it's been very exciting over the course of our journey through the works of Shakespeare at the Hardcore Literature Book Club to think about which other great protagonists we might add to the list of inexhaustible characters. And we've certainly found a few. And Coleridge said famously that Iago has a motiveless motive, hunting malignancy. What does that mean? It means he hunts for his motives and he makes them fit. And we do not know what his true motive actually is. Iago says one thing but means another. He lies to everyone. And we think he is being truthful with us and we are complicit in his evil deeds. We watch them gleefully. Yeah, we are along for the ride. Until of course, things get out of control and turn very dark. We think he's being truthful to us, but perhaps the only thing he is telling the truth about is the fact that he is Lying at the start of the play, Iago gives us some exposition, the integral backstory when speaking with Rodrigo. The backstory is that Michael Cassio, a Florentine, has been promoted, and he, Iago, has not. Cassio has never set a squadron in the field, and he doesn't know anything about battle that he hasn't read in a book. Mere prattle without practice is all his soldiership, says Iago. To make things worse, Othello had seen the proof of Iago's soldiership. And that word proof is so important. That is the refrain of the entire play. Along with the word honest, the word proof recurs, accrues meaning and eventually becomes meaningless because it signifies its opposite. Proof in the world of Othello is no proof at all. And this is the Shakespearean warning. Question what you see and what you hear. Othello had seen the proof of Iago when he fought with him at Rhodes and at Cyprus, so why pass him over? So over the course of the play, we are going to see the proof of Iago's mettle. His scheming proves that this is a fellow that you want on your side. You do not want this discontented malcontent to turn rogue and start secretly and insidiously rebelling and taking revenge from within. Iago sets out his Machiavellian manifesto at the start when he says of Othello, I follow him to serve my turn upon him. Now, if you haven't read the Prince Machiavelli's political philosophical tract on how to rule, then you might want to check out our discussion for that work whilst keeping Iago in mind. But when we say Machiavellian, we use it synonymously with scheming and deceiving. And here are just a couple of quotations from Machiavelli that are very interesting to pull in to Shakespeare's play. One, everyone sees what you appear to be. Few experience what you really are. Shakespeare knew this very well. Two, if an injury has to be done to a man, it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared. So Machiavelli stresses that you either crush your enemy totally or you leave them be and make your peace with them. Because if you do not crush them, they'll come back for you. If you're gonna take revenge, you better go all the way. Three, never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception. And that's interesting, isn't it? Doesn't this sound like Iago? The Prince was published in 1532, more than three decades before will was born. And there wasn't an English translation in his lifetime. But Will had a little bit of a working knowledge of Italian and French. Most people did at this time. And even if he didn't read Prince, his circles would have been discussing works from the European continent. He knew Machiavelli very well, the same way he knew Montaigne. And in fact, if you've been doing the Shakespeare chronological reading journey with us over at the book club, then you may recall all the way back in Henry VI he actually referred to the murderous Machiavel. So Shakespeare knew his Machiavelli alright. Iago at the start of the play says, essentially, I'll play the subservient aide in order to burn Othello's life down from within. And this is truly psychopathic stuff. He says, we cannot all be masters, nor all masters cannot be truly followed. And he says, act one, scene one. As sure as you are, Rodrigo. Were I the more I would not be Iago. In following him, I follow but myself. So we all play a part, we all wear a mask. This is something that Shakespeare says over and over again. And Iago is playing the role of the dutiful aid and in so doing follows himself because he is using his position only as leverage so that he can destroy Othello. He is going to seem the loving and dutiful friend, but the day in which his outward action truly aligns with his inward feelings, the day he actually wears his heart on his sleeve, is the day that Jack Dawes will peck at it. And then he says, and this is very early on, he says one of the most incredible lines in the play. Although really there are so many incredible lines in Othello. This is the play where Will coined the phrase making the beast with two backs in order to refer to sex. He also called Jealousy the green eyed monster. In this play we get the phrase foregone conclusion. Yeah, we also get the phrase pomp and circumstance. Shakespeare coined that. And we get the phrase mortal engines. That belongs to Shakespeare too. And indeed there are many more. But Iago says very early on, this is powerful. I am not what I am. The only truthful thing he says is an admission that he is a deceitful, lying scoundrel. And this line contains an echo not only of St. Paul to the Corinthians, who said, I am what I am, but also an echo of Yahweh from the Old Testament book of Exodus. When Moses asks, who shall I say sent me? Me. God replies, say that I am hath sent you. I am that I am. So what does it mean when Iago says, I am not what I am? This is not just an open admission of his backstabbing nature, but he might as well be saying, I am the devil. I am Satan. And this takes on all the more resonance when we contemplate the fact that our conception of Satan today is most indebted to Milton's Satan in Paradise Lost. And who was Milton inspired by Iago? The poetic DNA of Milton's Satan is compounded of Iago, Hamlet, Macbeth and Prometheus. Is there an irony to the fact that this satanic protagonist is a stand in for the playwright himself? And in Measure for Measure again, as we saw in the hardcore Literature Book Club Shakespeare Project and the lecture for that play and many more is available@patreon.com hardcore literature if you're interested in it. In Measure for Measure, we saw Will divesting himself into the character of Duke Vincenzio. And incidentally, Will used a short story from Cinthio for the source of that play. And here with Othello, he uses Cinthio again later in the sequence of plays in his farewell to the theatre. In the last play he wrote solo, we will see the playwright