Othello Act 5 Scene 2

It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul.

Don't let me name it to you, you chaste stars.

It is the cause. But I won't shed her blood,

or scar that skin of hers, whiter than snow

and smooth as the alabaster on a tomb. (He never once says what 'the cause' is. Four times in five lines he reaches for the word and stops, and the play lets him keep the silence.)

But she must die, or she'll betray more men.

Put out the light — and then put out the light.

If I put you out, you burning servant,

I can light you again

if I change my mind. But once I put out your light,

you cleverest masterpiece nature ever made,

I don't know where to find the fire

that could rekindle it. Once I've picked the

rose,

I can't give it back its life.

It has to wither. I'll smell it while it's still growing. (The first light is the candle in his hand; the second is her life. He is standing over her working out that one of them can be relit and the other cannot, and going ahead anyway.)

Oh, sweet breath, that almost persuades

Justice to snap her sword. (he kisses her) One

more, one more.

Be like this when you're dead, and I'll kill you

and love you afterwards. One more, and that's the last.

Nothing so sweet was ever so deadly. I have to weep,

but these are cruel tears. This grief is heaven's kind:

it strikes where it loves. She's waking.

Who's there? Othello?

Yes, Desdemona.

Are you coming to bed, my lord?

Have you said your prayers tonight, Desdemon?

Yes, my lord.

If you can think of any sin of yours

not yet made right with heaven and mercy,

beg forgiveness for it now.

My lord —

what do you mean by that?

Go on, do it, and be quick. I'll walk over here.

I don't want to kill your soul unprepared.

No — heaven forbid. I don't want to kill your soul. (He has arranged the theology first. He will take her life but not her salvation, and that distinction is what lets him call this a sacrifice.)

Are you talking about killing?

Yes, I am.

Then heaven have mercy on me.

Amen to that, with all my heart.

If you say that, I hope you won't kill me.

Hm.

And yet I'm afraid of you, because you're deadly

when your eyes roll like that. Why I should be frightened I don't

know,

since I know of no guilt in myself — but I feel afraid all the same.

Think about your sins.

They're the love I have for you.

Yes — and that's why you die.

It's an unnatural death that kills you for loving.

Why are you biting your lower lip like that?

Some murderous feeling is shaking your whole body.

These are omens — but I hope, I do hope,

they aren't pointing at me.

Quiet. Be still.

I will. What's the matter?

That handkerchief

I loved so much, and gave to you — you gave it to

Cassio. (The entire case against her is one piece of cloth, and he says so out loud. There has never been anything else.)

No — by my life and soul. Send for the man

and ask him.

Sweet soul, be careful — be careful of lying under oath.

You're on your deathbed.

Yes — but not to die yet.

Yes. Immediately.

So confess your sin openly.

Because denying every charge on oath

can't shift or smother the firm conviction

I'm groaning under. You're going to die.

Then Lord have mercy on me.

I say amen.

And may you have mercy too. I never once

wronged you in my life. I never loved Cassio

except with the ordinary affection heaven

permits. I never gave him any keepsake.

By heaven, I saw my handkerchief in his hand.

You perjuring woman — you're turning my heart to stone

and making me call what I mean to do

a murder, when I thought of it as a sacrifice.

I saw the handkerchief!

Then he found it.

I never gave it to him. Send for him to come here.

Let him tell the truth.

He has confessed.

Confessed what, my lord?

That he's had you.

How do you mean? Unlawfully?

Yes.

He won't say that.

No. His mouth has been stopped.

Honest Iago has seen to it. (He says 'honest Iago' while confirming a murder he ordered on Iago's word. It is the last time anyone in the play uses the phrase without irony.)

Oh — now I understand my fear. Is he dead?

If every hair on his head had been a life, my revenge

had appetite enough for all of them.

(weeping) He's been betrayed, and I'm destroyed.

Out, you whore! Crying for him in front of me?

Banish me, my lord — but don't kill me.

Down, whore!

Kill me tomorrow. Let me live tonight.

No — if you're going to struggle —

Just half an hour!

Once it's begun there's no stopping.

Just while I say one prayer!

It's too late.

(from outside) My lord? My lord! Hello — my lord, my lord!

What's that noise? — Not dead? Not quite dead yet?

Cruel as I am, I'm still merciful.

I don't want you lingering in pain.

There. There.

(from outside) Hello there! My lord, my lord!

Who's

there?

(from outside) My good lord — I want a word with you.

Yes. That's Emilia. — In a moment. — She's dead.

