CHAPTER II.

OTHELLO.

'OTHELLO' has always appeared to me to be the most fearful of all Shakspeare's tragedies. My sympathies are as much attracted as repelled by it; the feeling excited in me is much the same as that excited by persons who possess irresistible attractions owing to the power and superiority of their minds, but are nevertheless decidedly repulsive, owing to the severity, harshness and abruptness of their character. Whenever I read the play, it invariably calls forth a whirl of conflicting feelings and thoughts, and it is only some time afterwards, and by degrees that this deep agitation is followed by the tragic liberation and elevation of the soul, a feeling which is otherwise usually called forth directly by Shakspeare's tragedies. The reason of this I can discover only in the fact that, in 'Othello' the harshness of the death of human beauty and greatness maintains a decided predominance over what is soothing and conciliatory, whereas the latter ought likewise to be an essential element of tragedy. At all events, the shrill discords which, in this present case, appear to be heaped one upon the other, are not (as in the closing scene of Romeo and Juliet') resolved into a pleasing and elevating harmony, but only find their reconciliation indirectly, by thoughtful reflection and by comprehending all the several incidents in the idea upon which the drama is based. If this be the case and if my feeling has not deceived me, it would imply a want of tragic development and completion, and accordingly this drama-which Englishmen generally consider the greatest, on account of the simple and very clear motives in its construction-would have to be considered inferior to others of Shakspeare's tragedies.

In order to obtain a clear insight into this matter, in

order to comprehend the intention of the poet, the tragic pathos in Othello's fate, and thereby the nature of the tragedy, it is above all things important to understand Othello's character. For tragedy is distinguished from comedy, also by the fact that the tragic pathos, the suffering and death of the hero, must arise out of the character, the powers and disposition, the passions and impulses of the hero, even though with the aid of external circumstances; in comedy, it is the very reverse, the play of chance and the complications of external circumstances unfold their whole power, and generally lead to results entirely different to what the dramatic personages, according to their characters, tendency, and sentiments, had intended.

First of all Othello is a born warrior, a general, a military genius; this is the peculiar gift by which he is pre-eminently distinguished. This fact the poet has so often and so repeatedly set forth, that great stress seems obviously to have been placed upon it; and indeed it contains the main clue for comprehending the whole tragedy. For as a warrior par excellence,

Othello is not merely ambitious in the common sense of the word, honour rather necessarily and pre-eminently forms the basis of his personal existence, the condition by which alone he can fulfil his natural destiny, and satisfy the thirst of his genius for performing heroic deeds and enduring heroic sufferings. Pedantic moralists, who would like to see their self-made laws imposed as oracles on human life, have indeed often enough maintained that honour is a mere phantom, a delusive possession of error and sin, upon which the moral man ought to turn his back. Honour, certainly, is this imaginary phantom when, in place of being employed as a means, it is made the absolute aim and end. In this case the person is not honour-loving but honour-seeking, and between the love of honour and the thirst for honour there is a very wide difference. The latter is the creature of sin, the perversion of a moral virtue into evil and ruin. The love of honour, however, is one and the same thing as a genuine moral sentiment, becoming in a man, and is combined with the duty to love one's neigh

bour as oneself, therefore to devote one's energies and
powers, doings and strivings to the welfare of humanity.
For were there no honour among men, were there no
external esteem, such as is due to every good member of
human society, the sinews of man's energy would be cut
asunder. Man, when standing by himself, is incapable,
powerless; he can act only if others accept his doings and
strivings, if, in esteem for his sentiments and his honest in-
tentions, they co-operate with him. Honour is the indis-
pensable bond between man's enterprise and the sphere of
its activity. Herein, the love of honour has its moral justi-
fication, this is why dishonour, the want of all feeling of
honour, is a moral disgrace. This is why Othello, when be-
lieving his honour to be destroyed, justly exclaims (iii. 3):
"Farewell the plumèd troops, and the big wars,
That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!

Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner; and all quality,

Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war!
Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!"

