So we have decidedin the best interests of all to discontinue this practice. The Salvagings willproceed without further ado."A collective murmur goes up from us.
The power of silence. Which is in contrast to the influence of gossip, the little tiny whispers. Gilead has even grasped on the little murmurings as a sort of rebellion
She loved me for the dangers I had passed,And I loved her that she did pity them.
Ironic because they see (Desdemona) sees tragedy as his heroism and his appeal, the pity she has on him. And yet he only turns more pitiful because he passes more and more tragedies later on. Desdemona is even more of an angel then. Cradling the child of a devil
Demand me nothing. What you know, you know.From this time forth I never will speak word.
His last rebellion, his final influence over the situation -- knowing nothing. And its ironic because he was the source of all knowledge and information that sparked all the events, and now that everything is done, he is still. There is no more movement, even if they would like there to be some. In this way he is really like Shakespeare, having the power to cause and inhibit action through knowledge -- the greed of which is Othello's fatal flaw.
Set you down this,And say besides that in Aleppo once,Where a malignant and a turbaned TurkBeat a Venetian and traduced the state,I took by the throat the circumcisèd dog,And smote him, thus
By killing himself, he is cleansing the world of his "inner darkness" being a Turk, the beastliness that ruined the superior and ordered Venetian society. It is this, himself, who he kills -- showing he is, at heart, still a Turk, and not the driving motivation that causes all these events to unfold (Iago) -- as Iago is stabbed but has not died. This signifies the curse of suspicion and reason cannot be eliminated -- reason preys on individual people and is not something one can rid. In the end, he chooses once again to rid the tumor of society (which he believes first is his wife, Desdemona, now it is him, the Turk), following honor rather than personal desire.
Oh, I were damned beneath all depth in hell,But that I did proceed upon just groundsTo this extremity.
So it was simply out of again, external rules and regulation, to maintain civility is to conform to the right and wrong of the outside world.
A murder, which I thought a sacrifice
Sacrifice of what? Does he truly believe what he is doing is right so that Desdemona does not cheat on other men? Is this really his righteousness at play?
Or is he sacrificing a part of him, his heart?
Yet I’ll not shed her blood,Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snowAnd smooth as monumental alabaster.Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men.
Othello doesn't want to ruin or taint her purity and innocence that she sees, but knows he has to take her light. And he acknowledges that even Prometheus cannot bring back that inner light she has. It shows that he sees through her objectification and beauty and sees her invaluable light.
For, of my heart, those charms, thine eyes, areblotted.Thy bed, lust-stained, shall with lust’s blood bespotted
Very important, but still, why does he need to murder her, his one love, what is that significance WHY?!?!
Why, by making him uncapable of Othello’s place:knocking out his brains.
If Iago is reason, and Roderigo seeks reason, and Iago is the cause of all this destruction, then it should be said that the human need for reason (which crushes emotion) is what brings downfall. Logic is what has cut off Othello's motivation (heart). Iago is the personalization of human reason
Fie, there is no such man. It is impossible
Maybe he is right, in the sense that he is not a man who could scheme something like this. It is simply Othello's choice to follow suspicion that led him to this. It is impossible for someone to scheme it up.
But, alas, to make meThe fixèd figure for the time of scornTo point his slow and moving finger at!Yet could I bear that too, well, very well.But there where I have garnered up my heart,Where either I must live or bear no life,The fountain from the which my current runsOr else dries up—to be discarded thence!
He actually admits to his pride not being something that kills him, he can put up with all but the pain of his heart, that is his true motivation. So it is Desdemona's love and adoration that focuses on him that keeps him going.
Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell.
Ironic because heaven, being in Othello's eyes as truth and knowledge, should not be so sinister and cause destruction as Iago has. Hell is deception and the ignorance, but so far ignorance has maintained peace. What irony!
Alas, alas!It is not honesty in me to speakWhat I have seen and known. You shall observe him,And his own courses will denote him soThat I may save my speech. Do but go afterAnd mark how he continues.
Funnily Iago does not incite suspicion in Lodovico, only Othello. Perhaps that emphasizes Iago is a delusional part of Othello, the inner darkness that arises, indicating Othello has a fatal flaw that differs from all other characters. Is it really because he represses something? If so what? Why is he weak in his convictions and easy to sway? What does that show? What does it say about how he sees Desdemona?
Is this the natureWhom passion could not shake?
