“Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.”
is excellent in its contemptuous irony. A little later, however, Othello finds an expression which is intensely characteristic of a great man of action:
“Hold your hands,
Both you of my inclining, and the rest;
Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it
Without a prompter.”
This last line and a half is addressed especially to Iago who is bent on provoking a fight, and is, I think, the best piece of character-painting in all “Othello”; the born general knows instinctively the moment to attack just as the trained boxer's hand strikes before he consciously sees the opening. When Othello speaks before the Duke, too, he reveals himself with admirable clearness and truth to nature. His pride is so deep-rooted, his self-respect so great, that he respects all other dignitaries: the Senators are his “very noble and approved good masters.” Every word weighed and effectual. Admirable, too, is the expression “round unvarnished tale.”
But pride and respect for others' greatness are not qualities peculiar to the man of action; they belong to all men of ability. As soon as Othello begins to tell how he won Desdemona, he falls out of his character. Feeling certain that he has placed his hero before us in strong outlines, Shakespeare lets himself go, and at once we catch him speaking and not Othello. In “antres vast and deserts idle” I hear the poet, and when the verse swings to—
“.... men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders,”
it is plain that Othello, the lord and lover of realities, has deserted the firm ground of fact. But Shakespeare pulls himself in almost before he has yielded to the charm of his own words, and again Othello speaks:
“This to hear
Would Desdemona seriously incline,
But still the house-affairs would draw her thence,
and so forth.
The temptation, however, was overpowering, and again Shakespeare yields to it: