A Fury in the Words: Love and Embarrassment in Shakespeare's Venice

22. Prehistory in Othello

87 22. prehistory in othello A gentle riddance. Draw the curtains, go. Let all of his complexion choose me so. —The Merchant of Venice, 2.7.77–79 The Tragedie of Othello the Moore of Venice targets the embarrassment of the middle-aged Moorish commander of the Venetian army who elopes with a young white woman just before the play begins. Desdemona is the daughter of a Venetian aristocrat, Brabantio. The elopement follows a period of courtship during which Othello asked Michael Cassio, his ancient (ensign or standard-bearer), to serve as a go-between and help him woo her. We learn about the elopement at the start of the play. We also learn that, while Othello promoted Cassio from ancient to lieutenant, he failed to promote his other ancient, Iago. But Cassio’s part in the elopement is revealed neither to us nor (more importantly) to Iago until later in the play—well after Iago has decided to “abuse Othello’s ear” that Cassio “is too familiar with his wife” (1.3.391–98).1 What makes this dicey situation even more difficult and compromising is the comic backwash lengthening in the wake of The Mer1 . As I noted in the Introduction, the text of Shakespeare’s Othello cited in this study is E. J. A. Honigmann’s in The Arden Shakespeare, Third Series (Walton-on-Thames, Surrey: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1997). Honigmann’s interpretive essay and glosses are among the very best in the Arden series. I’ve benefited greatly from them, even—or perhaps especially—when my uncertainty about his readings have forced me back into the text to reevaluate my own. 88 ‡ contaminated intimacy in othello chant of Venice. We approach the Moor of Venice through the misty spume of his positional predecessors. The embarrassing protagonist he replaces is Bassanio, and the alien is Shylock. He fares no better in his choice of friends: Iago and Cassio pick up where Antonio left off. The shift from the comedy to the tragedy of embarrassment is especially costly to the female protagonist. Portia is the Embarrasser, but Desdemona is the Embarrassee. Finally, Othello’s entrance into the play is festooned with the ridiculous memory of his kinsman, another man “of royal siege,” the Prince of Morocco: Mislike me not for my complexion, The shadowed livery of the burnish’d sun, To whom I am a neighbour and near bred. Bring me the fairest creature northward born, Where Phoebus’ fire scarce thaws the icicles, And let us make incision for your love To prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine. (Merchant of Venice 2.1.1–7) It isn’t easy for the Moor of Venice to make his proper mark against this backdrop of buffoonery, and matters aren’t helped by the invidious epithets Roderigo and Iago spray at “his Moorship” in 1.1, well before he appears on stage: “thicklips,” “old black ram,” “Barbary horse,” “beast,” “the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor,” “an extravagant and wheeling stranger/Of here and everywhere.”2 The first scene plunges viewers and readers so deeply in medias res as tomakethemfeellikeoutsidersintrudingonaconversationwhosewandering course is hard to follow but obviously clear to the participants: roderigo Tush! never tell me; I take it much unkindly That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this. iago ’Sblood, but you’ll not hear me. If ever I did dream Of such a matter, abhor me. 2. 1.1.65, 87, 110, 115, 124, 134–35. prehistory in othello ‡ 89 roderigo Thou told’st me Thou didst hold him in thy hate. iago Despise me If I do not. (1.1.1–7) We can see that Roderigo has a grievance against Iago. But we have no idea what Roderigo’s “this” and Iago’s “such a matter” refer to. We take it for granted that they know what they’re talking about, and eventually we catch up. Yet because Iago goes on to change the subject from Roderigo’s grievance to his own, disclosure of the initial topic is conspicuously deferred.3 It isn’t until line 66 that we begin to find out they opened the scene discussing the elopement. Only then do we understand the initial situation . Roderigo is a suitor whom Desdemona’s father has rejected (1.1.95–97). He had been pressing—and paying—Iago to advance his...