And when Desdemona lands, Cassio's first exclamation is sufficient to establish the fact that he is merely the poet's mask:
“O, behold,
The riches of the ship is come on shore!”
And just as clearly as Cassio is Shakespeare, the lyric poet, so is Iago, at first, the embodiment of Shakespeare's intelligence. Iago has been described as immoral; he does not seem to me to be immoral, but amoral, as the intellect always is. He says to the women:
“Come on, come on; you're pictures out of doors,
Bells in your parlours, wild cats in your kitchens,
Saints in your injuries, devils being offended,
Players in your housewifery, and housewives in your
beds.”
Iago sees things as they are, fairly and not maliciously; he is “nothing if not critical,” but his criticism has a touch of Shakespeare's erotic mania in it. Think of that “housewives in your beds”! He will not deceive himself, however; in spite of Cassio's admiration of Desdemona Iago does not imagine that Cassio is in love with her; “well kissed,” he says, “an excellent courtesy,” finding at once the true explanation. {Footnote: At the end of this scene Iago says:
“That Cassio loves her I do well believe it,”
but that is merely one of the many inconsistencies in Shakespeare's drawing of Iago. There are others; at one time he talks of Cassio as a mere book soldier, at another equals him with Cæsar. Had Coleridge noted these contradictions he would have declared them to be a higher perfection than logical unity, and there is something to be said for the argument, though in these instances I think the contradictions are due to Shakespeare's carelessness rather than to his deeper insight.}
But having taken up this intellectual attitude in order to create Iago, Shakespeare tries next to make his puppet concrete and individual by giving him revenge for a soul, but in this he does not succeed, for intellect is not maleficent. At moments Iago lives for us; “drown cats and blind puppies ... put money in your purse”—his brains delight us; but when he pursues Desdemona to her end, we revolt; such malignity is inhuman. Shakespeare was so little inclined to evil, knew so little of hate and revenge that his villain is unreal in his cruelty. Again and again the reader asks himself why Iago is so venomous. He hates Othello because Othello has passed him over and preferred Cassio; because he thinks he has had reason to be jealous of Othello, because——-but every one feels that these are reasons supplied by Shakespeare to explain the inexplicable; taken all together they are inadequate, and we are apt to throw them aside with Coleridge as the “motive hunting of motiveless malignity.” But such a thing as “motiveless malignity” is not in nature, Iago's villainy is too cruel, too steadfast to be human; perfect pitiless malignity is as impossible to man as perfect innate goodness.
Though Iago and Othello hold the stage for nine-tenths of the play Shakespeare does not realize them so completely as he realizes Cassio, an altogether subordinate character. The drinking episode of Cassio was not found by Shakespeare in Cinthio, and is, I think, clearly the confession of Shakespeare himself, for though aptly invented to explain Cassio's dismissal it is unduly prolonged, and thus constitutes perhaps the most important fault in the construction of the play. Consider, too, how the moral is applied by Iago to England in especial, with which country neither Iago nor the story has anything whatever to do.
Othello's appearance stilling the riot, his words to Iago and his dismissal of Cassio are alike honest work. The subsequent talk between Cassio and Iago about “reputation” is scarcely more than a repetition of what Falstaff said of “honour.”