QUESTIONS AS TO _OTHELLO_, ACT IV. SCENE I.

(1) The first part of the scene is hard to understand, and the
commentators give little help. I take the idea to be as follows. Iago
sees that he must renew his attack on Othello; for, on the one hand,
Othello, in spite of the resolution he had arrived at to put Desdemona
to death, has taken the step, without consulting Iago, of testing her in
the matter of Iago's report about the handkerchief; and, on the other
hand, he now seems to have fallen into a dazed lethargic state, and must
be stimulated to action. Iago's plan seems to be to remind Othello of
everything that would madden him again, but to do so by professing to
make light of the whole affair, and by urging Othello to put the best
construction on the facts, or at any rate to acquiesce. So he says, in
effect: 'After all, if she did kiss Cassio, that might mean little. Nay,
she might even go much further without meaning any harm.[266] Of course
there is the handkerchief (10); but then why should she _not_ give it
away?' Then, affecting to renounce this hopeless attempt to disguise his
true opinion, he goes on: 'However, _I_ cannot, as your friend, pretend
that I really regard her as innocent: the fact is, Cassio boasted to me
in so many words of his conquest. [Here he is interrupted by Othello's
swoon.] But, after all, why make such a fuss? You share the fate of most
married men, and you have the advantage of not being deceived in the
matter.' It must have been a great pleasure to Iago to express his real
cynicism thus, with the certainty that he would not be taken seriously
and would advance his plot by it. At 208-210 he recurs to the same plan
of maddening Othello by suggesting that, if he is so fond of Desdemona,
he had better let the matter be, for it concerns no one but him. This
speech follows Othello's exclamation 'O Iago, the pity of it,' and this
is perhaps the moment when we most of all long to destroy Iago.

(2) At 216 Othello tells Iago to get him some poison, that he may kill
Desdemona that night. Iago objects: 'Do it not with poison: strangle her
in her bed, even the bed she hath contaminated?' Why does he object to
poison? Because through the sale of the poison he himself would be
involved? Possibly. Perhaps his idea was that, Desdemona being killed by
Othello, and Cassio killed by Roderigo, he would then admit that he had
informed Othello of the adultery, and perhaps even that he had
undertaken Ca