She's probably come to tell me Cassio's dead.

The noise was in here. Ha — no more movement?

Still as the grave. Should she come in? Would that be wise?

I think she's stirring again. No. What's the best thing to do?

If she comes in she's bound to speak to my wife.

My wife, my wife. What wife? I have no wife.

Unbearable. What a terrible hour.

It seems to me there ought to be a vast eclipse now

of sun and moon, and the terrified earth

should crack open at the change.

(from outside) I beg you,

let me speak to you. Oh, my good lord —

I'd forgotten you. Come in, Emilia. —

Wait, one moment — let me draw the bed curtains. —

Where are you?

What's the matter with you now?

My good lord — there's been foul murder done out there.

What — just now?

This minute, my lord.

It's the moon wandering off course.

She's come closer to the earth than she used to

and it drives men mad.

Cassio, my lord, has killed

a young Venetian called Roderigo.

Roderigo killed? And Cassio killed?

No. Cassio isn't killed.

Cassio not killed? Then the murder's out of tune

and sweet revenge turns sour.

Oh — wrongly, wrongly murdered.

God — what was that cry?

That? What cry?

Oh God — that was my lady's voice!

Help! Help, someone! My lady — speak again!

Sweet Desdemona — sweet mistress, speak!

I die a guiltless death.

Who has done this?

Nobody. I did it myself. Goodbye.

Give my love to my kind husband. Goodbye. (Her last act is a lie told to protect the man who has just killed her. Nobody asked her for it, and she gains nothing by it.)

How could she have been murdered?

God knows — who

knows?

You heard her say it yourself — it wasn't me.

She said so. I have to report the truth.

She's gone to burning hell like the liar she is.

It was me that killed her.

Then she's all the more an angel, and you the blacker devil. (She takes the play's colour scheme and turns it round on him. Iago spent three acts making 'black' mean guilty; Emilia uses it to mean guilty of this, and she is the first person to aim it at the right man.)

She turned to wickedness. She was a whore.

You're lying about her, and you are a devil.

She was as false as water.

You're as rash as fire to say

she was false. She was true as heaven itself.

Cassio mounted her. Ask your husband if you doubt it.

I'd be damned below the deepest part of hell

if I hadn't acted on solid grounds

in going this far. Your husband knew all about it.

My husband?

Your husband.

That she broke her marriage vows?

Yes — with Cassio. If she'd been faithful,

then if heaven offered me a second world

made of one flawless jewel,

I wouldn't have traded her for it.

My husband?

Yes. He was the one who first told me about her.

He's an honest man, and hates the slime

that clings to filthy business.

My husband?

Why do you keep repeating it, woman? I said your

husband.

Oh, my lady — wickedness has made a joke of love. —

My husband said she was false? (Four times. She is not asking a question, she is running the last four acts back through her head at speed, and every one of them fits.)

Him, woman.

I said your husband. Do you understand the word?

My friend, your husband — honest, honest Iago.

If he said that, may his poisonous soul

rot half a grain a day. He's lying to the core.

She was far too fond of the filthy bargain she made.

(drawing his sword) What?

Do your worst.

What you've done deserves heaven no more

than you deserved her.

You'd better be quiet.

You haven't half the power to hurt me

that I have to be hurt. You dupe! You idiot,

as ignorant as dirt. You've done a thing —

I don't care about your sword. I'll expose you

if it cost me twenty lives. Help! Help, here! Help!

The Moor has killed my mistress! Murder, murder!

What's the matter? What's this, general?

Oh, you've come, Iago? You've done well for yourself,

if men have to hang their murders round your neck.

What's happened?

(to Iago) Prove this villain wrong, if you're a man.

He says you told him his wife was unfaithful.

I know you didn't. You're not that much of a villain.

Speak — my heart is full to bursting.

I told him what I thought, and told no more

than what he found for himself was likely and true.

But did you ever tell him she was false?

I did.

You told a lie — a disgusting, damnable lie.

On my soul, a lie, a wicked lie.

She, unfaithful with Cassio? Did you say with Cassio?

With Cassio, madam. Enough — hold your tongue.

I will not hold my tongue. I'm obliged to speak.

My mistress is lying here murdered in her bed.

Heaven forbid!

(to Iago) And your reports set that murder going.

Don't stare, gentlemen — it's true enough.

It's a strange truth.

A monstrous act.

Villainy, villainy, villainy!

I'm thinking about it — I'm thinking. I can smell it. Villainy!

I thought as much at the time. I could kill myself for grief.