Ahh I see, the civility is based on being Iago, keeping one's passions, desires subdued -- he turns into a monster because he cannot accept his emotions and true self reflection by himself. Now that Iago has fished them out, he doesn't know how to deal with them. Like inferior function, repressing it only makes the inner darkness grow more dangerous.
To LODOVICO) Concerning this, sir—(To DESDEMONA) Oh,well-painted passion!(To LODOVICO) I am commanded home.(To DESDEMONA) Getyou away,I’ll send for you anon.(To LODOVICO) Sir, I obey themandateAnd will return to Venice.(To DESDEMONA) Hence,avaunt!
Maybe this passage signifies the intertwining of politics and personal, and how they are inseperable, because human is inseperable to their emotions -- lest they be Iago?
Good, good, the justice of it pleases! Very good!
Even the way he wants to kill her comes down to pride, justice, and his tightly held "Venetian morality" that comes from Iago's advice, all because he cannot trust his own morality and create his own convictions
Ay, let her rot and perish and be damned tonight, forshe shall not live. No, my heart is turned to stone. Istrike it and it hurts my hand. Oh, the world hath not asweeter creature, she might lie by an emperor’s sideand command him tasks
Confusion and contradiction
Look how he laughs already!
Confirmation bias yet again, Iago has done none but plant the seeds (or rather, water the seeds of insecurity) that Othello has in him, and the rest is the human need for drama, for coherency, for understanding.
Do but encave yourself,And mark the fleers, the gibes, and notable scornsThat dwell in every region of his face
Confirmation bias! To provide an inkling of suspicion is to provide the basis of a narrative.
A hornèd man’s a monster and a beast.
Pride, again
Nature would not investherself in such shadowing passion without someinstruction. It is not words that shake me thus.
Shows his reason being guided fully by physical emotion and anger, that even causes a seizure. He is not like Iago, as Iago has free will with the absence of emotion. Only reason, and that is why he is isolated from the rest, different. Juxtaposition between Othello (human) and Iago (reason, devil) and Desdemona (love, emotion) like tug of war
With her, on her, what you will.
Shows that it is entirely Othello's choice to interpret Iago's words, that Iago is simply an inkling that knows none, and that it is man's tendency to suspect that causes the downfall.
But jealous souls will not be answered so.They are not ever jealous for the cause,But jealous for they’re jealous. It is a monsterBegot upon itself, born on itself
This implies Othello himself is a beast, a monster, who was born with the jealousy and not given reason to do so.
My lord is not my lord, nor should I know himWere he in favor as in humor altered
Indicates his inner darkness has taken over. He is truly beastly. The imbalance in who he listens to has caused this -- his insecurities, like many others, makes him more prone to suspicion and therefore Iago's advice than his own wife's
Alas, thrice-gentle Cassio,My advocation is not now in tune.
The fact that Desdemona is sometimes represented as divinity, as a guardian angel, shows that the fact that Othello is rejecting her advocation shows he is falling into his devil, into his inner Iago -- he is losing touch with God, with righteousness (while ironically thinking he is doing the right thing by being civil)
This hand of yours requiresA sequester from liberty, fasting, and prayer,Much castigation, exercise devout,For here’s a young and sweating devil here,That commonly rebels. 'Tis a good hand,A frank one
How he is describing her as honest to her heart, but not so much civil. That she would lie to Brabantio for her passions, and would therefore lie to Othello for Cassio -- that he doesn't value honesty but values civility.
Arise, black vengeance, from the hollow hell!Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearted throneTo tyrannous hate! Swell, bosom, with thy fraught,For ’tis of aspics' tongues
He speaks as if he is demonic, possessed, as if he has dual souls living inside of him... maybe he does. And all Iago did was play with his unstable convictions until his demon shows.
I’ll tear her all to pieces
You can see he is ever switching between every single new piece of "evidence" he comes across, showing his little conviction and yet his desire for absolute truth
As Dian’s visage, is now begrimed and blackAs mine own face.
He sees himself as impure, and prone to error, and wrong. This is where it all starts, inner darkness.
By the world,I think my wife be honest and think she is not.I think that thou art just and think thou art not
Like Reza, he is easily swayed by outside whispers because he has not built his identity, his true convictions, besides the insecurity that his convictions are not real.
O world,To be direct and honest is not safe.I thank you for this profit, and from henceI’ll love no friend, sith love breeds such offence
Ironically mocking Othello's truthful words that suspicion is a sin, knowledge is a sin, by reminding him that all he praised Iago for was his honesty.
