Othello: Act Four

Othello: Act Four

1. Scene 1

   • IAGO continues to torment OTHELLO into a trance. CASSIO goes to help but IAGO sends him away.
     • IAGO: "Or to be naked with her friend in bed an hour or more, not meaning any harm
     • OTHELLO: [falls in trance]
     • IAGO: "Look, he stirs, do you withdraw yourself a little while"
   • Hides OTHELLO to hear CASSIO talk about 'DESDEMONA', when he is really talking about BIANCA
     • IAGO: "I am a very villain else."
     • IAGO: "Now i will question Cassio of Bianca"
   • OTHELLO believes that CASSIO and DESDEMONA are together and says DESDEMONA must die. IAGO gets all the information about the murder
     • OTHELLO: ("Crying 'O dear Cassio!' as it were: his gesture imports")
     • OTHELLO: "I will chop her into messes- cuckold me!"
   • BIANCA throws the HANDKERCHIEF at CASSIO, invites to super and then is followed out by CASSIO
     • BIANCA: "What do you mean by that same handkerchief you gave me even now?"...This is some minx's token
   • LODOVICO and DESDEMONA delivers a letter from STATE OF VENICE to OTHELLO
     • LODOVICO: "God save you, worth general"..."The Duke and senators of Venice greet you"
     • LODOVICO: "How does Lieutenant Cassio?" IAGO: "LIves, sir."
       • DRAMATIC IRONY
   • OTHELLO strikes DESDEMONA as she is happy with CASSIO is in a good position and storms out.
     • DESDEMONA: "A most unhappy one; I would do much T'atone them, for the love I bear to Cassio." OTHELLO: "Fire and brimstone!"
     • OTHELLO:" O devil, devil! If that the earth could teem with woman's tears, Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile."
   • LODOVICO surprised by OTHELLO'S behaviour , but IAGO tells him that OTHELLO is worse than that.
     • LODOVICO: "I am sorry that I am deceived in him"
     • IAGO: "Faith, that was not so well; yet would I knew that stroke would prove the worst!"

2. Scene 2

   • OTHELLO tries to get evidence of DESDEMONA'S guilt from EMILIA as though she was a whore. DESDEMONA is shocked by OTHELLO'S treatment of her and EMILIA is outraged
     • OTHELLO: "Yes, you have seen Cassio and she together."
     • OTHELLO: "Bid her come hither; go. She says enough, yet she's a simple bawd."
     • OTHELLO: "Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell."
     • DESDEMONA: "I am a Christian, if to preserve this vessel for my lord..."
     • EMILIA: "Good madam, what's the matter with my lord?"
   • EMILIA thinks that a 'villain' has been 'pouring poison' in OTHELLO'S ear, but IAGO assures that nothing is wrong with OTHELLO, only that hes upset over 'affairs'
     • EMILIA: "Alas, Iago, my lord hath so bewhored her, thrown such desite and heavy terms upon her, as true heart cannot bare."
       • EMILIA: "He called her a whore: a beggar in his drink could not have laid such terms upon his callet."
     • IAGO: "I pray you, be content; 'tis but his humour: the business of the state does him offence, and he does childe with you."
   • RODERIGO complains that he has gotten nothing from his efforts, and threatens to quit his pursuit of DESDEMONA, but IAGO persuades him that he'll bed DESDEMONA in two nights, if he murders CASSIO
     • RODERIGO: "I do not find that thou deal'st justly with me."
     • IAGO: "O, no; he goes into Mauritania, and takes away with him the fair Desdemona, unless his abode be lingered here by some accident: wherein none can be so determinate as the removing of Cassio."

3. Scene 3

   • OTHELLO orders DESDEMONA to dismiss EMILIA, got to bed and wait for him
     • OTHELLO: "Get you to bed on th'instant; I will be returned forthwith. Dismiss you attendant there look't be done."
   • DESDEMONA goes to bed and sings the song 'WILLOW' which is a song of lost love.
     • DESDEMONA: "The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree, SIng all a green willow."... "The fresh streams ran by her, and murdered her moans."
   • DESDEMONA asks EMILIA if there are women who commit adultery (cheating) , EMILIA says they only if sins in fault of husband. DESDEMONA says she would never be that type of woman.
     • DESDEMONA: "That there be women do abuse their husbands in such a gross kind"
     • EMILIA: "But i do thing it is their husbands' faults if wives store the world they played for."