Othello's Life-Lines
Bill Long
Throwing it all Away, Being Undone, Not Easily Jealous
In the previous essay, I tried to understand the leading characters in Othello from the perspective of one line they said or was said about them in the play's closing scene. As I thought about Othello, however, I saw him as a more complex character than the others, one whose course over the play could not simply be grasped by one line. However, there are three memorable thoughts in 5.2 that help define significant contours of his portrait.
Throwing Away the Pearl (5.2.347)
One of the persistent mysteries in human life is why people who seemingly have all that they need or whose lives are filled with blessings sometimes throw it all away. One of Othello's final lines in the play poses the problem neatly:
"Then you must speak....of one whose hand/ (Like the base [Indian] {Judean} threw a pearl away/ Richer than all his tribe (5.2.346-348)."
First, a textual note. The 1622 Quarto reads "Indian" and the 1623 First Folio has "Judean." In fact, the late medieval orthography might have only differentiated these words by an n/u, because the I and J were written identically and the "i" and "e" could easily have been confused (as could the "n" and "u" for that matter). Both readings would make sense. Shakespeare would have known of pearl fishermen in the Middle East and Indian ocean, and the image of such a person throwing away a pearl of great price was not unknown. Yet, it is more powerful to see this as a reference to Judas Iscariot's betrayal of Jesus. He threw away the pearl (by betraying the Christ), a pearl more significant and "richer" than any of the tribe of Judah.
In a fascinating note on this passage, Naseeb Shaheen, whose recent book on Biblical References in Shakespeare's Plays, is the most careful study of biblical references, allusions and images in Shakespeare, mentions that the 1576 Tomson New Testament, appearing 35 years before the Authorized Version, was published in more than twice as many versions as any other English New Testament in Shakespeare's day and was the only English New Testament at the time to have a marginal note on Mt. 10:4 glossing "Iscariot" (the apostle's name was Judas Iscariot) with these words: "A man of Kerioth. Nowe Kerioth was in the tribe of Judah, Josh. 15:25)." This is the only biblical reference or gloss allowing the reader to conclude that Jesus and Judas were from the same tribe. So, Shaheen suggests that this might be evidence of Shakespeare's having worked from or been familiar with the Tomson New Testament. Even some editions of Tomson's NT were bound with the popular Geneva Old Testament. However, against his hypothesis is the fact that this would be the only clear evidence in Shakespeare's plays that he may have owned and read a Tomson New Testament (see discussion in Biblical References, pp. 602-603).
We don't have to conclude, however, that Shakespeare was familiar with the Tomson New Testament to support the reading "Judean" on line 347. My approach to textual criticism is that when in doubt, and when both have equally good grounds for being correct, choose both and see where the interpretation leads! If we read "Judean" here, Shakespeare would be saying that Othello, in his (almost) last words, recognizes that what he did was not simply fall victim to Iago's plots and murder his wife, but that he "threw it all away." If we read "Judean" here the tone is one not simply of casting away the "pearl of great price," but of betrayal too. The "Indian" reading would emphasize the value of what is being discarded. The problem posed, but never answered by Shakespeare, is why people throw away such precious things, such life-giving and life-affirming things, to satisfy their passions or their frenzies. Othello did so, and that is a life-line.
Othello Undone
After Othello unsuccessfully tries to kill Iago, he is apprehended and his weapons are taken. His servile condition washes over him and he says:
"I am not valient neither,/ But every puny whipster gets my sword (5.2.243-244)."
He may have been valiant when he was fighting the Anthropophagi and the "men whose heads/ Do grow beneath their shoulders (1.3.144-145)," but now he is not. And, in fact, his weakened condition makes him reflect on how his "sword" has been taken by more "puny" people. The sexual references are obvious and the powerlessness he feels captures his life: Iago the Puny has made him vulnerable while still carrying his sword, Cassio the Bean-Counter has maybe used his own "sword" on Othello's wife, Montano gets his real sword, Emilia the Liberal Speaker has taken his interpretive sword away from him. He threw away the pearl and was disarmed at the same time. No more gloomy assessment of a desperate man can be imagined. He is fully unmanned.
Not Easily Jealous
Othello's last speech (5.2.338-356) will receive separate treatment, but his self-assessment on jealousy and perplexity rings in our ears as the play ends:
"Then you must speak..../Of one not easily jealious, but being wrought,/ Perplexed in the extreme (5.2.345-346)."
Othello, like Richard Nixon after 1974 and Jimmy Carter after 1981, has set upon a brief course of self-rehabilitation. He wants the world to know that he was not a jealous man but that when someone worked on him (i.e., Iago), he became perplexed (confused or tormented) in the extreme. There is no reason not to believe this assessment. There is no reason not to believe someone when he or she says, "I am usually a person of equable temperament, but....." or "I am not a person who feels much guilt, but...." Othello wants us to consider him kindly; not to exonerate him for his conduct but to realize that this was only because he was pushed to the wall.
Conclusion
Thus the enduring tragedy of Othello rings in our ears. We see a man who has become unmanned because a "puny whipster" got his "sword." We see a man conscious of the fact that he threw away his most precious possession for no apparent reason. We see a man begging us to realize that he wasn't normally this way, but that he did it because he became "perplexed in the extreme." It makes us wonder if, in fact, the tragedies that stalk our lives and hurt us are those that are almost artistically devised to make us fall, exploiting that one area in our otherwise invulnerable psyche to reduce us to hollow shells of once triumphant people.
Copyright © 2004-2007 William R. Long |