ACT 3 Scene 3 Othello


Damn her, lewd minx! O, damn her! Come, go with me apart. I will withdraw, To furnish me with some swift means of death For the fair devil. Now art thou my lieutenant.


Iago


I am your own for ever. Exeunt


525


Key Scene Extended Commentary A fateful meeting (lines 1–36)


Desdemona, Cassio and Emilia meet in the garden of the castle. Desdemona promises her support to have Cassio reinstated, using ‘All my abilities in thy behalf’. Cassio is impatient, afraid that Othello ‘will forget my love and service’. While Desdemona’s promise might be admirable, her decision to interfere in her husband’s public duty is questionable. Cassio was dismissed by his commanding officer for a serious breach of duty in a time of emergency for the island. Cassio sees Othello and Iago enter and he slips away, still too ashamed to face his general.


Insinuation and a plea (lines 37–98)


Iago seizes the opportunity to spread suspicion by innuendo, saying, ‘Ha! I like not that’. The temptation of Othello has begun. Iago pretends he does not think it could be Cassio because he would not ‘steal away so guilty-like’. Desdemona immediately begins her plea on Cassio’s behalf, ‘shall it be shortly?’ At first her husband is indulgent, ‘The sooner, sweet, for you’. But the more she persists, his mood changes. Othello reminds her that he has military duties to attend to, but Desdemona continues in a coy, flirtatious way, ‘I wonder in my soul,/ What you would ask me, that I should deny?’ Othello eventually gives in to her persuasion, ‘I will deny thee nothing’. He wearies of the conversation and asks ‘leave me but a little to myself’. The tone of his wife’s reply is interesting, ‘I am obedient’. Does it show the first strain in their relationship?


I have been talking with a suitor here, A man that languishes in your displeasure


Desdemona Act 3 Scene 3, l.46–7


96


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