again manifest in the magical wizard Prospero in the Tempest. But here, the evil, malignant force pulling the strings at the center of the play is the writer surrogate. Iago sets everything going, and he does so quite ingeniously, treating his world like a ticking mechanical clock that is set to destruct. When you read this play, you may notice that Iago is always referencing the time. Other characters do this too, like when Othello says, we must obey the time. And this sets a really fatalistic atmosphere. But whenever a character expresses concern, Iago basically says, well, time will sort that out. Time is the playwriter's tool. Iago says, there are many events in the womb of time which will be delivered. Proverbially, we all speak about time healing all wounds, and that is true. But when Iago assures someone that time will sort things out, we know he knows they are marching towards their bloody and tragic fate. And like a good playwright, Iago needs to know his character's motivations. What's my motivation? A question that became all the more pervasive in the theatrical world in the wake of Stanislav's and his Method. Stanislavski, together with Chekhov in the late 19th and early 20th century, changed the theatrical and literary world forever. But both of them were channeling a sublimely Shakespearean force, not Only was Will asking what his character's motivations were back in the Renaissance era, a time when playwrights and actors really didn't ask that sort of thing. Acting was perform. Yeah. You played a role and you had a memorized list of stock actions and gestures to denote inward experience and feeling, but you didn't actually make yourself feel these different emotions or you didn't think too deeply about how the character might feel. This is something that didn't happen until Shakespeare. And so we can understand why Harold Bloom said that Shakespeare invented the human. Not only was Will asking about his character motivations, but he was making his characters ask about other character motivations and use them against them. Iago is playing everyone off against each other and against themselves. He's evil, yes. But I think it's interesting to contemplate that everything he does to another is possible because he draws out their nature, their worst susceptibility. He draws out the worst susceptibility of each individual in order to bring about his. His evil plan. Iago can set Rodrigo to do his bidding and he can use him as a chess piece in his plan because he knows what Roderigo wants, and that is, of course, Desdemona. And he holds out the promise of her falling for him once she's done with Othello. And the thing about Iago is he dispenses sage wisdom and deep life advice as he deceives. And this makes his deception all the more poisonous, because each character thinks he is fighting in their corner with their best interests at heart. When Rodrigo says he's going to drown himself, Iago scoffs and he says, Act one, scene three. I have looked upon this world four times, seven years. So he's 28. And I never found a man, man who knew how to love himself. Ere I would say I would drown myself for the love of a guinea hen. I would change my humanity with a baboon. Now, perhaps we've all been there, either on Iago's side or Rodrigo's side, and we could all use a friend who would say, why are you crying over some woman who doesn't want you? Have some more self respect, man. Love yourself, for goodness sake. This is harsh medicine, but it's needed. Except, of course, Iago laces his medicine with poison. He goes on to say that how we feel is within our reason. It's within our control. So the characters around Iago are very emotional, whereas Iago is very cold and calculating. He's sociopathic. He doesn't really feel the way others Feel he has anger and resentment. But that seems to be all he's really working with. So it might be easier for him to control his emotions, not so much the people around him. He goes on to say, forget about drowning yourself, Rodrigo. Seek thou rather to be hanged, encompassing thy joy, than to be drowned. And go without her and put money in thy purse. So what's he saying? You can't have her if you're dead. If you're gonna die anyway, why don't you live your life along the way? But don't do that. Just put yourself in a good position. Enjoy yourself. Make yourself wealthy. And Iago says, when she's done with Othello, you will be an even better man for it and you'll be even more attractive to her. So just wait it out and make yourself better. Of course, this encouragement is not in Roderigo's best interest because Iago's plan is to have that money himself and make his fool his purse. Now, when it comes to Othello, Iago sees very early on the seeds of destruction he can sow. Desdemona's father is outraged that his daughter has married Othello. And so, at a council with the duke of Venice, who has summoned his senators to discuss the sighting of a Turkish fleet advancing towards Cyprus, which was a Venetian colony. At this count, Desdemona's father makes his complaint and wants to uncover the magic charms and spells Othello used to bewitch his daughter. And Othello tells them what the spells were. The magic was simply in his discourse, his stories, his tales from battlefields and lands overseas. She devoured these stories and found them wondrously pitiful. Her father relents, but not without issuing a warning. He says, look to her more if thou hast eyes to see. She has deceived her father and may thee. An ominous rhyming couplet right there which contains the Shakespearean warning, if thou hast eyes to see. We'll see this as we go on, as we make our way through the tragic procession. Now, of course, this is a very unfair charge on her father's part. And Desdemona absolutely won't deceive her husband. But this is material that Iago, who is watching on, can store up, pull out and use later against Othello. Othello doesn't suspect Desdemona as a deceiver. But Iago can essentially say, remember the fact that she duped her father. Now it's your turn. It's almost like proof. Well, she did this to her father. What makes you any different. As the play proceeds, we learn of another potential motivation for Iago's malevolence. It's not just being passed over, but he says, act one, scene three. He hates the more because it is thought abroad that twixt my sheets he's done my office. So there are rumours flying around that Othello has slept with Iago's wife Emilia. But very swiftly on from this, he says, I know not if it be true, but I, for mere suspicion in that kind, will do as if for surety. So he doesn't know that's true, and I get the sense that he knows it isn't true. And as we get to know Othello, we get a very good sense of his character. And