woman belongs to _me_, her smiles are _mine_, her pleasant words
should fall on _my_ ear alone; _I_ am her lover, she, the mistress of
_my_ heart; and that should content her.

Every writer of the human heart has expatiated upon this great source
of worry--jealousy. Shakspere refers to it again and again. The whole
play of _Othello_ rests upon the Moor's jealousy of his fair, sweet,
and loyally faithful Desdemona. How the fiendish Iago plays upon
Othello's jealous heart until one sees that:

Trifles, light as air,
Are to the jealous confirmations strong
As proofs of holy writ.

Iago bitterly resents a slight he feels Othello has put upon him. With
his large, generous, unsuspicious nature, Othello never dreams of such
a thing; he trusts Iago as his intimate friend, and thus gives the
crafty fiend the oportunity he desires to

put the Moor
Into a jealousy so strong
That judgment cannot cure ...
Make the Moor thank me, love me, reward me,
For making him egregiously an ass
And practicing upon his peace and quiet
Even to madness.

Othello gives his wife, Desdemona, a rare handkerchief. Iago urges his
own wife, who is Desdemona's maid, to pilfer this and bring it to him.
When he gets it, he leaves it in Cassio's room. Cassio was an intimate
friend of Othello's, one, indeed, who had gone with him when he went
to woo Desdemona, and who, by Iago's machinations, had been suspended
from his office of Othello's chief lieutenant. To provoke Othello's
jealousy Iago now urges Desdemona to plead Cassio's cause with her
husband, and at the came time eggs on Othello to watch Cassio:

Look to your wife; observe her well with Cassio;
Wear your eye thus, not jealous nor secure.
I would not have your free and noble nature
Out of self-bounty be abus'd; look to 't.

Thus he works Othello up to a rage, and yet all the time pretends to
be holding him back:

I do see you're mov'd;
I pray you not to strain my speech
To grosser issues nor to larger reach
Than to suspicion.

Iago leaves the handkerchief in Cassio's room, at the same time
saying:

The Moor already changes with my poison;
Dangerous conceits are in their natures poisons,
Which at the first are scarce found to distaste,
But with a little act upon the blood,
Burn like the mines of sulphur.

And as he sees the tortures the jealous worries of the Moor have
already produced in him, he exultingly yet stealth