"
Again when he says--
"Come, Desdemona: I have but an hour
Of love, of worldly matters and direction
To spend with thee; we must obey the time,"
I find no sharp impatience to get to work such as Hotspur felt, but a
certain reluctance to leave his love--a natural touch which indicates
that the poet was thinking of himself and not of his puppet.
The first scene of the second act shows us how Shakespeare, the
dramatist, worked. Cassio is plainly Shakespeare the poet; any of his
speeches taken at haphazard proves it. When he hears that Iago has
arrived he breaks out:
"He has had most favourable and happy speed;
Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling winds,
The guttered rocks and congregated sands--
Traitors ensteeped to clog the guiltless keel--
As having sense of beauty, do omit
Their mortal natures, letting go safely by
The divine Desdemona."
And when Desdemona lands, Cassio's first exclamation is sufficient to
establish the fact that he is merely the poet's mask:
"O, behold,
The riches of the ship is come on shore!"
And just as clearly as Cassio is Shakespeare, the lyric poet, so is
Iago, at first, the embodiment of Shakespeare's intelligence.
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