to lose it, and would
have told Othello; and Othello, too, would at once have detected Iago's
lie (III. iii. 438) that he had seen Cassio wipe his beard with the
handkerchief 'to-day.' For in fact the handkerchief had been lost _not
an hour_ before Iago told that lie (line 288 of the _same scene_), and
it was at that moment in his pocket. He lied therefore most rashly, but
with his usual luck.]

[Footnote 91: For those who know the end of the story there is a
terrible irony in the enthusiasm with which Cassio greets the arrival of
Desdemona in Cyprus. Her ship (which is also Iago's) sets out from
Venice a week later than the others, but reaches Cyprus on the same day
with them:

Tempests themselves, high seas and howling winds,
The gutter'd rocks and congregated sands--
Traitors ensteep'd to clog the guiltless keel--
As having sense of beauty, do omit
Their mortal natures, letting go safely by
The divine Desdemona.

So swiftly does Fate conduct her to her doom.]

[Footnote 92: The dead bodies are not carried out at the end, as they
must have been if the bed had been on the main stage (for this had no
front curtain). The curtains within which the bed stood were drawn
together at the words, 'Let it be hid' (V. ii. 365).]

[Footnote 93: Against which may be set the scene of the blinding of
Gloster in _King Lear_.]

[Footnote 94: The reader who is tempted by it should, however, first ask
himself whether Othello does act like a barbarian, or like a man who,
though wrought almost to madness, does 'all in honour.']

[Footnote 95: For the actor, then, to represent him as violently angry
when he cashiers Cassio is an utter mistake.]

[Footnote 96: I cannot deal fully with this point in the lecture. See
Note L.]

[Footnote 97: It is important to observe that, in his attempt to arrive
at the facts about Cassio's drunken misdemeanour, Othello had just had
an example of Iago's unwillingness to tell the whole truth where it must
injure a friend. No wonder he feels in the Temptation-scene that 'this
honest creature doubtless Sees and knows more, much more, than he
unfolds.']

[Footnote 98: To represent that Venetian women do not regard adultery so
seriously as Othello does, and again that Othello would be wise to
accept the situation like an Italian husband, is one of Iago's most
artful and most maddening devices.]

[Footnote 99: If the reader has ever chanced to see an African violently