Never pray more
Experience, knowing, knowledge is hell, torture, and destroys what we call happiness, because all happiness is is delusion
And O you mortal engines, whose rude throatsThe immortal Jove’s dead clamors counterfeit,Farewell! Othello’s occupation’s gone
Connects personal to political. How is his military role related to his personal love life?
He that is robbed, not wanting what is stol'n,Let him not know’t, and he’s not robbed at all.
His point is that ignorance is bliss -- all is destroyed from knowing, from suspecting, from understanding. (connects to Blake)
Haply, for I am blackAnd have not those soft parts of conversationThat chamberers have, or for I am declinedInto the vale of years—yet that’s not much—
Here he brings up race and his alienation for his inability to understand. His own insecurity in being different appears in the form of Iago, suspicion for all that is actually normal.
In Venice they do let God see the pranksThey dare not show their husbands. Their bestconscience
Showing he lacks knowledge because he is not Venetian
Though I perchance am vicious in my guess,As, I confess, it is my nature’s plagueTo spy into abuses, and oft my jealousyShapes faults that are not, that your wisdom,From one that so imperfectly conceits,Would take no notice, nor build yourself a trouble
IAGO QUITE LITERALLY IS HONEST WITH OTHELLO! He warns him that these suspicions, these inner thoughts are all a delusion, and yet Othello's insecurity and stubbornness refuses to believe it
As where’s that palace whereinto foul thingsSometimes intrude not? Who has that breast so pureWherein uncleanly apprehensionsKeep leets and law-days and in sessions sitWith meditations lawful?
The palace refers to the mind where suspicion creeps in, who DOESN'T have suspicion invade their minds? Certainly not Othello, and Iago is stating the same for him, because they are one and the same person? He is literally telling him the truth of the situation, that these thoughts are "vile and false" but Othello will not listen.
Nay, yet there’s more in this.I prithee speak to me as to thy thinkings,As thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughtsThe worst of words
Iago has not elaborated or said much, it is Othello who is prying deeper and deeper into "knowing" what he should not, into peering into something that would disturb his peace. This connects to Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience. It is then Othello's fault for looking for answers to his suspicions which he confirms with confirmation bias.
The Moor repliesThat he you hurt is of great fame in CyprusAnd great affinity, and that in wholesome wisdomHe might not but refuse you.
Othello is subjective about his "universal" morals based on the ranking, standing and pride (manliness) of who Cassio hurts. If it be a beggar, it would have been no problem?
You are but now cast inhis mood, a punishment more in policy than in malice
Yet again stating the intentions of everyone in just wariness of their reputation and pride
Reputation, reputation, reputation! Oh, I have lost myreputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, andwhat remains is bestial. My reputation, Iago, myreputation!
Cassio quite literally proclaims how his reputation and pride are the things connecting him to heaven, to divinity, to humanity, but which are void of life and actually destroy him. One without reputation and pride is nothing but a beast, what Othello fears he will be as a Moor.
Are we turned Turks?
Othello describes this chaos as Turks, as the foreign, as the other, as the out-group. This means he prizes his in-group due to their civility and restraint -- in other words their ability to maintain composure for the sake of pride. The rejection of the inner demon only creates more destruction (Inferior Function)
Perhaps he sees it not, or his good naturePrizes the virtue that appears in CassioAnd looks not on his evils. Is not this true?
He will eventually turn on Cassio, so he will see his evils, but he not until the end will see Iago's evils, because perhaps Iago is a part of each, and pride is what covers them from accepting and admitting their inner evils.
If after every tempest come such calms,May the winds blow till they have wakened death,And let the laboring bark climb hills of seasOlympus-high, and duck again as lowAs hell’s from heaven!
It is almost like he is welcoming the Tempest, because he feels as if nothing can ruin it now, with Desdemona -- this is a literal inviting of Iago to come ruin it. It is to show that his defencelessness and overconfidence invites the inner beast within to come rupture it.
The trust, the office I do hold of you,Not only take away, but let your sentenceEven fall upon my life.
Willing to leverage, but also highlights another side to Othello -- he is a prideful man who has the need to prove things, to win in chivalry -- not so much her love, but the fact he has her love.
To mourn a mischief that is past and goneIs the next way to draw new mischief on
Also refers to the accumulation of cataclysm that builds up in Othello throughout the play from the "mourning" and discrimination of his blackness.
It strikes where it doth love.
He plays the role of Justice, of Zeus, of the gods who keep up the neverending cycle of life and death. He plays the honest honor of a man, which in contrast, Iago believes he has but does not.