for all his flaws, serial womanizing and sleeping with other men's wives isn't one of them. And yet Iago will act as though it is true. So it's like Iago is trying to deceive himself in order to make it easier to carry out his evil plans. It's much easier to destroy this man if I convince myself that he has slept with my wife. And then in a soliloquy in Act 2, Scene 1, he says, the maw, even though I can't endure him, is of a constant, loving, noble nature, and I dare think he'll prove to Desdemona a most dear husband. But then Iago's own poison starts to work within him, because between the first and second act, it's almost like he's started to believe this lie of Othello having slept with his wife. And he says, I do suspect the lusty Moor hath leaped into my seat, the thought whereof doth like a poisonous mineral, gnaw my inwards, and nothing can or shall content my soul till I am evened with him, wife for wife. Now part of me thinks again that Iago is sociopathic and psychopathic. He is an insecure narcissist, very dangerous breed of narcissist, because it means that any slight, small or perceived will prompt devastating revenge. But then another part of me thinks, why do you need to convince yourself? Why do you need to find a motive? Who are you justifying yourself to? Are you justifying yourself to yourself or to us? And why? Now we might think that Iago really does need to justify himself to some, though I don't get a sense that someone so nihilistic and evil has any belief in a higher power. He does need to justify himself because he is wreaking a lot of devastation, and it would be one thing if he went after Othello alone. It's still not right, but that would be one thing. But it's the collateral damage. Iago is delighted in taking down everyone around Othello. And like a spy, he sets his sights on the fly that is Cassio. Cassio hasn't done anything other than be favoured by Othello. But Iago says after seeing Desdemona being friendly and courteous to him, she's being cordial to a high ranking man who is under her husband's leadership. After he sees this, Iago says, with as little a web as this, I will ensnare as great a fly as Cassio. So he can spin this tale of Cassio and Desdemona together to wound two men. Roderigo. And of course he uses Rodrigo to further his purpose and of course Othello. And in order to advance his purpose, Iago needs to be perceived as honest. And that's the description that appends his name time and again. Honest Iago. Honest as I am. So honest, Iago says. And then he spews complete and utter dishonesty, as I said, like the word proof, which means no proof at all. The word dishonest to us becomes a shorthand for complete and utter lies. And we can see that the takedown of Cassio begins when Iago convinces him to drink. And this is what I mean when I say he uses these characters, proclivities against them, their nature against them. Because we see that Cassio turns down the drink. Yeah, he says he's already had one, he needs to be on night watch. And he says that he doesn't hold his alcohol very well, but it doesn't take much convincing to get him wasted. Yeah, Iago says it's a night of revels. Come on. And then it doesn't take much to make him fly off the handle. Iago gets Rodrigo to start trouble with Cassio. And because he's not handling his alcohol well, it ends up looking like Cassio is out of control. And indeed he is. And when Montano intercedes to keep the peace, Cassio, hot headed and disoriented from boozing, turns on him too. And this is the very night that Othello and Desdemona were to consummate their marriage. But they are interrupted and it seems unlikely that they ever were able to consummate the relationship. We see that the fray between Cassio and Rodrigo and Montano causes Othello to come storming out and he asks what's going going on? Who's caused the ruckus and he turns to honest Iago, who pretends he doesn't want to say Cassio because he loves and respects Cassio so much. Iago is cunning. He knows people will believe what you refuse to say rather than what you do say. And when he refuses to say Cassio, that's when he is most overtly pointing his finger at him. We believe what is not said. We believe what we don't see, what we don't hear. Alone together, after the fray has dissipated, we see Iago and Cassio talk. And Iago continues to work his dark magic. Like with Rodrigo and Othello, he positions himself as a wise friend who has Cassio's best interests at heart. Act two, scene three. Cassio laments his reputation, reputation, reputation. I have lost my reputation. I have lost the immortal part of myself. And what remains is bestial. And Iago counsels him and his advice is coloured by Falstaffian wisdom. As I am an honest man. I thought you had received some bodily wound. There is more of sense in that than in reputation. You have lost no reputation at all unless you repute yourself such a loser. This is all very insidious. You really don't want someone who knows people so well to have such evil intentions. The thing is, if Iago were a true and honest friend, he would say to Cassio, look, yes, you did mess up there. You probably have taken a bit of a hit to your reputation. But get some sleep, clear your head. We all make mistakes and you can try to do better from here on out. But instead he tells Cassio the lie we know a friend will tell when they want to spare our feelings, thus confirming what we dread. Yes, we have lost our reputation and it's even worse than we thought. And then the next piece in the plan is he tells Cassio that the general's wife is now the general. Isn't that fantastic? So behind Othello, Desdemona is the power. So if you get in with her, you'll get in with her husband. Yeah, be nice to her, sweeten her up, and Othello will like you and respect you again. And Cassio thinks, yes, that's a very good idea. And he doesn't have any romantic feelings for Desdemona. So to him this sounds innocent. It sounds innocent enough. But to us, we know this spell disaster. And something I've been thinking about recently and I'm trying to come to an answer on this, but indeed, such is the nature of Shakespeare's inexhaustible works. And protagonists. I don't think I ever will. I've been wondering about how far ahead Iago can see. At what point does he decide that things are going to take a very tragic turn? Does he plan it all out from the start or is he only seeing a little bit of. Is he only moving piece by piece? Does he get the idea for the complete and utter destruction as he goes through? Were there turning points where the tragedy could have turned out differently? Is he just chancing it or is he an opportunist? If this is a chess game, is he really seeing 5 to 10 moves ahead? How smart