[Footnote 91:  For those who know the end of the story there is a terrible irony in the enthusiasm with which Cassio greets the arrival of Desdemona in Cyprus.  Her ship (which is also Iago’s) sets out from Venice a week later than the others, but reaches Cyprus on the same day with them: 

     Tempests themselves, high seas and howling winds,
     The gutter’d rocks and congregated sands—­
     Traitors ensteep’d to clog the guiltless keel—­
     As having sense of beauty, do omit
     Their mortal natures, letting go safely by
     The divine Desdemona.

So swiftly does Fate conduct her to her doom.]

[Footnote 92:  The dead bodies are not carried out at the end, as they must have been if the bed had been on the main stage (for this had no front curtain).  The curtains within which the bed stood were drawn together at the words, ‘Let it be hid’ (V. ii. 365).]

[Footnote 93:  Against which may be set the scene of the blinding of Gloster in King Lear.]

[Footnote 94:  The reader who is tempted by it should, however, first ask himself whether Othello does act like a barbarian, or like a man who, though wrought almost to madness, does ‘all in honour.’]

[Footnote 95:  For the actor, then, to represent him as violently angry when he cashiers Cassio is an utter mistake.]

[Footnote 96:  I cannot deal fully with this point in the lecture.  See Note L.]

[Footnote 97:  It is important to observe that, in his attempt to arrive at the facts about Cassio’s drunken misdemeanour, Othello had just had an example of Iago’s unwillingness to tell the whole truth where it must injure a friend.  No wonder he feels in the Temptation-scene that ’this honest creature doubtless Sees and knows more, much more, than he unfolds.’]

[Footnote 98:  To represent that Venetian women do not regard adultery so seriously as Othello does, and again that Othello would be wise to accept the situation like an Italian husband, is one of Iago’s most artful and most maddening devices.]

[Footnote 99:  If the reader has ever chanced to see an African violently excited, he may have been startled to observe how completely at a loss he was to interpret those bodily expressions of passion which in a fellow-countryman he understands at once, and in a European foreigner with somewhat less certainty.  The effect of difference in blood in increasing Othello’s bewilderment regarding his wife is not sufficiently realised.  The same effect has to be remembered in regard to Desdemona’s mistakes in dealing with Othello in his anger.]

[Footnote 100:  See Note M.]

[Footnote 101:  Cf. Winter’s Tale, I. ii. 137 ff.: 

              Can thy dam?—­may’t be?—­
     Affection! thy intention stabs the centre: 
     Thou dost make possible things not so held,
     Communicatest with dreams;—­how can this be? 
     With what’s unreal