‘Brabantio. What is the reason of this terrible summons?
Iago. Sir, you’re robb’d; for shame, put on your gown;
Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul:
——Arise, arise,
Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,
Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you.
Arise, I say.’—[And so on to the end of the passage.]
Now, all this goes on springs well oiled: Mr. Kean’s mode of giving the passage had the tightness of a drumhead, and was muffled (perhaps purposely so) into the bargain.
This is a clue to the character of the lady which Iago is not at all ready to part with. He recurs to it again in the second act, when in answer to his insinuations against Desdemona, Roderigo says,—
‘I cannot believe that in her—she’s full of most bless’d conditions.