and cunning and evil is he now as we watch on and we watch Iago pouring his poison and spinning his web, Iago knows that the audience knows what's coming. And we have a very curious relationship with Iago, the audience and Iago. I think we implicitly detest him. But there's a dark part of ourselves that also really likes it. The villain is a very fun character. He's a lot of fun to watch. And we like to see the trouble being caused. But Iago knows that he is a villain, or at least we consider him to be a villain. And then when Cassio departs, he to us, this is very interesting. He keeps turning to us. He keeps making us complicit in his evildoing. He turns to us and says, what's he then that says, I play the villain? So he knows the thoughts that are on our minds. He knows we're looking on thinking, my goodness, you are evil. Who says I play the villain when this advice is free? I give and honest. How am I a villain to counsel Cassio to the parallel course directly to his good divinity of hell? So this is hilarious, really. His justification is essentially, well, in isolation. I'm giving Cassio good advice. And that's kind of true on a one to one level with the people around him. He is giving good advice. But it's the fact that they're part of a grander scheme that that advice will contribute to the tragedy. That's what makes it evil. This is horrific advice when contemplated in the grand scheme of things. So Cassio is now emboldened to get in with Desdemona. And then Iago begins to pour pestilence in Othello's ear. And he's getting him to start thinking. Cassio and Desdemona are sleeping together behind your back. They are cuckolding you. And Iago is making the net that shall enmesh them all. All. And this plan leads to one of my favorite conversations in shakespeare. Act three, scene three. And it's from the middle of the play onwards that we see the tone start to shift dramatically. And iago goes from jester trickster figure to demon of the night as his plans pick up speed and we start to realize the weight of what is unfolding. It's all fun and games until it goes to far and between the third and fourth act is when I discern the play goes from the comic to the tragic. Upon the departure of cassio from desdemona, Iago says, seemingly to himself, but really to othello. Huh, I like not that. What dost thou say? Othello asks, nothing, my lord. Or if I know not, was not that cassio parted from my wife? Cassio, my lord? Lord, no. Sure. I cannot think it that he would steal away so guilty like seeing your coming. And then othello, a little bit further on, as desdemona departs from him, he excellent wretch, perdition catch my soul, but I do love thee. And when I love thee not, chaos is come again, which is really ominous stuff. And then what follows is an incredible scene. Act 3, scene 3, lines 90 or thereabouts onwards. Iago says, my noble lord. Lord, what dost thou say? Iago? Didst michael cassio, when you wooed my lady, Know of your love? He did from first to last? Why dost thou ask? But for a satisfaction of my thought, no further harm. An othello says, why of thy thought? Iago? Iago says, I did not think he had been acquainted with her. Oh, yes, and went between us very oft. Indeed? Iago asks, indeed? Yea, ay, indeed. Discernest thou aught in that? Is he not honest? And Iago says, honest, my lord. Honest? Aye, honest, my lord, for aught I know. Othello says, what dost thou think? Think, my lord? Think, my lord. By heaven, thou echoest me. As if there were some monster in thy thought Too hideous to be shown. So evil works bit by bit. Poison seeps in slowly, so you do not fully discern it. And then it takes root. Then it starts spread. Then it starts to take over you entirely. Thou dost mean something. Othello says, I heard thee say even now thou likest not that. When cassio left my wife, what didst not like? If thou dost love me, show me thy thought. My lord, you know I love you. Iago goes on and says, for michael cassio, I dare be sworn, I think that he is honest. I think so too. Othello says men should be what they seem or those that be not, would they might seem none. So do we not all discern a little bit of Iago? I'm not even talking full on evil, but I think we've all met somebody who's had a little bit of Iago in them. Oh, yes, I think Cassio's honest. Oh, great. Me too. Men should be what they seem. Certain men should be what they seem. Othello says, why then I think Cassio's an honest man. So there is a difference between seeming seeming and being seeming so appearing a certain way and one's true nature. And so Iago is deliberately and overtly and obviously answering a different question. He's answering as to what he seems, but there's a discrepancy. And Othello notices this and says, nay, yet there's more in this. I prithee, speak to me. He says, tell me your thoughts. And Iago says, good my lord, pardon me, am I to utter my thoughts if they are vile and false? And he goes so far as to say, look, I confess, it is my nature's plague to spy into abuse. And oft my jealousy shapes faults that are not so. He is telling him what is not that he is about to perceive as actually being. My jealousy perceives faults that are not. We get incredible dramatic irony. It's like he's making fun of Othello as he's working his poison into him. He's telling him what's about to happen to him. And Iago makes a point of deliberately not telling Othello what he is actually telling him. So he's telling him, but he's also saying, I'm not telling you. But here's the situation. Beware, my lord, of jealousy. It is the green eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on. And he says, that cuckold lives in bliss. Who's certain of his fate loves not his wronger. So before he's even openly admitted his suspicion, what he suspects is going on between Cassio and Desdemona, he's telling Othello, whilst not telling him that cuckolds, those who have been cheated on, those who are being mucked about by their wives, are happy when they don't know it. But he might as well be already spilling the situation. There is no way that if a friend were to say, look, I'm not telling you what's on my thoughts. Just trust me when I say it's better that you don't know it. Because men who are cheated on, they're happier if they don't know it, it's an absolutely absurd thing to say. There's no one who could let that go. And Othello says, iago, I'll see before I doubt. When I doubt, prove, prove. And on the proof there is no more but this. Away at once with love or jealousy. Iago says, I speak not yet of proof. Look to your wife. Observe her well with Cassio. Wear your eyes thus, not jealous nor secure. Look to it. I know our country's disposition well. In Venice they do let God see their