Othello no longer raves. He goes about the task of killing with a cold sorrow. Desdemona wakes and Othello accuses her of having given the handkerchief to Cassio. He will not accept her denial but tells her Cassio is dead (he assumes Iago has done his work properly), and Desdemona's terror at that news seems to him to be the final admission.

He strangles her with her pillow and even while he is forcing his weight down on her fragile neck, there is a clamor at the door. Emilia demands entrance. Othello closes the bed curtains and lets her in. Emilia has come to tell of the deadly fight between Roderigo and Cassio.

Othello says calmly:

—Act V, scene ii, lines 108-10

It has always been tempting to think that changes in the heavens bring about analogous changes on the earth (something that is the basis of the pseudo science of astrology). The regular changes of the moon from new to full and back again would seem to imply that certain passions or foibles of men would wax and wane in sympathy.

In particular, mental abnormalities would wax with the moon, and there are the well-known legends that men turn into werewolves under the full moon, that witchcraft is most dangerous then, and so on. Spells of madness would vary with the moon's phases too by this line of thought, and the very word "lunatic" is derived from the Latin word for the moon.

And of course, if the moon approached more closely to the earth than usual, its effects would be multiplied.

But now Othello finds out Cassio is not killed, merely wounded. That staggers him.

A faint cry from the bed reveals that Desdemona is not quite dead, either. She lives only long enough to try one last time to shield Othello, and weakly claims she killed herself.

Othello, trying desperately to cling to the certainty that he did the right thing, boldly proclaims he killed her for her infidelity, and now Emilia comes into her own. She shrieks her utter faith in Desdemona's virtue.

Others, including Iago, come bursting in in response to Emilia's cries and find Desdemona dead. Iago must admit he told Othello of Desdemona's unfaithfulness, and now comes his doom. The matter of the handkerchief comes up and Emilia reveals the truth. She had found the handkerchief and given it to Iago.

Then-too late, too late-Othello understands. He tries to kill Iago, who evades him, stabs Emilia, and runs.

Emilia dies, but Iago is brought back a prisoner. Othello looks at him through the hellish mist that now surrounds him and says, brokenly:

—Act V, scene ii, line 282

This takes us back to one of the more joyous aspects of the pagan religions of the Greeks and Romans. They peopled the woods and wilds with spirits representing the free, animal fertility of life. The Greek satyrs and the Roman fauns were pictured as men with goats' horns and hindquarters, possibly because goats were always pictured as lustful animals. (Then too, goats may well have been the first creatures to be domesticated for meat and milk and it was important that they be lustful and multiply.) The most important of the satyrs was Pan himself.

The sexually strait-laced Jews (and, later, Christians) viewed all fertility deities with disapproval and suspicion, and to the Jews the satyrs (or similar creatures in Eastern cults) were sairrim, which the King James Bible translates as "devils." They tempted mankind to sin.

The devil, Satan, is usually pictured, even today, with horns, tail, and other goatish characteristics. He is still a satyr or, in particular, Pan. Medieval legends had it that the devil could take on many undevilish disguises, but that he could not abandon all his marks. Whatever he did, there remained one trace of goatishness; that is, a goat's cloven hoof. Hence the expression "to show the cloven hoof," meaning to reveal the hidden evil in one's character.

Othello looks toward Iago's feet to see the cloven hoof that would indicate the devil and interrupts himself mournfully with his "-but that's a fable."

He has learned! Till now he has believed the fables from Pliny, he has believed in magic handkerchiefs and sibyls, in crocodiles and moon-bred lunacy-and, of course, in Iago too.

Now, for the first time, he has discovered the necessity of skepticism-far too late.

As all of Iago's lies and trickeries are exposed, the confused Othello wants to know but one thing. Why did Iago do it? The audience wants to know too, since the revenge went far beyond anything necessary to punish Iago's grievances. But Iago says:

—Act V, scene ii, lines 299-300

Ludovico threatens to make him talk under torture, but it seems reasonable to suppose that no torture will make Iago talk. This failure to say why has irritated many, but, in my opinion, it should not. Iago's pleasure at manipulating lives was intense and it is something we can all understand, for, in a much milder way, it is present in all men-and yet it is not something that can be easily explained.

Now it is only necessary to take Othello back to Venice so that he might be tried for murder.

Othello, however, has one last thing to say. With an effort, he manages to pull himself together into almost the man he once was and speaks once more, a little in self-pity, much more in self-hate. He asks them all to tell the tale honestly, saying:

—Act V, scene ii, lines 339-44

In many editions of the play, the phrase "like the base Judean" is made to read "like the base Indian." It seems to me that "Judean" is much the more preferable. If "Indian" is used, the allusion is obscure; if "Judean" is used, it is brilliantly apparent.

In Matthew 13:45-46, Jesus is reported as saying "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it."

It is easy to envision Jesus (who, in the Christian view, represented the kingdom of heaven) as being the pearl of great price more valuable than all else in the world besides. The Jews, in rejecting Jesus as the Messiah, would then be pictured as throwing away the pearl of great price. In particular, Judas, who betrayed Jesus, would be the "base Judean."