When Professor Cohen lectured on this play, I believe he started with this scene because the theme he talked about was Othello giving him a claustrophobic feeling. You start here with a whole ocean, expansive, openness, and you start with hope and victory:
News, lads! our wars are done.
The desperate tempest hath so bang'd the Turks,
That their designment halts
and then we get to hear Cassio's thoughts on Desdemona:
CASSIO
The divine Desdemona.
MONTANO
What is she?
CASSIO
She that I spake of, our great captain's captain,
Left in the conduct of the bold Iago,
OK, so we have a few really juicy choices for the actor playing Cassio in just these few lines. First, does he mean divine Desdemona in reference to her fatihfulness/purity/etc.? or in the sense that he wants to make some music of the spheres with her? (I happen to think it's a SUPER interesting choice to have a Cassio who DOES have a thing for Desdemona but wouldn't act on it due to his respect for Othello and his own reputation… but that's just me…) of course on the other hand we have the "our great captain's captain" line which could either be a cover for his earlier line/possible feelings or is just a great little piece of misogyny about who "wears the pants" in the relationship… then we get this awkward line….
Great Jove, Othello guard,
And swell his sail with thine own powerful breath,
That he may bless this bay with his tall ship,
Make love's quick pants in Desdemona's arms,
Give renew'd fire to our extincted spirits
And bring all Cyprus comfort!
that's some detailed picturing about what othello is going to do in his marriage bed… just saying… next Cassio moves on to greet Emilia:
CASSIO
Welcome, mistress.
Let it not gall your patience, good Iago,
That I extend my manners; 'tis my breeding
That gives me this bold show of courtesy.
[Kissing her]
IAGO
Sir, would she give you so much of her lips
As of her tongue she oft bestows on me
You'll have enough.
DESDEMONA
DESDEMONA
Alas, she has no speech.
IAGO
IAGO
In faith, too much;
I find it still, when I have list to sleep:
Marry, before your ladyship, I grant,
She puts her tongue a little in her heart,
And chides with thinking.
So right off the bat we get an insight into the troubled marriage Emilia and Iago has… they certainly don't seem to be using their lips and tongues for kissing and the way. It's worth noticing how little Emilia talks in this scene because so much of this play is the silencing of women, something I think Vogel noted and why she created her response with no male voices, though the male presence is certainly felt… we get a sense of Iago's command of language and the situation he's in and there's the performance opportunity to have Emilia either shut him down with her response or to try and play along only to be shut down with Iago's next line:
IAGO
Nay, it is true, or else I am a Turk:
You rise to play and go to bed to work.
EMILIA
You shall not write my praise.
IAGO
No, let me not.
Then Othello arrives, note how soon after Desdemona lands that Othello gets there… I LOVE Othello's greeting to Desdemona:
OTHELLO
O my fair warrior!
DESDEMONA
My dear Othello!
OTHELLO
It gives me wonder great as my content
To see you here before me. O my soul's joy!
My soul's joy… there's a term of endearment! also the fact that he calls her a warrior, no diminutive or feminization, a warrior…
The end of this scene has Iago continuing to play Roderigo and telling him that as for Desdemona:
very nature will instruct her in it and compel her to some second choice.
aka it's not natural for this white lady to remain interested in this black man. more of the same racist notes as before. But Roderigo won't even believe this calling on Desdemona's purity and blessedness to which Iago replies:
Blessed fig's-end! the wine she drinks is made of grapes: if she had been blessed, she would never have loved the Moor. Blessed pudding!
If at first our racism doesn't succeed… try, try again seem's to be Iago's motto for dealing with Roderigo… but the meat of this scene comes when we get to Iago's soliloquy where we get two possible motives for why he is going to do so much damage in this play:
Now, I do love her too;
Not out of absolute lust, though peradventure
I stand accountant for as great a sin,
But partly led to diet my revenge,
For that I do suspect the lusty Moor
Hath leap'd into my seat;
So… he MAY have a thing for Desdemona (like everyone in this play apparently) but he also has his own jealousy issues and thinks that Othello may have slept with Emilia. Two pretty compelling motivations. Are both true? Are either true? A WORLD of possibilities for the actor playing Iago.
2.2
A baby scene of a Herald reading a proclamation:
some to dance, some to make bonfires, each man to what sport and revels his addiction leads him: for, besides these beneficial news, it is the celebration of his nuptial.