pranks. They dare not show their husbands. Their best conscience is not to leave it undone but keep it unknown. So he's tutoring Othello in the ways of Venice. He's saying, look, I know our country's disposition. There are women here who do monstrous things behind their husband's back. And everybody keeps it quiet. We just pretend we don't know. This is. This is how it goes. And so I'm not talking about proof exactly yet, but just from here on out, mark Desdemona. See how she acts. Keep an eye on her and Cassio. And of course, because Cassio is trying to get into Desdemona's good graces, Othello is going to see that which is there and isn't there. He's going to see a good relationship developing between the two. And he's going to infer that it means one thing when it means another. She did deceive her father, Iago says, marrying you. And when she seemed to shake and fear your looks, she loved them most. Othello says, I do not think but Desdemona's honest. And Diago says, long live she so. And long live you to think so. And so he's saying, no, I think my wife's honest. And Iago says, well, good for you. But now the poison starts to work, and we see that Othello's thoughts begin to spiral out of control. Even in the absence of proof. This is just talk and mere suspicion. Mere prattle, we might say. Just the mere supposition of one he considers honest. Iago is enough to plant doubts in his mind. And then we see that Iago works busily to set up his actual material proof, which, of course is again, no proof at all. The proof hangs upon Desdemona's handkerchief. Lives are hanging in the balance over this item. We see that Desdemona drops her handkerchief, which Othello had gifted her, and Emilia picks it up. And as her husband, Iago, had talked about this handkerchief endlessly, she decides to Give it to him. So she takes it and gives it to Iago. Now, Emilia knows her husband's name, nature, but we get a sense that she doesn't know the whole of his nature. She takes the handkerchief not because she is devious, but because she wants to please her husband. She is caught between her loyalty to her husband and her loyalty to her lady. Once Iago has his hands on the handkerchief, he outlines his plan to put it into Cassio's possession. And he says, and this is brilliant. Trifles light as air are to the jealous confirmations, strong as proofs of holy writ. And that is so profound. This is why the tragedies are wisdom, literature. They're like scripture. We should heed this warning when we are poisoned by jealousy, when we are bitten by the green eyed monster. Mere trifles become confirmations, they become proof of holy writ. And isn't that so true? We see what we expect to see, what we dread rather than what actually is. And how we see says everything about who we are. When we talk about the world around us, when we talk about people, when we talk about human nature, we are always projecting and casting our interiority onto the world. We rarely speak with any objectivity. And so Othello, tortured by the thought of Desdemona, and Cassio tells Iago, thou hast set me on the rack, I swear. Tis better to be much abused than but to know it a little. Shakespeare hits upon this idea a lot. And he says, I saw it not, thought it not, it harmed me not. I slept the next night well, fed well, was free and merry. And he said, I had been happy if the general camp, pioneers and all, had tasted her sweet body. So I had nothing known. So it's the thought of it rather than the actuality that's plaguing him. It wouldn't have mattered if she had slept with everybody behind his back. And he says to Iago, show me the ocular proof. And I love that line, ocular proof. Show me something I can see with my own eyes. Make me to see it, he says. Says, or at the least, so prove it, that the probation bear no hinge nor loop to hang a doubt on, or woe upon thy life. And we see that Othello starts to rail at Iago for driving him mad. And Iago responds by saying, this is my reward for being honest. Oh, world, he says, take note that to be direct and honest is not safe. As Othello continues to implore him to give him proof, Iago then says, says, well, if you want proof, the Other night, whilst Cassio was sleeping, he called out Desdemona's name. He kissed me, thinking I was her. And he put his leg over me. And he said in his sleep, sweet Desdemona, let us be wary, let us hide our loves. And he sighed and cursed fate that gave her to Othello. And this is enough to hasten Othello's descent into man. Madness. And we, of course, think this is absolutely absurd. Is that proof? One man's word about another man's dream? Even if Iago were telling the truth and he really did see Cassio dreaming of her, that is not proof of anything. Oh, monstrous, monstrous. Othello cries. And Iago says, nay, this was but his dream, but this denoted a foregone conclusion. Conclusion, Othello says. And then Iago says, though it be but a dream, this may help to thicken other proofs, other proofs. So this is taken for granted. Now, that's already one proof, but I'm going to give you even stronger proof. And of course he needs Othello to think this is a proof, because when he shows him the handkerchief, he wants him to really take that as proof. And he doesn't want him to stop and think for a moment and think, hang on a minute, this doesn't prove anything. Just a handkerchief alone, that's not proof. So the assumption is that her infamous fidelity is already being proven. He says, my lord, have you seen your wife with a handkerchief spotted with strawberries? And that's the one that Othello gave her. And he says that he saw Cassio with it. And all he has to do then is orchestrate things a little bit further and use what he knows of human nature to further his evil plan. Othello goes to Desdemona and he asks where the handkerchief is. And she's been stressing out because it's gone. She can't find it anywhere and it's obviously sentimental to Othello, so she feels bad. And it doesn't help that when he asks her to produce it, he makes it even more difficult for her by saying that it was his mother's and there is magic in the web of it. So how can she say she lost something so dear to her husband she refuses to produce it, not knowing, of course, that this refusal now nearly confirms her infidelity to her husband. The handkerchief. He cries. The handkerchief. And then he storms out, leaving Amelia, who is obviously complicit in this, to pass comment upon the nature of Men. Act 3, Scene 4. She says, Tis not a year or two shows us a man. They are all but stomachs and we all but food. They eat us hungrily, and when they are full, they belch us. So to her, yes, she took the handkerchief, she gave it to her husband, but Othello's outburst is still very much unwarranted. And Amelia is saying, you will see a man's true self after some time has passed, and he will devour you. Because that's what men do. They eat us up and belch us out. And perhaps we laugh a little bit from discomfort, from the absurdity of the situation when Othello cries out for his handkerchief. But it's around this point that things really start to pivot into full on tragedy. And our pity extends to Desdemon. I never gave him cause for jealousy, she says. And Amelia says, well, jealous souls are not ever jealous for the cause, but jealous just because they are jealous. It is a monster begot upon itself, born on itself. So Emilia is also missing a piece of the puzzle here. Even though she knows her husband's nature somewhat, she doesn't connect Iago and Othello together. She doesn't think that this is part of a grander plan. And indeed, why would she? She just sees Othello's outburst as a red flag and a warning sign. And she doesn't see the cause as stemming from Iago. Of course, she's kind of hiding things a little bit because she took the handkerchief. She didn't think it would be a big deal. She can't now, having seen the fuss that was caused, say, oh yeah, by the way, I took that. Now the thing is, we say that Iago is the cause of all of this. Amelia's saying that jealousy is begot from itself, it's born from itself, it's dead, stems from itself and feeds on itself. And we think, okay, well, Iago is the one causing all of this. We then might also take a step back a moment and say, well, is Iago the cause or is he just the catalyst? If Othello's nature was such that he couldn't be convinced of his wife's betrayal with such flimsy non proof, then this wouldn't be happening. Maybe Iago just stokes the flames that are already kindling. So as the play advances, Othello becomes utterly convinced, convinced that Desdemona and Cassio have been sleeping together. He can picture it all in his mind and it's driving him insane. And really, this is all so ludicrous. Othello and Desdemona have just got married, hardly Any time has passed. All of this is happening very quickly, and we're very much aware of the time passing. And it is very unlikely, likely that she's even had sex with Othello. I would contend that they haven't consummated things. But even if they had consummated their relationship, when was she supposed to have this lurid dalliance with his commander? When was she even supposed to find the time? When was she fitting this in? Things in Othello move at Romeo and Juliet level speed. That's the pace we're running at. This is as absurd, absurd as Romeo leaving Juliet's balcony in the early hours of the morning and then coming back the next day and accusing her of making the beast with two backs with Benvolio. That's how ridiculous this is. We see that Othello spirals into madness, frantically muttering handkerchief confessions, handkerchief. Iago makes Othello believe that what Cassio says about bias Bianca, with whom he has spent the night, is actually about Desdemona. And of course, Bianca, seeing the handkerchief in Cassio's possession, thinks it to be a love token from another woman. And then, after all of this, Iago says to Othello, did you see the handkerchief? And again, it's absurd. It's like he's saying, did you see them together? Did you see their naked, sweaty bodies writhing on top of each other? It's a handkerchief. This is not holy writ. And Othello now completely convinced because he's got his ocular proof, he's seen the handkerchief. It's all confirmed. Othello says, let her rot and perish and be damned tonight, for she shall not live. My heart is turned to stone. I strike it and it hurts my heart. Hand. Othello's music is monosyllabic. My heart is turned to stone. I strike it and it hurts my hand. One of my favorite lines, right at the beginning of the play, is when he says, keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them. We hear a procession of monosyllables from Othello, and then he will insert some strange, archaic, polysyllabic word. He'll pop that in the middle of his speeches. And this combination and juxtaposition creates a very strange cold music. But Othello's speech patterns also constantly remind us that he is an outsider in Venetian society, and this helps to make it easier to take advantage of him. Now we see it truly and unavoidably veers into tragedy when Athens Othello, enraged that he has been cuckolded strikes Desdemona in the court and in front of everyone, she says she is glad to see her lord. And he says, Act 4, Scene 1, I am glad to see you mad. And when she asks why sweet Othello, he yells, devil. And he strikes her. And she says, and this is a line that pierces me to my core. She says, I have not deserved this, and this is what makes it a tragedy. This is undeserved on her part. And Othello's pride, because the feeling of dishonor requires pride, leads to his undoing. From Desdemona's point of view, she's just got happily married and all of a sudden her husband has turned into a madman. When it's just Desdemona and Emilia in her chamber, we see that Desdemona sings a song, song that she heard her mother's maid sing. Her maid was called Barbary. And so potentially this woman came from the same place as Othello. And perhaps all her life Desdemona has felt a pull away from Europe and to the world of Othello. Her mother's maid, Barbary, sang this when her husband went mad. And this was her dying song. She sings the sad song of wood Willow and then we get the scene which I think has to be my favourite, my one passage as a focusing exercise. If I had to pick the passage that resonates personally and most powerfully with me, this is it. Act four, scene three. Around 60 lines in, Desdemona says to oh, these men, these men. Dost thou in conscience think, Think. Tell me, Amelia, that there be women to abuse their husbands in such gross kind? So my husband's called me a whore, he's accused me of being unfaithful. Are there really women who would do such a thing? Now, the reason why I love this is because you see these two characters interacting. Now, Shakespeare doesn't depict happy male relationships very often. And I do wonder if this is a typical to his own life, his own temperament, his own struggles to find friendship with fellow men. But he is capable of doing very close relationships with women. He does female friendships very well. And what we see here, when we have men in Shakespeare, we see them talking to themselves, overhearing themselves, thinking their problem through. But when we see these two women, Desdemona and Emilia, talk, they are talking to each other, they are marking each other and discerning each other. This women have been extraordinary to watch. They are in actual discourse. Desdemona says, do you think that there are women out there that abuse their husbands And Amelia says, there be some, no question. Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world? Desdemona asks. Emilia says, why would not you? No, by this heavenly light. Nor I neither by this heavenly light. I might do it as well in the. Desdemona says, wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world? So Desdemona is quite pure, she's quite innocent, quite naive. She can't believe that this is how people can be. And Amelia says, the world's a huge thing, it is a great price for a small vice. So she's very funny, she's very wise and she's very level headed. So she's saying, for all the world. Well, so she knows herself very, very well. And Desdemona says, good troth, I think thou wouldst not. And Amelia says, by my troth, I think I should, and undo it when I had done. Marry, I would not do such a thing for a joint ring, nor for measures of lawn, nor for gowns, petticoats, nor caps, nor any petty exhibition, but for all the whole world it's pity. Who would not make her husband a cuckold to make him a monarch? What a line. Who would not make their husband a cuckold to make him a monarch? I should venture purgatory for it. So back when Ihago told Othello, look, I know the character, I know the composition of my land of Venice, I know what women are like. He knows his wife. So he's telling a lie by telling the truth. He's telling how he feels about the world, but he's using that to advance a falsity about Desdemona, specifically. So who wouldn't make her husband the cuckle to make him a monarch? Emilia says. And Desdemona says, beshrew me if I would do such wrong for the whole world. Why, the wrong is but a wrong in the world. Amelia says, and having the world for your labour, tis a wrong in your own world and you might quickly make it right. I do not think there is any such woman. Desdemona says. Yes, a dozen. Amelia says as she continues to talk. We get Shakespeare the feminist come through. But I do think it is their husband's faults if wives do fall. Say that they slack their duties and pour our treasures into foreign, foreign lapse, or else break out in peevish jealousies throwing restraint upon us. Or say they strike us, though we have some grace, yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know their wives have sense like them. This sounds very much like Shylock speaking to the Christians. If you Prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? Let husbands know their wives have sense like them. They see, hear and smell and have their palates both for sweet and sour, as husbands have. So it's almost like Shakespeare's talking directly to the audience. Amelia's talking to the men in the audience and she's on the side of the women. The wives in the audience let these men know that we are no foreign creature. We're no alien. We are just like them, good and bad. We are no purity, we are no perfection. But we're no monster either. We're human. What is it that they do when they change us for others? Is it sport? I think it is. So she's wondering, why do men cheat on women? Is it just for fun? And she says, let men do what they will. Let them abuse us and misuse us, but then also let them know the ills we do, their ills instruct us. So. So this is Shakespeare once again talking to hypocrisy. You cannot expect good from us whilst you are doing bad. If you are going to cheat on us and abuse us, us, well, we're just like you. We're human, just like you. And you are setting down the example and we will follow it. This is very Shylockian, isn't it? In addition to wondering whether most men are Othello or Iago, I also wonder if most women are Desdemona or Emilia. And together with Desdemona, the tragedy becomes hers too, at least for me. Othello, Act 5, Scene 2, comes into Desdemona's room whilst she is sleeping. And if you see a good production of this, like the film adaptation, with Kenneth Branagh as Iago and Laurence Fishburne as Othello, then you will likely start to feel very sick in the pit of your stomach around this point, and you'll start to desperately wish for the clock to be turned back. And you will wish that the play would go a different way. When you go into a tragedy, you know it's going to end in bloodshed, in slaughter. There's no such thing as a spoiler when you go into a tragedy. That's why when you go into Romeo and Juliet, for example, the prologue right at the start tells you that the two lovers take their life. You know what you're getting in a tragedy. But it's at this point in the play, right near the end, that no matter how many times I rewatch Othello, I still hold out Hope that the course of things will be altered in the nick of time. Othello, iconically, in desdemona's chamber as she sleeps, says, it is the cause. It is the cause, my soul. Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars. It is the cause. Yet I'll not shed her blood nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow and smooth as monumental alabaster. Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men. Put out the light. And then put out the light. He kisses desdemona and wakes her up. And he asks her, have you prayed tonight, knight Desdemona? Ay, my lord. If you bethink yourself of any crime unreconciled as yet to heaven and grace, solicit for it straight. He tells her to pray and be brief. I would not kill thy unprepared spirit. No, heaven forfend. I would not kill thy soul. Talk you of killing? Ay, I do. Then heaven have mercy on me. Amen, with all my heart. That death's unnatural, that kills for loving, she says. And he tells her that he's found out everything. He reveals that he knows everything he's seen. The handkerchief. That handkerchief which I so loved and gave thee. Thou gave us to cassio. And of course, this is a huge surprise to desdemona because she doesn't know any of this. She didn't give anything to cassio. She didn't give the handkerchief. And she begs for him to hear her out, but his mind is made up. And then she tries to plead and convince and choose chillingly, beg othello to wait just a little longer. Kill me tomorrow, let me live tonight, she says. He calls her a strumpet. And she says, half an hour. Just give me half an hour. Let me live a little bit longer and let me say one more prayer. And othello says it is too late. And we watch, unable to breathe, as he smothers her. And then it's when Amelia comes in and confronts othello. This is where I see her as being the strongest character in the play. When she finds out what he's done, that he's killed her, lady. He's killed desdemona. And othello tells her why. He says, well, she was a whore. And Amelia says, thou art a devil. She was false as