Othello on Desdemona’s Last Words

Abstract

I have said that the last scene of Othello, though terribly painful, contains almost nothing to diminish the admiration and love which heighten our pity for the hero (p. 169). I said ‘almost’ in view of the following passage (v. ii. 123 ff.):

Emil. O, who hath done this deed?

Des. Nobody; I myself. Farewell:

Commend me to my kind lord: O, farewell! [Dies.

Oth. Why, how should she be murder’d?¹

Emil. Alas, who knows?

Oth. You heard her say herself, it was not I.

Emil. She said so: I must needs report the truth.

Oth. She’s, like a liar, gone to burning hell:

’Twas I that kill’d her.

Emil. O, the more angel she,

And you the blacker devil!

Oth. She turn’d to folly, and she was a whore.