“And often did beguile her of her tears
When I did speak of some distressful stroke
That my youth suffered.”
It is a characteristic of the man of action that he thinks lightly of reverses; he loves hard buffets as a swimmer high waves, and when he tells his life-story he does not talk of his “distress.” This “distressful stroke that my youth suffered” is manifestly pure Shakespeare—tender-hearted Shakespeare, who pitied himself and the distressful strokes his youth suffered very profoundly. The characterization of Othello in the rest of this scene is anything but happy. He talks too much; I miss the short sharp words which would show the man used to command, and not only does he talk too much, but he talks in images like a poet, and exaggerates:
“The tyrant Custom, most grave senators,
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
My thrice-driven bed of down.”
Even the matter here is insincere; this is the poet's explanation of the Captain's preference for a hard bed and hard living: “has been accustomed to it,” says Shakespeare, not understanding that there are born hunter and soldier natures who absolutely prefer hardships to effeminate luxury. Othello's next speech is just as bad; he talks too much of things particular and private, and the farther he goes, the worse he gets, till we again hear the poet speaking, or rather mouthing:
“No, when light-winged toys
Of feathered Cupid seel with wanton dullness
My speculative and officed instruments,
That my disports corrupt and taint my business,
Let housewives make a skillet of my helm,
And all indign and base adversities
Make head against my estimation.”
Again when he says—
“Come, Desdemona: I have but an hour
Of love, of worldly matters and direction
To spend with thee; we must obey the time,”
I find no sharp impatience to get to work such as Hotspur felt, but a certain reluctance to leave his love—a natural touch which indicates that the poet was thinking of himself and not of his puppet.
The first scene of the second act shows us how Shakespeare, the dramatist, worked. Cassio is plainly Shakespeare the poet; any of his speeches taken at haphazard proves it. When he hears that Iago has arrived he breaks out:
“He has had most favourable and happy speed;
Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling winds,
The guttered rocks and congregated sands—
Traitors ensteeped to clog the guiltless keel—
As having sense of beauty, do omit
Their mortal natures, letting go safely by
The divine Desdemona.”