o such man; it is impossible;

and Desdemona answers,

If any such there be, Heaven pardon him;

Emilia's retort,

A halter pardon him, and Hell gnaw his bones,

says what we long to say, and helps us. And who has not felt in the last
scene how her glorious carelessness of her own life, and her outbursts
against Othello--even that most characteristic one,

She was too fond of her most filthy bargain--

lift the overwhelming weight of calamity that oppresses us, and bring us
an extraordinary lightening of the heart? Terror and pity are here too
much to bear; we long to be allowed to feel also indignation, if not
rage; and Emilia lets us feel them and gives them words. She brings us
too the relief of joy and admiration,--a joy that is not lessened by her
death. Why should she live? If she lived for ever she never could soar a
higher pitch, and nothing in her life became her like the losing
it.[122]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 107: It has been held, for example, that Othello treated Iago
abominably in preferring Cassio to him; that he _did_ seduce Emilia;
that he and Desdemona were too familiar before marriage; and that in any
case his fate was a moral judgment on his sins, and Iago a righteous, if
sharp, instrument of Providence.]

[Footnote 108: See III. iii. 201, V. i. 89 f. The statements are his
own, but he has no particular reason for lying. One reason of his
disgust at Cassio's appointment was that Cassio was a Florentine (I. i.
20). When Cassio says (III. i. 42) 'I never knew a Florentine more kind
and honest,' of course he means, not that Iago is a Florentine, but that
he could not be kinder and honester if he were one.]

[Footnote 109: I am here merely recording a general impression. There is
no specific evidence, unless we take Cassio's language in his drink (II.
ii. 105 f.) to imply that Iago was not a 'man of quality' like himself.
I do not know if it has been observed that Iago uses more nautical
phrases and metaphors than is at all usual with Shakespeare's
characters. This might naturally be explained by his roving military
life, but it is curious that almost all the examples occur in the
earlier scenes (see _e.g._ I. i. 30, 153, 157; I. ii. 17, 50; I. iii.
343; II. iii. 65), so that the use of these phrases and metaphors may
not be characteristic of Iago but symptomatic of a particular state of
Shakespeare's mind.]

[Footnote 110: See further Note P.]

[Footnote 111: But it by no