You always know its a good time when Shakespeare talks about bonfires. Also- WEDDING FEASTS- but sorry, you just have to imagine them.
2.3
Iago starts the scene goading Cassio about how great Desdemona is and then wishing happiness to the sheets of the new couple… so much interest in their marriage bed… then Iago begins his plan to get Cassio drunk and Cassio fends him off at first saying:
I have very poor and unhappy brains for drinking: I could well wish courtesy would invent some other custom of entertainment.
But poor Cassio gets peer pressured into having a good time and drinking more than he should and since he's a lightweight, it isn't long before we hear this out of his mouth:
Do not think, gentlemen. I am drunk: this is my ancient; this is my right hand, and this is my left: I am not drunk now; I can stand well enough, and speak well enough.
The best way to tell if someone is drunk is them vehemently telling you they are not drunk… brings back memories of London…
Cassio's drunkenness leads us to this great line:
CASSIO
A knave teach me my duty!
I'll beat the knave into a twiggen bottle.
Anyone want to tell me WTF a twiggen bottle is? Or, as it was suggested in my textual culture class, is this some sort of fabulous textual anomaly we get to play with for centuries?
Anyway, of course Iago is called to testify about Cassio's actions:
I had rather have this tongue cut from my mouth
Than it should do offence to Michael Cassio;
Yet, I persuade myself, to speak the truth
Shall nothing wrong him.
And the dramatic irony continues:
I know, Iago,
Thy honesty and love doth mince this matter,
Making it light to Cassio. Cassio, I love thee
But never more be officer of mine.
Then we get Cassio's speech and one of the most famous lines in the play:
Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation, Iago, my reputation!
This speech is BEAUTIFUL when sincerely meant. I have more to say about it, but in my sleep deprived state I'm pretty sure Tom Hiddleston can say it better (sorry about the weird captions, couldn't find another version…):
Then we have more thoughts on the perils of drinking:
O God, that men
should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away
their brains! that we should, with joy, pleasance
revel and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!
A good line for temperance arguments, though not as harsh as the Claudio line about lust in Measure for Measure
After Cassio dejectedly leaves the scene, we get another FABULOUS soliloquy from Iago, we start with more misogynist guess who wears the pants in this relationship rhetoric:
Our general's wife is now the general:
Then move on to some awesome rhetorical questions:
And what's he then that says I play the villain?
When this advice is free I give and honest,
Probal to thinking and indeed the course
To win the Moor again?
But, perhaps these questions are best when they are NOT rhetorical. When Ben Curns played Iago at the ASC he genuinely asked these questions in a moment of audience contact. the effect was chilling and this is definitely a choice i would recommend exploring. Then we get more ogling over Desdemona:
she's framed as fruitful As the free elements
I'm just going to take a moment here (rather selfishly I'll admit) to advocate for casting some CURVY women in this play. No need to make Desdemona a stick figure little girl. The text suggests she has a fruitful frame and I think it's far more interesting if Desdemona is not naive and simpering.
Finally, I leave you with another great line for our theoretical easy shop of needlework and other shakespearean trinkets:
How poor are they that have not patience!
And with that, I implore your patience as I continue to have a more random update schedule with all the other things going on in life!
So right off the bat we get an insight into the troubled marriage Emilia and Iago has… they certainly don't seem to be using their lips and tongues for kissing and the way. It's worth noticing how little Emilia talks in this scene because so much of this play is the silencing of women, something I think Vogel noted and why she created her response with no male voices, though the male presence is certainly felt… we get a sense of Iago's command of language and the situation he's in and there's the performance opportunity to have Emilia either shut him down with her response or to try and play along only to be shut down with Iago's next line:
IAGO
Nay, it is true, or else I am a Turk:
You rise to play and go to bed to work.
EMILIA
You shall not write my praise.
IAGO
No, let me not.
Then Othello arrives, note how soon after Desdemona lands that Othello gets there… I LOVE Othello's greeting to Desdemona:
OTHELLO
O my fair warrior!
DESDEMONA
My dear Othello!
OTHELLO
It gives me wonder great as my content
To see you here before me. O my soul's joy!
My soul's joy… there's a term of endearment! also the fact that he calls her a warrior, no diminutive or feminization, a warrior…
The end of this scene has Iago continuing to play Roderigo and telling him that as for Desdemona:
very nature will instruct her in it and compel her to some second choice.
aka it's not natural for this white lady to remain interested in this black man. more of the same racist notes as before. But Roderigo won't even believe this calling on Desdemona's purity and blessedness to which Iago replies:
Blessed fig's-end! the wine she drinks is made of grapes: if she had been blessed, she would never have loved the Moor. Blessed pudding!
