Chapter Commentary of The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice - Study Guide by William Shakespeare

villain that I am!" for that of Cassio, is equally satisfied in his suspicions, "It is even so" (5.1.29). Hearing these cries, Lodovico and Gratiano are frightened to help because they can see little in the dark and fear the cries may be fake, acting to attract them to a trap:

Two or three groan. It is heavy night;

These may be counterfeits, let’s think’t unsafe

To come in to the cry without more help(5.1.42-44)

Ironically, it is Iago that arrives with a light. Finding Roderigo still alive, he stabs him. Roderigo dies, the only full witness to Iago’s part in this tragedy. Iago’s control is absolute. He directs the rest of the scene skilfully: He helps Cassio, whom he had earlier vowed to kill; he displays an innocent ignorance of what is going on – e.g. his apparent "surprise" when he finds Roderigo (5.1.90) despite having killed him himself only moments earlier; and he manages to lay the blame on Bianca. As ever, Iago is not what he seems. "’Twill out, ‘twill out!" as Bianca says, and indeed it does. All becomes clear: Desdemona’s innocence, Iago’s guilt. The scene closes with Othello and Desdemona dead upon their wedding sheets, side by side, black next to white.

"It is the cause, it is the cause..." Othello begins. In his conversation with Desdemona, we see him as a man wracked by love but resolute in his cause. He speaks with his old eloquence, not of "goats and monkeys" but of "monumental alabaster", no longer of a "weed" but of a "rose". He is tormented by her "excelling nature", her "balmy breath", her "sweet soul" but is passionately resolute, despite her protests of innocent:

Sweet soul, take heed,

Take heed of perjury. Thou art on thy deathbed.

...

Therefore confess freely of thy sin,

For to deny any article with oath

Cannot remove nor choke the strong conception

That I do groan withal. Thou art to die.(5.2.50-56)

He sees her death not as a murder but a sacrifice: "...I’ll not shed blood / Nor scar that whiter skin of hers...".It is for this that he urges her to pray, to confess any sin that she might have committed so that she dies a pure death. The timing, as always is delicately tuned for the maximum dramatic effect. She asks to live for one more night, even for half an hour more but his passion cannot be held back, "It is too late" (5.2.82) and he smothers her.

Emilia knocks on the door as he is smothering Desdemona. He is thrown into confusion, "Ha, no more moving? Still as the grave. Shall she come in? were’t good? I think she stirs again. No – what best to do?". With Emilia at the door, he suddenly realises fully what he has done, "My wife, my wife! what wife? I have no wife". From being passionately resolute, he becomes passionately remorseful:

Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse

Of sun and moon, and that th’affrighted globe

Should yawn at alteration(5.2.98-100)