With the loss of his honour, his activity is destroyed, his
strength broken. But Othello is not only honour-loving,
his love of honour by becoming a passion, is also mixed
with a thirst for honour. The former is indeed the
determinating principle of his resolves and actions; he
is indeed aware that its mimic, the thirst for honour, is
no virtue, that war alone could make it this, i.e., give it
the appearance, the semblance of true honour.
But even
this mere semblance he will not have taken from him;
his love of honour is clouded by a thirst for honour, his
self-sacrificing activity for the general welfare is mixed
with the desire for fame, with the selfishness of passion.
Hence the restlessness, the vehemence, the violent mental
agitation which takes possession of him at the first,
faintest suspicion of Desdemona's infidelity, at the mere
thought of his honour being affected.

Othello, however, not only possesses the virtues but the faults of a warrior. We are at once aware that from his seventh year he has associated only with soldiers, that war has been his instructor, and the camp his school. In

accordance with this he is cool and discreet. Iago says of him (iii. 4):

"I have seen the cannon,

When it hath blown his ranks into the air;

And, like the devil, from his very arm

Puff'd his own brother;-And can he be angry?
Something of moment, then: I will go meet him:
There's matter in't indeed, if he be angry."

This praise is no doubt honestly meant. Othello could not be the great general he is acknowledged to be, without that imperturbable calmness and firmness of character, that presence of mind which is but a form of self-control, and without which it is impossible to have control over others, over the endless variety of incalculable accidents, fluctuations of time and incidents of war, in other words, without which it is impossible to possess the knowledge and the tact of a general. But, as Iago also intimates, it is only in danger that he is cold-blooded. Without this lever to his equilibrium he is not only severe, rough, and hasty, but also at times passionate and violent. He shows himself to be so, in his conduct towards the intoxicated Cassio, which forms the beginning of the whole catastrophe.

But Othello is not only a warrior, he is also a man. Amid the storms of war, amid the thunder of guns, amid hatred and strife, and love of slaughter, he has preserved the more tender and nobler feelings which alone make a man, he has preserved a frank, loving heart which does not ask for actions and merits, but for kindliness of disposition and sentiment. He is capable of loving in the fullest and highest sense of the word, he is capable of admiring not only beauty of soul, grace, amiability and nobleness of mind, but has also a desire lovingly and longingly to make them his own. This is unmistakable in his relation to Desdemona; his love for her is of the purest and noblest kind, genuine manly love, centred in the inmost nature and true worth of the beloved object, in the imperishable beauty of her true womanliness. He is, v indeed, by no means blind to the personal charms of Desdemona, but this external beauty alone would not have won him, it might rather have repelled him in his

VOL, I.

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courtship, for he is aware how little of it he himself has to put in the scales. Desdemona herself, therefore, has, as it were, to challenge his heart, she has to make the first advance. Only when he sees that it is not his exterior, but his inmost nature that has made an impression upon her heart-in her true womanliness of mind, being indifferent to his outward appearance, and capable of appreciating the true value of the man-it is, then only, that he gives himself up to her in all the fervour and fire of unimpaired manhood. Nay, this fire even rises above the flames of his ambition, and outshines the bright rays of his heroism. His are not mere words, it is genuine, deep feeling when-in the greatest misery at the supposed certainty of Desdemona's infidelity,-he calls out almost in madness (iv. 2):

"Had it pleas'd heaven

To try me with affliction; had he rain'd
All kind of sores, and shames, on my bare head;
Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips;
Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes,
I should have found in some place of my soul
A drop of patience: but, alas! to make me
The fixed figure for the time of scorn
To point his slow and moving finger at,—
Yet could I bear that too; well, very well:
But there where I have garner'd up my heart:
Where either I must live, or bear no life;
The fountain from the which my current runs,
Or else dries up; to be discarded thence!

Or keep it as a cistern, for foul toads

To knot and gender in! Turn thy complexion there,
Patience, thou young and rose-lipp'd cherubin!

Ay, there, look grim as hell!"

As Othello, here, places love far above fame and honour, so he carries his loving disposition, his sensitive heart into his work and the fulfilment of his duties. Cassio is not merely his subordinate, but his friend, and even while enraged at his misdemeanour, while ordering his punishment, he assures him of his love, of his continued friendship. Nay, Iago's complaint of Cassio's having been preferred to him, does not seem altogether unfounded. At least his assertion (i. 1) that Cassio is a mere 'countercaster' who 'never set a squadron in the field, nor the