water. Thou art rash as fire to say that she was false. And then he says, well, thy husband knew it all. And this is a fantastic part of the play. Amelia says, shocked, my husband, Thy husband, that he was false to wedlock? Aye, with cassio and he continues to say that Iago has told him everything. And Amelia repeats again, my husband. Ay. Twas he that told me on the first. An honest man he is, and hates the slime that sticks on filthy deeds. My husband. What needs this iterance, woman? I say, thy husband. So we get a nice parallelism with the repetition that we had earlier with Iago. When Othello says, you're echoing me. You just keep repeating me. Amelia is doing the same, but not for the same reason. She's not trying to deceive or dupe, but trying to uncover the truth. Her echoing his thoughts is not a ruse to dupe him. It's a response that comes from shock. Oh, Miss Mistress, villainy hath made mocks with love. My husband say she was false. He, woman, I say, thy husband dost understand the word, my friend. Thy husband, honest, honest Iago. And Amelia says, and I love this. If he say so, may his pernicious soul rot half a grain a day. He lies to the heart. So this is absolutely, absolutely incredible. She knows her husband's nature. Now, of course, it's now dawning on her just how evil he is. She knows he lies, but she didn't realize that he would lie in such a way to bring about the death of Desdemona in order to spite Othello. She is shocked. He lies to the heart. And this is where the paradigm shatters. This is where Othello starts to think, oh, yeah. All of this hinged upon Iago's words. And he tells her, peace. And she says, o gull, O dolt, O as ignorant as dirt, thou hast done a deed. And he threatens her with his sword. And she says, I care not for thy sword. I'll make thee known, though I lost 20 lives. And she calls out, help. Help. The maw hath killed my mistress. Murder. So this is where she displays her courage. It doesn't matter what happens to her now. She will die for her mistress and she'll die for the truth. They all rush in. And then she confronted, confronts Iago, and he confronts her. She says, you didn't really. You didn't really tell this man that his wife was false. So she's having her own paradigm shattered. She can't believe this. And Iago says, I told him what I thought and told no more than what he found himself was apt and true. But did you ever tell him she was false? I did. You told a lie. An odious, damned lie. Upon my soul. Amelia says, a lie. A wicked lie. And Iago says, yes, yes, now go. Leave, essentially. Leave before you get yourself in trouble. In trouble with me. If you don't go, there's going to be a problem. Go home. And she refuses. She says to everybody, good gentleman, let me have leave to speak. Tis proper I obey him. But not now. Perchance, Iago, I will ne'er go home. So this is an act of powerful defiance in service of the truth, in service of. Of her unjustly slain lady. And she dies for it. Iago continues to warn her, be wise and get you home. And she says, I will not. And he ends up stabbing his wife. As it all comes into place. And Othello realizes what has happened and what's been done to him and what he's done to Desdemona. Othello runs at Iago, and Iago stabs Emilia. And as she ducks, she asks, desdemona, what did thy song bode, lady? And then, as they chase Iago, as he makes off for it, they get him. And Othello comes face to face with him. And he says, and this is brilliant. If that thou beest a devil, I cannot kill thee. And then he stabs him. And then he wants everybody to find out. And he wants to find out what Iago did it. Why did he lie? He asks everyone. I pray demands that demi devil why he hath thus ensnared my soul and body. And Iago, he says, demand me nothing. What you know, you know, and that is powerful. He doesn't need to say much more than that. And in fact, he even says he's not going to say any more. He says, from this time forth, I never will will speak word. What you know, you know, as in look with your eyes properly. You know the situation. Admit it. You've been false to yourself. And you've allowed me to be false to you. And you've believed foolishly in falsity. What you know, you know. And then we get Othello's devastating death speech, where he says to everybody, soft. Loved you a word or two before you go? I have done the state some service, and they know it. I pray you in your letters, when you shall these unlucky deeds relate. Speak of me as I am. Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak of one that loved not wisely, but too well, of one not easily jealous, but being wrought, perplexed in the extreme dream, of one whose hand, like the base Indian, threw a pearl away richer than all his tribe, of one whose subdued eyes, albeit unused to the melting mood drops tears as fast as the Arabian trees, their medicinable gum. Set you down this and say besides, that in Aleppo once, where a malignant and turbaned Turk beat a Venetian and traduced the state, I took by the throat the circumcised dog, and smote him thus, and he stabs himself, and he kisses his wife, he kisses Desdemona, and he says he kills himself to die upon a kiss, and then he dies. The Shakespearean stage is awash with blood as the first play in the tragic process session comes to its dramatic close. And now I would like to end by saying a huge thank you for listening today. Thank you for appreciating Shakespeare with me. And if you would like to see what other lovers of literature have made not only of this play, but of so many great works of literature, then navigate over to patreon.com and join in the fun at the Hardcore Literature Book Club. At time of recording we are reading some really exciting works. We're appreciating the epic poetry of Dante's Inferno. We're also reading some Toni Morrison this year. We've read masterworks from Steinbeck, Bulgakov, Jane Austen, David Foster Wallace. We've read the Tale of Genji. That was good fun. We've appreciated the poems of Walt Whitman, the plays of Moliere, the short stories of Franz Kafka and much more. And indeed, our back catalogue contains an extensive archive of read throughs and lectures for writers like James Joyce, the Bronte Sisters, Thomas Pynchon, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, George Eliot, Herman Melville, Cervantes, and many many more. And very soon we will be announcing the book club schedule for next year. It's very exciting stuff and I can't wait to share that with you. So join in the fun and share your love of the great books with us@patreon.com hardcore literature and again, thank you so much for listening today. I really appreciate you deeply and I hope you have a wonderful day. Happy reading and bye bye for now.