Iago by Harold Bloom

Author:Harold Bloom
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner

CHAPTER 6

I Will Chop Her into Messes. Cuckold Me!

If you have lost your faith in the war god, you yet retain profound interest in his degradation. Milton’s Satan, Iago’s son, hates Milton’s God and seeks some way to grieve him. War in heaven has been fought and lost. In Iago’s mode, Satan resolves to prey upon innocence. Eve and Adam become Desdemona on a cosmic scale.

Iago, entering with Cassio, is clinically aroused when told that the Moor is angry:

Desdemona: Alas! thrice-gentle Cassio,

My advocation is not now in tune.

My lord is not my lord; nor should I know him,

Were he in favor as in humor altered.

So help me every spirit sanctified

As I have spoken for you all my best

And stood within the blank of his displeasure

For my free speech! You must awhile be patient.

What I can do, I will, and more I will

Than for myself I dare. Let that suffice you.

Iago: Is my lord angry?

Emilia: He went hence but now,

And certainly in strange unquietness.

Iago: Can he be angry? I have seen the cannon

When it hath blown his ranks into the air,

And like the devil from his very arm

Puffed his own brother—and is he angry?

Something of moment then. I will go meet him;

There’s matter in’t indeed, if he be angry.

Desdemona: I prithee do so.

Exit Iago.

act 3, scene 4, lines 118–36

Thrice we hear “angry.” Iago recalls the Moor’s serenity under fire and loss. Anger is new. Aesthete of jealousy, Iago eagerly seeks Othello. Desdemona and Emilia, in Cassio’s presence, exchange what wisdom they can on the theme of male jealousy:

Desdemona: Something, sure, of state,

Either from Venice, or some unhatched practice

Made demonstrable here in Cyprus to him,

Hath puddled his clear spirit; and in such cases

Men’s natures wrangle with inferior things,

Though great ones are their object. ’Tis even so;

For let our finger ache, and it indues

Our other, healthful members even to a sense

Of pain. Nay, we must think men are not gods,

Nor of them look for such observancy

As fits the bridal. Beshrew me much, Emilia,

I was, unhandsome warrior as I am,

Arraigning his unkindness with my soul;

But now I find I had suborned the witness,

And he’s indicted falsely.

Emilia: Pray heaven it be

State matters, as you think, and no conception

Nor no jealous toy concerning you.

Desdemona: Alas the day! I never gave him cause.

Emilia: 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 monster

Begot upon itself, born on itself.

Desdemona: Heaven keep the monster from Othello’s mind!

Emilia: Lady, amen.

Desdemona: I will go seek him. Cassio, walk hereabout.

If I do find him fit, I’ll move your suit

And seek to effect it to my uttermost.

Cassio: I humbly thank Your Ladyship.

act 3, scene 4, lines 136–63

Desdemona, lucid and yearning for happiness, is conscious of the shadow falling upon her. Emilia, who has experienced Iago, is wiser and darker. Cassio, transparently loyal to Othello, approaches a kind of pathos that augers ill for all.

Shakespeare allows us a momentary stay from tension by introducing Bianca, a Venetian courtesan in thrall to Cassio.

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