“{Kissing her."} O balmy breath, that dost almost persuade
Justice to break her sword!—one more, one more.—
Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee,
And love thee after.—One more, and this the last.
So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep,
But they are cruel tears; this sorrow's heavenly;
It strikes where it doth love.—She wakes.”
So gentle a murderer was never seen save Macbeth, and the “heavenly sorrow” that strikes where it doth love is one of the best examples in literature of the Englishman's capacity for hypocritical self-deception. The subsequent dialogue shows us in Othello the short, plain phrases of immitigable resolution; in this scene Shakespeare comes nearer to realizing strength than anywhere else in all his work. But even here his nature shows itself; Othello has to be misled by Desdemona's weeping, which he takes to be sorrow for Cassio's death, before he can pass to action, and as soon as the murder is accomplished, he regrets:
“O, insupportable! O heavy hour!”
His frank avowal, however, is excellently characteristic of the soldier Othello:
“'Twas I that killed her.”
A moment later there is a perfect poetic expression of his love:
“Nay, had she been true
If Heaven would make me such another world
Of one entire and perfect chrysolite,
I'd not have sold her for it.”
Then comes a revelation of sensuality and physical fastidiousness so peculiar that by itself it proves much of what I have said of Shakespeare:
“Oth. ... Ay 'twas he that told me first;
An honest man he is, and hates the slime
That sticks on filthy deeds.”
For a breathing-space now before he is convinced of his fatal error, Othello speaks as the soldier, but in spite of the fact that he has fulfilled his revenge, and should be at his sincerest, we have no word of profound self-revealing. But as soon as he realizes his mistake, his regret becomes as passionate as a woman's and magical in expression: