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The Shakespeare Story-Book
No Way but This
Though Othello had come to the terrible conclusion that Desdemona must die, he could not prevent his thoughts dwelling again and again on all the charm and loveliness of his dear young wife. This did not suit Iago’s purpose, for he was afraid lest Othello should relent before his revenge was accomplished. So he did his utmost in every way to incite Othello still more against Desdemona. He cunningly reminded him of Brabantio’s parting words, and said if Desdemona had deceived her father in concealing her affection for Othello, why should she not equally deceive her husband in concealing her affection for someone else?
“She shall not live – no, my heart is turned to stone; I strike it, and it hurts my hand,” said Othello. Then, “O, the world hath not a sweeter creature!”
“Nay, that’s not your way,” said Iago, ill-pleased.
“I do but say what she is,” returned Othello. “So delicate with her needle; an admirable musician – O, she will sing the savageness out of a bear; of so high and plenteous wit and invention – ”
“She’s the worse for all this,” said Iago.
“O, a thousand, thousand times,” agreed Othello; then he added wistfully: “And, then, of so gentle a condition!”
“Ay, too gentle,” sneered Iago.
“Nay, that’s certain; – but, yet, the pity of it, Iago! O, Iago, the pity of it, Iago!”
But one might better have appealed for compassion to a tiger in sight of his prey. Iago knew nothing of pity. He had only one aim in view – to gratify his revenge. If Othello would kill Desdemona, he said, he would undertake Cassio.
Emilia, Iago’s wife, was a sharp-tongued, outspoken woman, devoted to her young mistress, and when she saw how jealous and violent Othello was becoming, she did not scruple to tell him plainly that he was utterly wrong in his distrust. But Othello, urged on by Iago’s cunning, was now past all reason. By this time he was firmly convinced that Desdemona’s simple sweetness of manner was nothing but the most skilful hypocrisy, and that it was his duty to put her out of the world, so that she should betray no more people.
When he spoke to his wife that day after his interview with Iago, his words were so strange and menacing that Desdemona was quite frightened.
“Upon my knees, what doth your speech import?” she cried piteously. “I understand a fury in your words, but not the words.”
Othello answered with a torrent of angry accusations, which utterly bewildered Desdemona, and then he abruptly left her, while Emilia vainly tried to soothe and comfort her. This good woman was not slow to express her indignation at Othello’s shameful behaviour, and loudly announced her opinion that he was being deceived by “some base notorious knave, some scurvy fellow!”
“Oh, heaven, that thou would’st make such people known, and put in every honest hand a whip to lash the rascals naked through the world, even from the east to the west!” she cried, with flashing eyes.
This was not very pleasant hearing for Iago, who was standing by, and he harshly told Emilia she was a fool, and bade her be silent. Then, when Desdemona appealed to him, asking what she should do to win her lord again, Iago pretended to think it was only a little ill-temper on Othello’s part, that business of the State had offended him, and consequently he was out of humour with Desdemona.
There was some colour for this suggestion, for a special commission had just arrived from Venice, commanding Othello to return home, and deputing Cassio as Governor of Cyprus in his place.
Iago saw that, if he wanted to dispose of Cassio, there was no time to be lost, for Iago himself would be obliged to leave the island in Othello’s suite. He therefore contrived to incite his feeble-minded tool Roderigo to set upon Cassio in the dark that very night and murder him. The attempt, however, was not successful. Roderigo only managed to wound Cassio, and was himself badly injured in return. Some passers-by – the messengers from Venice – hearing groans in the street, stopped to give help, but it was too dark to distinguish the sufferers. The next person to arrive on the scene was Iago himself, with a light, and coming across the wounded Roderigo, and fearing he would betray his share in the plot, he treacherously stabbed him to death. Cassio was then carefully conveyed away for his wounds to be dressed.
That night, when Desdemona was preparing for bed, a strange melancholy seemed to take possession of her. Emilia, who was in attendance, tried to divert her mind by getting her to join in a little idle talk, but Desdemona’s thoughts were running on sad themes.
“My mother had a maid called Barbara,” she said musingly. “She was in love, and he she loved proved mad, and did forsake her. She had a song of ‘willow’: an old thing it was, but it expressed her fortune, and she died singing it; that song to-night will not go from my mind.”
And presently, as Emilia helped her to disrobe, Desdemona began singing in a sweet, plaintive key:
“The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,
Sing all a green willow!
Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,
Sing willow, willow, willow;
The fresh streams ran by her, and murmured her moans,
Sing willow, willow, willow;
Her salt tears fell from her, and softened the stones; —
Sing willow, willow, willow.
“Sing all a green willow must be my garland;
Let nobody blame him, his scorn I approve.
“Nay, that’s not next. Hark! Who is it that knocks?”
“It’s the wind,” said Emilia.
Desdemona listened for a moment, then went on with her song.
“I called my love false love; but what said he then?
Sing willow, willow, willow;”
Desdemona’s voice faltered and stopped. Emilia’s duties were done, and, bidding her good-night, Desdemona let her depart, and presently closed her sorrowful eyes in sleep.
Now had come the moment that Othello had chosen for his dark deed. As he drew near and saw his beautiful young wife lying in all the calm repose of innocent slumber, for an instant his soul melted with pity and love, and, bending over her, he kissed her tenderly. But once more he hardened his heart by thinking of the cause that had led him to decide on such an act, and a fresh wave of jealous fury suddenly taking possession of him, he seized the pillows, and held them over Desdemona until life seemed extinct.
There came a furious knocking at the door. Emilia’s voice was heard outside, demanding admittance. Othello paused to consider.
“What’s best to do? If she come in, she’ll sure speak to my wife. My wife! my wife! What wife? I have no wife. O, insupportable! O, heavy hour!”
And Othello with a heavy groan hid his face in his hands.
Again came the knocking.
“I do beseech you that I may speak with you, O good my lord.”
Othello drew the curtains of the bed, and unlocked the door. Emilia, in great excitement, had come to bring the news of Roderigo’s death. As she was speaking, a strange sort of moan caught her attention. She knew her lady’s voice, and, rushing to the bed, tore aside the curtains.
“Help! help, ho! Help! O lady, speak again! Sweet Desdemona! O sweet mistress, speak!”
“A guiltless death I die,” murmured Desdemona.
“O, who hath done this deed?”
“Nobody; I myself. Farewell! Commend me to my kind lord. O, farewell!” And with a little sigh the gentle spirit passed away.
Othello immediately declared that Desdemona had spoken falsely; it was he who had killed her. Emilia turned on him with bitterest rage and contempt, whereupon he began to explain his reasons for what he had done, saying that it was Iago who had revealed everything to him. Emilia could scarcely believe such a thing. She shouted lustily to rouse the alarm, and when, among others, Iago himself hurried in, she taxed him with what Othello had said.
“I told him what I thought, and told no more than what he found himself was apt and true,” said Iago, brazenly.
“You told a lie, an odious, damned lie; upon my soul a lie, a wicked lie,” cried the distracted Emilia, and it was vain for Iago to try to silence his wife; before everyone she proclaimed him for the villain he was.
Alas, poor Othello, he began to see he had been tricked. But one point he still clung to – the handkerchief. Desdemona had certainly given away his cherished gift to Cassio.
“O, thou dull Moor!” cried Emilia. “The handkerchief thou speakest of, I found by chance and gave my husband, for often with solemn earnestness he begged of me to steal it… She give it Cassio? No, alas! I found it, and I gave it to my husband.”
“Thou liest!” said Iago.
“By heaven, I do not – I do not, gentlemen!”
Furious against his wife, Iago had already tried once to stab her, but she had evaded him, and the other men in the room had protected her. He now made another attempt, which was more successful, and Emilia fell to the ground.
“O, lay me by my mistress’s side!” she begged.
And there, a few minutes later, she died, with Desdemona’s song of “Willow, willow, willow” on her lips, and protesting with her dying breath the innocence of her dear lady.
Now, indeed, the end had come for Othello, and all the anguish of unavailing remorse racked his soul.
“O, Desdemona, Desdemona! Dead!” his heart-broken wail rang through the room.
But it was all in vain now – vain his agony of love and sorrow; vain his pleading; vain his scalding tears; vain the bitter scorn with which he lashed his guilty spirit.
Cold, cold, pale and still, lay his beautiful young wife, her ears deaf to all voices of earth, and frozen on her silent lips the smile with which she had died.
Othello’s power and command were taken away, and Cassio ruled in Cyprus. But little cared Othello for this; all worldly ambition was over. As the gentlemen and officers were about to leave the chamber of death, taking Iago with them as their prisoner, Othello, with a dignified gesture, stayed them.
“Soft you; a word or two before you go. I have done the State some service, and they know it. No more of that. I pray you in your letters, when you shall relate these unlucky deeds, speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice. Then you must speak of one that loved not wisely but too well; of one not easily jealous, but being wrought, perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand, like the base Indian, threw a pearl away richer than all his tribe… Set you down this; and say besides, that in Aleppo once, where a malignant and a turbaned Turk beat a Venetian and traduced the State, I took by the throat the circumcised dog, and smote him – thus.” And at the last word Othello plunged a dagger into his heart.
With failing strength he dragged his steps to the bed, and fell on the dead body of Desdemona.
“I kissed thee ere I killed thee,” came his dying whisper. “No way but this: killing myself, to die upon a kiss.”
Cymbeline
A Princess of Britain
Daughter of Cymbeline, King of Britain, and his acknowledged heir, Imogen had fallen into deep disgrace at Court, and incurred her father’s severest displeasure. Cymbeline had lately married a second wife, a widow with one son, and it had occurred to both the King and Queen that it would be an excellent plan for Imogen to marry this youth. But Cloten was a clownish, ill-conditioned lout, and Imogen had chosen to prefer as her husband a poor but worthy gentleman. Posthumus Leonatus had been her playfellow from childhood, for his parents dying when he was an infant, he had been adopted by Cymbeline, who brought him up almost as his own son. Though the King, Queen, and Cloten himself were enraged at the choice Imogen had made, and the courtiers were forced to appear as if they followed the royal example, not one of the latter but was glad at heart at the thing he pretended to scowl at. For while Cloten was, as one gentleman expressed it, “a thing too bad for bad report,” Leonatus was a man endowed with such outward personal grace, and such inward nobility of soul, that it would be difficult to find his equal through all the world. Even as a boy, most praised, most loved, he had come unharmed through the trying ordeal of being a Court favourite, drinking in all branches of learning as lightly as others do air; and the proof of his excellence was evident in the fact that so peerless a lady as Imogen had chosen him for her husband.
But Cymbeline, untouched by his merits, was indignant that his daughter had married “a beggar” when she might have had the only son of the Queen. He pronounced the sentence of banishment on Leonatus, and commanded that Imogen should be imprisoned at Court, under the custody of her step-mother.
The new Queen was a crafty, designing woman, whose chief aim at present was to secure the future throne for her boorish son. Cymbeline, it is true, had had two sons of his own, but they were both stolen when they were little more than babies, the eldest being only three, and the youngest, two years old. From the day of their disappearance no trace of them had ever been found. The Princess Imogen was now the only child, and as Cymbeline’s heir, the Queen was anxious to entice her into a marriage with her son. When this attempt failed, the Queen did not scruple to plan other and darker means to accomplish her purpose. She had some knowledge of medicine, and took pleasure in making perfumes and preserves from all sorts of herbs and simples. Under pretence of perfecting her knowledge, she begged from a physician, Cornelius – who had helped her with her studies – some most poisonous compounds, which would produce a languishing death. She said she did not intend to use them on human beings, but only on animals, to try their power, and apply the antidote, in order to discover their respective virtues and effects.
The good physician did not at all approve of such cruel experiments. He knew the Queen’s evil nature, and would not trust one of such malice with drugs of so deadly a kind. While, therefore, pretending to comply with the Queen’s request, he really gave her some harmless compounds which would only stupefy and dull the senses for awhile, but do no ultimate injury.
It was well that Cornelius acted so discreetly, for the Queen lost no time in putting her wicked schemes into practice.
When Leonatus, on his banishment, departed for Rome, he left behind him a most faithful, devoted servant, called Pisanio, who was to watch over and attend his dear wife. The crafty Queen tried to win over Pisanio to her interests, promising him large bribes if he would influence Imogen on behalf of her son. But Pisanio’s steadfast fidelity was not to be shaken. Seeing that all her fawning friendliness was not likely to achieve her aim, the Queen tried another method to remove Leonatus from her path. While talking with Pisanio, she cunningly let fall, as if by accident, the little box of drugs which she had obtained from Cornelius. When Pisanio picked it up, and would have returned it to her, she insisted on his keeping it, as an earnest of future good which she intended to bestow on him, explaining that it was a wonderful cordial by which she had five times redeemed the King from death. The Queen hoped that Pisanio, wishing to do his master good, would give him some of this cordial, which would certainly prove fatal. After the death of Leonatus, if Imogen still persisted in refusing to marry Cloten, the Queen determined that she, too, should have a taste of the poison, when the way would be clear for Cloten to ascend the throne.
While these things were happening in Britain, Leonatus had reached Rome. Here, at the house of a friend, Philario, he happened to meet some acquaintances that he had known in younger days – one a Frenchman, and another an Italian called Iachimo. The Frenchman reminded him of a quarrel which they had had on the occasion of their former meeting, which, he said, was of a slight and trivial nature. But Leonatus, with his ripened judgment, would not admit that the cause of the quarrel was altogether slight.
“Can we, with manners, ask what was the difference?” inquired Iachimo.
The Frenchman replied that a dispute had arisen as to which of the ladies, whom each loved in his own country, was to be most praised; and that Leonatus had asserted that his, in Britain, was the fairest, most virtuous, wise, and constant; and that her favour was less easily to be won than the rarest of the ladies in France.
“That lady is not now living, or this gentleman’s opinion is by this time worn out,” laughed Iachimo.
“She holds her virtue still, and I my mind,” returned Leonatus.
“You must not so far prefer her before our ladies of Italy,” said Iachimo, still in the same jesting way.
But Leonatus was in earnest, and, in spite of the good-natured bantering of the others, he persisted in extolling the charms and excellence of Imogen.
At their parting in Britain Imogen had given her husband as a remembrance a diamond ring, which had been her mother’s, and which she held very precious; and Leonatus, on his part, had clasped on her arm a bracelet.
Iachimo now said laughingly that if only he had the chance of a few minutes’ conversation with Imogen he would soon win her affection, – in fact, he was ready to wager the half of his estate against Leonatus’s ring that there was no lady in the world of whom he could not say the same.
Leonatus began to get annoyed, and Philario begged them to let the subject drop. But Iachimo would not give in. He now said he wished he had wagered his whole estate. He would lay ten thousand ducats against Leonatus’s ring that if he went to the Court of Britain he would bring back evidence that Imogen’s favour was by no means so hard to win as Leonatus imagined.
Leonatus, stung by Iachimo’s remarks, and longing to prove the falsity of his assertions, and to punish him for his impertinence, said he would accept the wager. But he would wager gold against Iachimo’s gold; the ring he held as dear as his finger – it was part of it.
Iachimo accused him of fearing to lose the wager, and said he was wise in declining to risk his ring, which so irritated Leonatus that he accepted the challenge.
“I dare you to this match; here’s my ring,” he exclaimed.
“I will not have this wager,” said Philario.
But both Leonatus and Iachimo declared it should go on, and proceeded to settle the conditions, and to have them lawfully recorded. Only Leonatus further determined that, if Iachimo succeeded in winning his wager owing to Imogen’s fault or weakness, Leonatus would cast off his wife utterly; she was not worth debate. If, on the other hand, Iachimo’s advances were repulsed with the contempt they deserved, Iachimo should answer with his sword for his impertinence.
To this Iachimo agreed, and without delay he started for Britain.
Arrived at the Court of Cymbeline, he was introduced to Imogen as the bearer of letters from Leonatus. She received him with charming frankness and cordiality, delighted to welcome one of whom her husband wrote as bestowing much kindness on him. In accordance with a plan Iachimo had thought out, he replied in answer to Imogen’s eager questions concerning Leonatus that he was quite well, exceedingly pleasant, and very merry and gamesome – in fact, he was called “the Briton reveller.”
Imogen was somewhat surprised and a little hurt to hear this, for at home Leonatus was, if anything, of a grave and melancholy disposition.
“I never saw him sad,” protested Iachimo; and further he added, Leonatus always laughed loudly when one of his companions, a Frenchman, seemed sorrowful because he had left behind him in his own country a lady whom he loved. “Fancy a man sighing for the bondage of any woman!” Leonatus had said.
It pained Imogen to think that Leonatus cared so little about her, as Iachimo’s words implied; but when this smooth-tongued Italian gentleman went on to pity her for the way in which her husband seemed to have forgotten her, and counselled her to take revenge, she began to be on her guard.
“Revenge?” she said. “How should I be revenged? If this be true, how should I be revenged?”
Iachimo replied that if Leonatus cared so little about her as to be able to amuse himself happily with all the most riotous companions in Rome, why, then, let Imogen waste no longer any thought on him, but bestow her affection on one who was ready to be her devoted friend and servant. He– Iachimo – would never neglect her as Leonatus had done.
Imogen interrupted these silky speeches with indignant scorn, and ordered Iachimo to leave her presence instantly. “What ho, Pisanio!“ she cried, to summon her faithful attendant, for she would not listen to another word from this insulting stranger.
Then, with supple guile, Iachimo suddenly changed his tactics, and burst into the most glowing praise of Leonatus. He implored Imogen’s pardon, and declared that all he had said was quite false, and only to test her love. Leonatus was one of the best and truest of men – “he sits among men like a descended god; he hath a kind of honour sets him off, more than mortal seeming.”
Iachimo’s present words made amends to Imogen for his unworthy artifice, and she pardoned him, and resumed all her former gracious charm of manner.
“I had almost forgotten to entreat your grace in a small request,” said Iachimo, as he was taking his leave. “And yet of moment, too, for it concerns your lord; myself and other noble friends are partners in the business.”
“Pray, what is it?” asked Imogen.
Iachimo answered that Leonatus and about a dozen of his friends in Rome had joined together to buy a present for the Emperor. He, as their agent, had purchased this in France; it was plate of rare device, and jewels of rich and exquisite form. They were of great value, and being a stranger in Britain, Iachimo was anxious to have them in safe keeping. Might he beg of Imogen to take them under her protection?
“Willingly; and I will pledge mine honour for their safety,” responded Imogen. “Since my lord hath interest in them, I will keep them under my own protection, in my bedchamber.”
“They are in a trunk, attended by my men,” said Iachimo. “I will make bold to send them to you, only for this night. I must leave to-morrow. Therefore, if you please to greet your lord with writing, do it to-night.”
“I will write,” said Imogen. “Send your trunk to me; it shall be safely kept and faithfully yielded to you. You are very welcome.”