If at first our racism doesn't succeed… try, try again seem's to be Iago's motto for dealing with Roderigo… but the meat of this scene comes when we get to Iago's soliloquy where we get two possible motives for why he is going to do so much damage in this play:
Now, I do love her too;
Not out of absolute lust, though peradventure
I stand accountant for as great a sin,
But partly led to diet my revenge,
For that I do suspect the lusty Moor
Hath leap'd into my seat;
So… he MAY have a thing for Desdemona (like everyone in this play apparently) but he also has his own jealousy issues and thinks that Othello may have slept with Emilia. Two pretty compelling motivations. Are both true? Are either true? A WORLD of possibilities for the actor playing Iago.
2.2
A baby scene of a Herald reading a proclamation:
some to dance, some to make bonfires, each man to what sport and revels his addiction leads him: for, besides these beneficial news, it is the celebration of his nuptial.
You always know its a good time when Shakespeare talks about bonfires. Also- WEDDING FEASTS- but sorry, you just have to imagine them.
2.3
Iago starts the scene goading Cassio about how great Desdemona is and then wishing happiness to the sheets of the new couple… so much interest in their marriage bed… then Iago begins his plan to get Cassio drunk and Cassio fends him off at first saying:
I have very poor and unhappy brains for drinking: I could well wish courtesy would invent some other custom of entertainment.
But poor Cassio gets peer pressured into having a good time and drinking more than he should and since he's a lightweight, it isn't long before we hear this out of his mouth:
Do not think, gentlemen. I am drunk: this is my ancient; this is my right hand, and this is my left: I am not drunk now; I can stand well enough, and speak well enough.
The best way to tell if someone is drunk is them vehemently telling you they are not drunk… brings back memories of London…
FYI.. this was from the pre-Dan days… and my first real drunken night… where I continually denied being drunk… Poor Cassio, I know how easily it can sneak up on you!
Cassio's drunkenness leads us to this great line:
CASSIO
A knave teach me my duty!
I'll beat the knave into a twiggen bottle.
Anyone want to tell me WTF a twiggen bottle is? Or, as it was suggested in my textual culture class, is this some sort of fabulous textual anomaly we get to play with for centuries?
Anyway, of course Iago is called to testify about Cassio's actions:
I had rather have this tongue cut from my mouth
Than it should do offence to Michael Cassio;
Yet, I persuade myself, to speak the truth
Shall nothing wrong him.
And the dramatic irony continues:
I know, Iago,
Thy honesty and love doth mince this matter,
Making it light to Cassio. Cassio, I love thee
But never more be officer of mine.
Then we get Cassio's speech and one of the most famous lines in the play:
Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation, Iago, my reputation!
This speech is BEAUTIFUL when sincerely meant. I have more to say about it, but in my sleep deprived state I'm pretty sure Tom Hiddleston can say it better (sorry about the weird captions, couldn't find another version…):
Then we have more thoughts on the perils of drinking:
O God, that men
should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away
their brains! that we should, with joy, pleasance
revel and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!
A good line for temperance arguments, though not as harsh as the Claudio line about lust in Measure for Measure
After Cassio dejectedly leaves the scene, we get another FABULOUS soliloquy from Iago, we start with more misogynist guess who wears the pants in this relationship rhetoric:
Our general's wife is now the general:
Then move on to some awesome rhetorical questions:
And what's he then that says I play the villain?
When this advice is free I give and honest,
Probal to thinking and indeed the course
To win the Moor again?
But, perhaps these questions are best when they are NOT rhetorical. When Ben Curns played Iago at the ASC he genuinely asked these questions in a moment of audience contact. the effect was chilling and this is definitely a choice i would recommend exploring. Then we get more ogling over Desdemona:
she's framed as fruitful As the free elements
I'm just going to take a moment here (rather selfishly I'll admit) to advocate for casting some CURVY women in this play. No need to make Desdemona a stick figure little girl. The text suggests she has a fruitful frame and I think it's far more interesting if Desdemona is not naive and simpering.
Finally, I leave you with another great line for our theoretical easy shop of needlework and other shakespearean trinkets:
How poor are they that have not patience!
And with that, I implore your patience as I continue to have a more random update schedule with all the other things going on in life!
