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Page 29
OTHELLO
ACT V. SCENE vi. (v. ii. 63-5.)
Oh perjur'd woman! Thou dost stone my heart,
And mak'st me call, what I intent to do,
A murder, which I thought a sacrifice.
This line is difficult. Thou hast harden'd my heart, and makest
me kill thee with the rage of a MURDERER, when I thought to have
sacraficed thee to justice with the calmness of a priest striking
a victim.
It must not be omitted, that one of the elder quarto's reads, "Thou
dost stone THY heart:" which I suspect to be genuine. The meaning
then will be, thou forcest me to dismiss thee from the world in
the state of the murdered without preparation for death, when I
intended that thy punishment should have been "a sacrifice" atoning
for thy crime.
I am glad that I have ended my revisal of this dreadful scene. It
is not to be endured.
The beauties of this play impress themselves so strongly upon the
attention of the reader, that they can draw no aid from critical
illustration. The fiery openness of Othello, magnanimous, artless,
and credulous, boundless in his confidence, ardent in his affection,
inflexible in his resolution, and obdurate in his revenge; the cool
malignity of Iago, silent in his resentment, subtle in his designs,
and studious at once of his interest and his vengeance; the soft
simplicity of Desdemona, confident of merit, and conscious of
innocence, her artless perseverance in her suit, and her slowness
to suspect that she can be suspected, are such proofs of Shakespeare's
skill in human nature, as, I suppose, it is vain to seek in any
modern writer. The gradual progress which Iago makes in the Moor's
conviction, and the circumstances which he employs to inflame him,
are so artfully natural, that, though it will perhaps not be said
of him as he says of himself, that he is "a man not esily jealous,"
yet we cannot but pity him when at last we find him "perplexed in
the extreme."
There is always danger lest wickedness conjoined with abilities
should steal upon esteem, though it misses of approbation but the
character if Iago is so conducted, that he is from the first scene
to the last hated and despised.
Event he inferiour characters of this play would be very conspicuous
in any other piece, not only for their justness but their strength.
Cassio is brave, benevolent, and honest, ruined only by his want
of stubbornness to resist an insidious invitation of Rodegigo's
suspicious credulity, and impatient submission of the cheats which
he sees practised upon him, and which by persuasion he suffers to
be repeated, exhibit a strong picture of a weak mind betrayed by
unlawful desires, to a false friend and the virtue of AEmilia is
such as we often find, worn loosely but not cast off, easy to commit
small crimes, but quickend and alarmed at atrocious villanies.
The Scenes from the beginning to the end are busy, varied but happy
interchanges, and regularly promoting the progression of the story;
and the narrative in the end, though it tells but what is known
already, yet is necessary to produce the death of Othello.
Had the scene opened in Cyprus, and the preceding incidents been
occasionally related, there had been little wanting of a drama of the
most exact and scrupulous regularity.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, PREFACE TO SHAKESPEARE ***
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