Villainy! Villainy! (In Act 4 she said out loud that some meddling rogue after a post had invented the slander, and she said it standing next to him. 'I thought so then' is her realising she solved it a week ago and did nothing with the answer.)

Are you out of your mind? I order you home.

Good gentlemen — let me be allowed to speak.

It's right that I obey him, but not now.

Perhaps, Iago, I'll never go home again.

Oh — oh — oh!

Go on, lie down and howl.

You've killed the sweetest innocent

that ever opened her eyes.

(standing) She was filthy! —

I hardly noticed you, uncle. There lies your niece,

whose breath these hands have only just

stopped.

I know this looks horrible and grim.

Poor Desdemon — I'm glad your father is dead.

Your marriage killed him, and sheer grief

cut his old thread in two. If he were alive now,

this sight would drive him to something desperate —

to curse his own guardian angel away from him

and fall into damnation.

It's pitiful. But Iago knows

that she committed the shameful act with Cassio

a thousand times. Cassio confessed it.

And she rewarded his lovemaking

with that token and pledge of love

which I gave her first. I saw it in his hand.

It was a handkerchief, an old family keepsake

my father gave my mother. (In Act 3 he told Desdemona an Egyptian magician gave it to his mother. Either he lied to frighten her then, or he is misremembering now; the play never settles which.)

Oh God. Oh, heavenly God.

God's wounds — hold your tongue.

It'll come out, it'll come out. Me, be quiet?

No. I'll speak as freely as the north wind blows.

Let heaven and men and devils, let all of them,

all of them, cry shame at me — I'll still speak.

(drawing his sword) Be sensible and get home.

I will not.

Shame on you — your sword on a woman?

You stupid Moor — that handkerchief you're talking

about,

I found by chance, and gave to my husband.

Because he begged me to steal it, often,

with a seriousness far beyond what such a trifle deserved. (This is the whole plot dismantled in four lines, by the person who handed him the object without ever knowing what it was for.)

That's the truth of it.

You villainous whore.

She gave it to Cassio? No. I found it,

and I gave it to my husband.

Filth — you're lying.

By heaven I am not. I am not, gentlemen.

(to Othello) You murdering fool — what business had

a fool like you

with so good a wife?

Are there no thunderbolts in heaven

except the ones that make the noise? — You precious villain!

The woman's down. He's killed his wife.

Yes, yes. Lay me beside my mistress.

He's gone — but his wife is killed.

The man's a notorious villain. Take this weapon,

which I've just taken off the Moor.

Come on, guard the door outside. Don't let him past —

kill him instead. I'll go after that villain.

He's a damned wretch.

I'm not even brave any more.

Any feeble little swordsman can take my weapon off me.

But why should honour outlive honesty?

Let it all go.

What was your song warning of, my lady?

Listen — can you hear me? I'll play the swan

and die singing.

(singing) Willow, willow, willow. (She dies singing the song Desdemona sang while undressing for bed two scenes ago — the one Desdemona learned from a servant who also died singing it. The song has now passed through three women, none of whom wrote it.)

Moor — she was chaste. She loved you, cruel Moor.

As I hope my soul reaches heaven, I'm telling the truth.

Saying what I truly think — I die.

I've another weapon in this room.

A Spanish sword, tempered in ice-cold water.

Here it is. — Uncle, I have to come out.

(from outside) If you try it, it'll cost you dearly.

You've no weapon, and you'll have to take what comes.

Then look in on me and talk to me,

or unarmed as I am I'll attack you.

What is it?

Look — I have a weapon.

A better one never rested

against a soldier's thigh. There was a time

when with this one arm and this good sword

I've cut through more obstacles

than twenty of you could block. But — what an empty boast —

who controls his own fate? It isn't like that now.

Don't be afraid, even though you see me armed.

This is my journey's end. This is the mark I was aiming at,

the last landmark of the furthest I could sail.

Are you backing away, alarmed? There's nothing to fear.

Point so much as a reed at Othello's chest

and he retreats. Where is Othello supposed to go?

(looking at the bed) Now — how do you look now? Oh, unlucky girl,

as pale as your nightdress. When we meet at the Last Judgement,

that look of yours will hurl my soul out of heaven

and devils will grab at it. Cold, cold, my girl?

Cold as your chastity was. — Oh, cursed, cursed wretch that I am. —

Whip me, you devils,

away from ever holding this heavenly sight.

Blow me about in the winds, roast me in sulphur,

wash me in sheer chasms of liquid fire.

Desdemon! Dead, Desdemon — dead! Oh, oh.

