The agreement here cannot possibly be accidental. And what makes it still more certain that Shakespeare had the Italian text before him is that the words prophetic fury, which are the same in Othello as in the Italian, are not to be found in Harington's English translation, the only one then in existence. He must thus, whilst writing Othello, have been interested in Orlando, and had Berni's and Ariosto's poems lying on his table.
Desdemona's innocent simplicity in these scenes rivals the boundless and actually tragic simplicity of Othello. In the first place, she is convinced that the Moor, whom she sees wrought up to the verge of madness, cannot possibly suspect her, and is unassailable by jealousy.
"Emilia. Is he not jealous?
Desdemona. Who? he! I think the sun where he was born
Drew all such humours from him."
So she acts with foolish indiscretion, continuing to tease Othello about Cassio's reinstatement, although she ought to feel that it is her harping on this topic that enrages him.
Then follow Iago's still more monstrous lies: the confession he pretends to have heard Cassio make in his sleep; the story that she has presented the precious handkerchief to Cassio; and the pretence that Desdemona is the subject of the words which Othello, from his hiding-place, hears Cassio let fall as to his relations with the courtesan, Bianca. To hear his wife, his beloved, thus derided, stings the Moor to frenzy.
It is such a consistently sustained imposture that there is, perhaps, only one at all comparable to it in history—the intrigue of the diamond necklace, in which Cardinal de Rohan was as utterly duped and ruined as Othello is here.
And now Othello has reached the stage at which he can no longer think coherently, or speak except in ejaculations (iv. I):—
"Iago. Lie with her.
"Othello. With her?
"Iago. With her, on her, what you will.
"Othello. Lie with her! lie on her!—We say, lie on her when they belie her. Lie with her! that's fulsome.—Handkerchief,—confessions, —handkerchief.—To confess, and be hanged for his labour.—First, to be hanged, and then to confess. ... It is not words, that shakes me thus.—Pish!—Noses, ears, and lips.—Is it possible?—Confess!— Handkerchief!—O devil!"
With the mind's eye he sees them in each other's arms.[1] He is seized with an epileptic fit and falls.
This is not a representation of spontaneous but of artificially induced jealousy; in other words, of credulity poisoned by malignity. Hence the moral which Shakespeare, through the mouth of Iago, bids the audience take home with them: