One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens,
And, in the essential vesture of creation,
Does tire the ingener.”
Here is Cassio's warm-hearted, yet perfectly disengaged, praise of Desdemona, and sympathy with the “most fortunately” wived Othello;—and yet Cassio is an enthusiastic admirer, almost a worshipper, of Desdemona. Oh, that detestable code that excellence cannot be loved in any form that is female, but it must needs be selfish! Observe Othello's “honest” and Cassio's “bold” Iago, and Cassio's full guileless-hearted wishes for the safety and love-raptures of Othello and “the divine Desdemona.” And also note the exquisite circumstance of Cassio's kissing Iago's wife, as if it ought to be impossible that the dullest auditor should not feel Cassio's religious love of Desdemona's purity. Iago's answers are the sneers which a proud bad intellect feels towards women, and expresses to a wife. Surely it ought to be considered a very exalted compliment to women, that all the sarcasms on them in Shakespeare are put in the mouths of villains.
Ib.—
“Des. I am not merry; but I do beguile,” &c.
The struggle of courtesy in Desdemona to abstract her attention.
Ib.—
“(Iago aside). He takes her by the palm: Ay, well said, whisper; with as little a web as this, will I ensnare as great a fly as Cassio. Ay, smile upon her, do,” &c.
The importance given to trifles, and made fertile by the villany of the observer.