"Othello. You have seen nothing, then?
Emilia. Nor ever heard; nor ever did suspect.
Othello. Yes, you have seen Cassio and she together.
Emilia. But then I saw no harm; and then I heard
Each syllable, that breath made up between them.
Othello. What, did they never whisper?
Emilia. Never, my Lord.
Othello. Nor send you out o' the way?
Emilia. Never.
Othello. To fetch her fan, her gloves, her mask, nor nothing?
Emilia. Never, my Lord.
Othello. That's strange."
If all this relates to their residence at Cyprus, it indicates many weeks.
SEWARD.
Ay—If.
NORTH.
What wicked whisper was that? Did you whisper, Buller?
BULLER.
No. I have not once whispered for a quarter of a century—My whispering days have long been over.
NORTH.
Then a word about Emilia. "I prythee, let thy wife attend on her," says Othello, going on board at Venice, to Iago. In the slight way in which such arrangements can be touched, this request is conclusive evidence to Emilia's being then first placed about Desdemona's person. It has no sense else; nor is there the slightest ground for supposing a prior acquaintance, at least intimacy. What had an Ensign's wife to do with a Nobleman's daughter? and now she is attached as an Attendant. Now, consider, first, Emilia's character. She seems not very principled, not very chaste. She gives you the notion of a tolerably well-practised Venetian Wife. Hear Iago's opinion, who suspects her with two persons, and one on general rumour. Yet how strong her affection for Desdemona, and her faith in her purity! She witnesses for her, and she dies for her! I ask, how long did that affection and that opinion take to grow? a few days at Venice, and a week while they were sea-sick aboard ship? No. Weeks—months. A gentle lady once made to me that fine remark,—"Emilia has not much worth in herself, but is raised into worth by her contact with Desdemona—into heroic worth!" "I care not for thy sword—I'll make thee known, though I lost twenty lives." And that bodeful "Perchance, Iago, I will ne'er go home"! what does it mean? but a dim surmise, or a clear, that what she will disclose will bring the death upon her from his dagger, which it brings. The impure dying a voluntary martyr for the pure is to the highest degree affecting—is the very manner of Shakspeare, to express a principal character by its influence on subordinate ones—has its own moral sublimity; but more than all, for our purpose, it witnesses time. Love, and Faith, and Fidelity, won from her in whom these virtues are to be first created!