distressed for her mistress, she could not have failed to think of the handkerchief, and would, I believe, undoubtedly have told the truth about it. But, in fact, she never thought of it, although she guessed that Othello was being deceived by some scoundrel. Even after Desdemona’s death, nay, even when she knew that lago had brought it about, she still did not remember the handkerchief; and when Othello at last mentions, as a proof of his wife’s guilt, that he had seen the handkerchief in Cassio’s hand, the truth falls on Emilia like a thunder-bolt. ‘O God!’ she bursts out, ‘O heavenly God!’[1] Her stupidity in this matter is gross, but it is stupidity and nothing worse.
But along with it goes a certain coarseness of nature. The contrast between Emilia and Desdemona in their conversation about the infidelity of wives (IV. iii.) is too famous to need a word,—unless it be a word of warning against critics who take her light talk too seriously. But the contrast in the preceding scene is hardly less remarkable. Othello, affecting to treat Emilia as the keeper of a brothel, sends her away, bidding her shut the door behind her; and then he proceeds to torture himself as well as Desdemona by accusations of adultery. But, as a critic has pointed out, Emilia listens at the door, for we find, as soon as Othello is gone and Iago has been summoned, that she knows what Othello has said to Desdemona. And what could better illustrate those defects of hers which make one wince, than her repeating again and again in Desdemona’s presence the word Desdemona could not repeat; than her talking before Desdemona of Iago’s suspicions regarding Othello and herself; than her speaking to Desdemona of husbands who strike their wives; than
- ↑ So the Quarto, and certainly rightly, though modern editors reprint the feeble alteration of the Folio, due to fear of the Censor, ‘O heaven! O heavenly Powers!’
