“O, a thousand, thousand times,” agreed Othello; then he added wistfully: “And, then, of so gentle a condition!”
“Ay, too gentle,” sneered Iago.
“Nay, that’s certain;—but, yet, the pity of it, Iago! O, Iago, the pity of it, Iago!”
But one might better have appealed for compassion to a tiger in sight of his prey. Iago knew nothing of pity. He had only one aim in view—to gratify his revenge. If Othello would kill Desdemona, he said, he would undertake Cassio.
Emilia, Iago’s wife, was a sharp-tongued, outspoken woman, devoted to her young mistress, and when she saw how jealous and violent Othello was becoming, she did not scruple to tell him plainly that he was utterly wrong in his distrust. But Othello, urged on by Iago’s cunning, was now past all reason. By this time he was firmly convinced that Desdemona’s simple sweetness of manner was nothing but the most skilful hypocrisy, and that it was his duty to put her out of the world, so that she should betray no more people.
When he spoke to his wife that day after his interview with Iago, his words were so strange and menacing that Desdemona was quite frightened.
“Upon my knees, what doth your speech import?”