be the suicide, absent in the romance, it completely
destroys the conception of his clearly defined character. If he indeed
suffered from grief and remorse, he would not, intending to kill
himself, pronounce phrases about his own services, about the pearl, and
about his eyes dropping tears "_as fast as the Arabian trees their
medicinal gum_"; and yet less about the Turk's beating an Italian and
how he, Othello, smote him--_thus!_ So that notwithstanding the powerful
expression of emotion in Othello when, under the influence of Iago's
hints, jealousy rises in him, and again in his scenes with Desdemona,
one's conception of Othello's character is constantly infringed by his
false pathos and the unnatural speeches he pronounces.

So it is with the chief character, Othello, but notwithstanding its
alteration and the disadvantageous features which it is made thereby to
present in comparison with the character from which it was taken in the
romance, this character still remains a character, but all the other
personages are completely spoiled by Shakespeare.

Iago, according to Shakespeare, is an unmitigated villain, deceiver, and
thief, a robber who robs Roderigo and always succeeds even in his most
impossible designs, and therefore is a person quite apart from real
life. In Shakespeare, the motive of his villainy is, first, that Othello
did not give him the post he desired; secondly, that he suspects Othello
of an intrigue with his wife and, thirdly, that, as he says, he feels a
strange kind of love for Desdemona. There are many motives, but they are
all vague. Whereas in the romance there is but one simple and clear
motive, Iago's passionate love for Desdemona, transmitted into hatred
toward her and Othello after she had preferred the Moor to him and
resolutely repulsed him. Yet more unnatural is the utterly unnecessary
Roderigo whom Iago deceives and robs, promising him Desdemona's love,
and whom he forces to fulfil all he commands: to intoxicate Cassio,
provoke and then kill Cassio. Emilia, who says anything it may occur to
the author to put into her mouth, has not even the slightest semblance
of a live character.

"But Falstaff, the wonderful Falstaff," Shakespeare's eulogists will
say, "of him, at all events, one can not say that he is not a living
character, or that, having been taken from the comedy of an unknown
author, it has been weakened."

Falstaff, like all Shakespeare's characters, was taken from a drama or