In "antres vast and deserts idle" I hear the
poet, and when the verse swings to--
".... men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders,"
it is plain that Othello, the lord and lover of realities, has deserted
the firm ground of fact. But Shakespeare pulls himself in almost before
he has yielded to the charm of his own words, and again Othello speaks:
"This to hear
Would Desdemona seriously incline,
But still the house-affairs would draw her thence,
and so forth.
The temptation, however, was overpowering, and again Shakespeare yields
to it:
"And often did beguile her of her tears
When I did speak of some distressful stroke
That my youth suffered."
It is a characteristic of the man of action that he thinks lightly of
reverses; he loves hard buffets as a swimmer high waves, and when he
tells his life-story he does not talk of his "distress." This
"distressful stroke that my youth suffered" is manifestly pure
Shakespeare--tender-hearted Shakespeare, who pitied himself and the
distressful strokes his youth suffered very profoundly.
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