Where is this rash and desperately unlucky man?

That's him — the man who used to be Othello. Here I am. (He has stopped being able to say his own name in the first person. In Act 3 he reached for his own face as a word for ruined; now he speaks of himself in the past tense.)

Where's that snake? Bring the villain out.

I'm looking at his feet — but that's only a story. (The devil was supposed to have cloven hooves. He is checking whether Iago is literally a devil, because no other explanation is available to him.)

If you are a devil, I can't kill you.

Take his sword off him.

I'm bleeding, sir — but not killed.

I'm not sorry either. I'd rather you lived,

because the way I feel now, dying is a happiness.

Oh, Othello — you who were once so good,

brought down by the scheming of a damned wretch —

what is there to say to you?

Why — anything.

An honourable murderer, if you like.

Because I did nothing out of hatred — it was all done for honour.

This wretch has partly confessed his villainy.

Did you and he agree together on Cassio's death?

Yes.

Dear general — I never gave you any reason.

I believe you, and I ask your pardon.

Will you please ask that half-devil

why he has trapped my soul and body like this?

Ask me nothing. What you know, you know.

From now on I'll never speak another word. (The play's one unanswered question, refused out loud by the only person who could answer it. He has talked for five acts and stops exactly when an explanation is wanted.)

What — not even to pray?

Torture will open your mouth.

You're doing the right thing.

Sir,

you're to be told what has happened,

which I don't think you know. Here's a letter

found in the pocket of the dead Roderigo,

and here's another. (showing papers) One of

them concerns

the killing of Cassio, to be carried out

by Roderigo.

The villain!

Utterly barbarous and utterly foul.

Now here's another bitter letter

found in his pocket as well. It seems

Roderigo meant to send it to this damned villain,

except that Iago, in the meantime,

presumably came in and talked him round.

You poisonous wretch! —

How did you come by that handkerchief, Cassio,

the one that was my wife's?

I found it in my room.

And he admitted himself, only a moment ago,

that he dropped it there deliberately

and it worked out exactly as he wanted.

Fool. Fool. Fool.

There's more, in Roderigo's letter:

he reproaches Iago for making him

provoke me on watch, which is how it came about

that I was dismissed. And just now Roderigo spoke,

after seeming dead a long while: Iago wounded him,

and Iago put him up to it.

(to Othello) You must leave this room and come with us.

Your authority and command are removed,

and Cassio governs Cyprus. As for this wretch —

if there's any ingenious cruelty

that can torment him hard and keep him alive long,

he'll have it. You'll be kept close prisoner

until the nature of your crime is reported

to the Venetian state. — Come on, take him away.

Wait. A word or two before you go.

I've done the state some service, and they

know it.

No more of that. I ask you, in your dispatches,

when you report these unhappy events,

describe me as I am. Don't soften anything,

and don't write anything out of malice. Then you'll have to speak

of a man who loved unwisely, but too well;

of a man not easily made jealous, but once worked on,

driven to distraction; of a man whose hand,

like the base Judean, threw away a pearl

worth more than his whole tribe; of a man whose beaten

eyes,

though never given to weeping,

shed tears as fast as the trees of Arabia

drop their healing resin. Write that down. (He is composing his own obituary and asking for it to be entered into the official record. It is the last thing he does before the last thing he does.)

And say as well that in Aleppo once,

where a hostile turbaned Turk

beat a Venetian and insulted the state,

I took the circumcised dog by the throat

and struck him — like this. (In the story he is the Venetian defending the state, and the Turk is the enemy. Then he stabs himself. He has cast himself as both parties and carried out the sentence on the outsider — which is the thing Venice has called him since Act 1, and which he called the enemy in Act 2.)

What a bloody ending.

Everything that was said is ruined.

(to Desdemona) I kissed you before I killed you. There's no way but this —

killing myself, to die upon a kiss.

I was afraid of this, but I thought he had no weapon.

He was a great-hearted man.

(to Iago) You Spartan hound,

crueller than agony or starvation or the sea —

look at the tragic load on this bed.

This is your work. — The sight of it poisons the eye.

Cover it. — Gratiano, take charge of the house

and take possession of the Moor's estate,

since it passes to you. (to Cassio) To you, lord

governor,

falls the sentencing of this hellish villain.

The time, the place, the torture — see that it's carried out.

I'll go aboard at once, and report this heavy business

to the state with a heavy heart. (Three bodies on one bed, and the last order given is to hide them. Iago is alive, silent, and the only person on stage who knows why any of it happened.)