Shakespeare’s decision to make a black man a tragic hero was bold and original: by an ancient tradition, blackness was associated with sin and death; and blackamoors in plays before Shakespeare are generally villainous (as is Aaron in Titus Andronicus). The story of a Moorish commander deluded by his ensign (standard-bearer) into believing that his young wife has been unfaithful to him with another soldier derives from a prose tale by the Italian Giambattista Cinzio Giraldi first published in 1565 in a collection of linked tales, Gli Ecatommiti (The Hundred Tales). Shakespeare must have read it either in Italian or in a French translation of 1584, he may have looked at both. Giraldi tells the tale in a few pages of compressed, matter-of-fact narrative interspersed with brief conversations. His main characters are a Moor of Venice (Othello), his Venetian wife (Desdemona), his ensign (Iago), his ensign’s wife (Emilia), and a corporal (Cassio) ‘who was very dear to the Moor’. Only Desdemona is named. Shakespeare’s invented characters include Roderigo, a young, disappointed suitor of Desdemona, and Brabanzio, Desdemona’s father, who opposes her marriage to Othello. Bianca, Cassio’s mistress, is developed from a few hints in the source. Shakespeare also introduces the military action between Turkey and Venice—infidels and Christians—which gives especial importance to Othello’s posting to Cyprus, a Venetian protectorate which the Turks attacked in 1570 and conquered in the following year. In the source, Othello and Desdemona are already happily settled into married life when they go to Cyprus; Shakespeare compresses the time-scheme and makes many changes to the narrative.

Othello, a great success in Shakespeare’s time, was one of the first plays to be acted after the reopening of the theatres in 1660, and since that time has remained one of the most popular plays on the English stage.

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

OTHELLO, the Moor of Venice

DESDEMONA, his wife

Michael CASSIO, his lieutenant

BIANCA, a courtesan, in love with Cassio

IAGO, the Moor’s ensign

EMILIA, Iago’s wife

A CLOWN, a servant of Othello

The DUKE of Venice

BRABANZIO, Desdemona’s father, a Senator of Venice

GRAZIANO, Brabanzio’s brother

LODOVICO, kinsman of Brabanzio

SENATORS of Venice

RODERIGO, a Venetian gentleman, in love with Desdemona

MONTANO, Governor of Cyprus

A HERALD

A MESSENGER

Attendants, officers, sailors, gentlemen of Cyprus, musicians

The Tragedy of Othello the Moor of Venice

1.1 Enter Iago and Roderigo

RODERIGO

Tush, never tell me! I take it much unkindly

That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse

As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.

IAGO ’Sblood, but you’ll not hear me!

If ever I did dream of such a matter, abhor me.

RODERIGO

Thou told’st me thou didst hold him in thy hate.

IAGO Despise me

If I do not. Three great ones of the city,

In personal suit to make me his lieutenant,

Off-capped to him; and by the faith of man

I know my price, I am worth no worse a place.

But he, as loving his own pride and purposes,

Evades them with a bombast circumstance

Horribly stuffed with epithets of war,

Nonsuits my mediators; for ‘Certes,’ says he,

‘I have already chose my officer.’

And what was he?

Forsooth, a great arithmetician,

One Michael Cassio, a Florentine,

A fellow almost damned in a fair wife,

That never set a squadron in the field

Nor the division of a battle knows

More than a spinster—unless the bookish theoric,

Wherein the togaed consuls can propose

As masterly as he. Mere prattle without practice

Is all his soldiership; but he, sir, had th’election,

And I—of whom his eyes had seen the proof

At Rhodes, at Cyprus, and on other grounds

Christened and heathen—must be beleed and calmed

By debitor and creditor. This counter-caster,

He in good time must his lieutenant be,

And I—God bless the mark!—his Moorship’s ensign.

RODERIGO

By heaven, I rather would have been his hangman.

IAGO

Why, there’s no remedy. ’Tis the curse of service.

Preferment goes by letter and affection,

And not by old gradation, where each second

Stood heir to th’ first. Now, sir, be judge yourself

Whether I in any just term am affined

To love the Moor.

RODERIGO I would not follow him then.

IAGO O sir, content you.

I follow him to serve my turn upon him.

We cannot all be masters, nor all masters

Cannot be truly followed. You shall mark

Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave

That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,

Wears out his time much like his master’s ass

For naught but provender, and when he’s old,

cashiered.

Whip me such honest knaves. Others there are

Who, trimmed in forms and visages of duty,

Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves,

And, throwing but shows of service on their lords,

Do well thrive by ‘em, and when they have lined their

coats,

Do themselves homage. These fellows have some soul,

And such a one do I profess myself—for, sir,

It is as sure as you are Roderigo,

Were I the Moor I would not be Iago.

In following him I follow but myself.

Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,

But seeming so for my peculiar end.