"Thus credulous fools are caught;
And many worthy and chaste dames even thus,
All guiltless, meet reproach."
It is not Othello's jealousy, but his credulity that is the prime cause of the disaster; and even so must Desdemona's noble simplicity bear its share in the blame. Between them they render possible the complete success of a man like Iago.
When Othello bursts into tears before Desdemona's eyes, without her suspecting the reason (iv. 2), he says most touchingly that he could have borne affliction and shame, poverty and captivity—could even have endured to be made the butt of mockery and scorn—but that he cannot bear to see her whom he worshipped the object of his own contempt. He does not suffer most from jealousy, but from seeing "the fountain from the which his current runs" a dried-up swamp, or "a cistern for foul toads to knot and gender in." This is pure, deep sorrow at seeing his idol sullied, not mean frenzy at the idol's preferring another worshipper.
And with that grace which is an attribute of perfect strength, Shakespeare has introduced as a contrast, directly before the terrible catastrophe, Desdemona's delicate little ditty of the willowtree—of the maiden who weeps because her lover is untrue to her, but who loves him none the less. Desdemona is deeply touching when she pleads with her cruel lord for but a few moments' respite, but she is great in the instant of death, when she expires with the sublime lie, the one lie of her life, upon her lips, designed to shield her murderer from his punishment.
Ophelia, Desdemona, Cordelia—what a trefoil! Each has her characteristic features, but they resemble one another like sisters they all present the type which Shakespeare at this point loves and most affects. Had they a model? Had they perhaps one and the same model? Had he about this time encountered a young and charming woman, living, as it were, under a cloud of sorrow, injustice, misunderstanding, who was all heart and tenderness, without any claims to intellect or wit? We may suspect this, but we know nothing of it.
The figure of Desdemona is one of the most charming Shakespeare has drawn. She is more womanly than other women, as the noble Othello is more manly than other men. So that after all there is a very good reason for the attraction between them; the most womanly of women feels herself drawn to the manliest of men.
The subordinate figures are worked out with hardly less skill than the principal characters of the tragedy. Emilia especially is inimitable—good-hearted, honest, and not exactly light, but still sufficiently the daughter of Eve to be unable to understand Desdemona's naïve and innocent chastity.
At the end of Act iv. (in the bedroom scene) Desdemona asks Emilia if she believes that there really are women who do what Othello accuses her of. Emilia answers in the affirmative. Then her mistress asks again: "Would'st thou do such a deed for all the world?" and receives the jesting answer, "The world is a huge thing; 'tis a great price for a small vice:
"Marry, I would not do such a thing for a joint-ring, nor for measures of lawn, nor for gowns, petticoats, nor caps, nor any petty exhibition; but, for the whole world! ... Why, the wrong is but a wrong i' the world; and, having the world for your labour, 'tis a wrong in your own world, and you might quickly make it right."
In passages like this a mildly playful note is struck in the very midst of the horror. And according to his habit and the custom of the times, Shakespeare also introduces, by means of the Clown, one or two deliberately comic passages; but the Clown's merriment is subdued, as Shakespeare's merriment at this period always is.