Set you down this;
And say, besides, that in Aleppo once,
When a malignant and a turban'd Turk
Beat a Venetian, and traduced the State,
I took by the throat the circumcized dog
And smote him--thus."
All the memorable words here are the words of the gentle poet revealing
his own nature ingenuously. The relief given by tears is exquisitely
expressed, but the relief itself is a feminine experience; men usually
find that tears humiliate them, and take refuge from their scalding
shame in anger. The deathless phrases of the poet's grief must be
contrasted with the braggart mouthings of the captain at the end in
order to realize how impossible it was for Shakespeare to depict a man
of deeds.
In the first two acts Shakespeare has tried to present Othello with some
sincerity and truth to the dramatic fiction. But as soon as jealousy
touches Othello, he becomes the transparent vessel of Shakespeare's own
emotion, and is filled with it as with his heart's blood. All the
magical phrases in the play are phrases of jealousy, passion, and pity.
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