She stroked his forehead. ‘We’ll have to do something about that. It will go away again. Let me bind it up for you and it will be better.’ She took a handkerchief from her sleeve. She looked hurt but did as she was told. When she had gone Iago examined the handkerchief. He was very pleased. He would drop it in Cassio’s lodgings and let him find it. Any small thing would be proof to the jealous. This handkerchief could contribute. The Moor was already changing with his poison. Daring ideas are poison by their very nature. They may be dismissed at first but once they take root in the blood they burn like sulphur.

Let him do his worst,’ said Othello. ‘My record of service to the senate will contradict his complaints. That record is something I haven’t yet revealed: I would only talk about it if I thought that boasting was a virtue. I come from a royal line and I’ve earned the position I’ve reached. You should know, too, Iago, except that I love gentle Desdemona, I would never have risked my freedom for all the sea’s worth. But look there. What are those lights coming this way?’

you don’t know about it, I think you’ve done us a wrong. Don’t think that I’m the kind of person who would play games with a man like you. I insist, your daughter – if you haven’t given her permission – has seriously rebelled. She’s given her allegiance, her beauty, her intelligence and her fortune away in the most unintelligible way. Go and see. If she’s in her room, or anywhere in your house use all your power against me for deluding you.’ The Duke pulled himself up and drew a line under the matter with a final word, telling them that he agreed with Brabantio that as there was nothing anyone could do about it there was no point in bearing grudges: that would just make matters worse. To harbour grudges was the way to the destruction of one’s own life. Iago got up and looked down at him. He smiled. He put his foot on his head. ‘Work on, my medicine, work,’ he whispered. ‘This is how gullible fools are caught, and so many worthy and chaste women too, all innocent, but condemned.’ He heard someone coming. He knelt down beside Othello and took his face gently in his hands. ‘’Wake up, my lord!’ he said. ‘My lord, I say! Othello!’

When the messenger had left the Duke looked round the table. ‘What do you make of this change?’ he said. Desdemona squeezed his hand. ‘I know. Thank you. You love my lord. You’ve known him a long time and it’s certain that he won’t distance himself more than is diplomatically necessary.’I’m not afraid of your sword,’ she said. ‘I’m going to expose you, even if I should lose twenty lives. She began to shout. Help! Help, help, help! The Moor has killed my mistress! Murder! Murder!’ Why did I marry?’ said Othello. ‘This honest creature no doubt sees and knows much more than he’s telling me.’ I know a lady in Venice who would have walked barefoot to Palestine for a kiss from him,’ said Emilia. Act 2, scene 3 Iago gets Cassio drunk, making it easy for Roderigo to provoke Cassio into a brawl, first with Roderigo, then with Montano, whom he wounds. Othello, called from his bed by the noise, stops the brawl and strips Cassio of his lieutenancy. Iago advises Cassio to seek Desdemona’s help in getting reinstated. The next step in Iago’s plan is to tell Othello that Desdemona supports Cassio because Cassio is her lover. The fact that Iago immediately paints himself as the villain also prepares us to be sympathetic to Othello. Iago explains to Roderigo that he has no respect for Othello beyond what he has to show to further his own revenge: “I follow him to serve my turn upon him” (I.i. 42). Iago explicitly delights in his villainy, always tipping the audience off about his plotting. In these first two scenes, Iago tells Roderigo to shout beneath Brabanzio’s window and predicts exactly what will happen when they do so. Once Brabanzio has been roused, Iago also tells Roderigo where he can meet Othello. Because of the dramatic irony Iago establishes, the audience is forced into a position of feeling intimately connected with Iago’s villainy.