"
But the reason fades and the resolution wavers in the passion for her
"body and beauty," and the tenderness of the lover comes to hearing
again:
"[
Kissing her."] O balmy breath, that dost almost persuade
Justice to break her sword!--one more, one more.--
Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee,
And love thee after.--One more, and this the last.
So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep,
But they are cruel tears; this sorrow's heavenly;
It strikes where it doth love.--She wakes."
So gentle a murderer was never seen save Macbeth, and the "heavenly
sorrow" that strikes where it doth love is one of the best examples in
literature of the Englishman's capacity for hypocritical self-deception.
The subsequent dialogue shows us in Othello the short, plain phrases of
immitigable resolution; in this scene Shakespeare comes nearer to
realizing strength than anywhere else in all his work. But even here his
nature shows itself; Othello has to be misled by Desdemona's weeping,
which he takes to be sorrow for Cassio's death, before he can pass to
action, and as soon as the murder is accomplished, he regrets:
"O, insupportable! O heavy hour!"
His frank avowal, however, is excellently characteristic of the soldier
Othello:
"'Twas I that killed her.
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