Why, then, in the Iago of
the play do we find no sign of these passions or of anything approaching
to them? Why, if Shakespeare meant that Iago was impelled by them, does
he suppress the signs of them? Surely not from want of ability to
display them. The poet who painted Macbeth and Shylock understood his
business. Who ever doubted Macbeth's ambition or Shylock's hate? And
what resemblance is there between these passions and any feeling that we
can trace in Iago? The resemblance between a volcano in eruption and a
flameless fire of coke; the resemblance between a consuming desire to
hack and hew your enemy's flesh, and the resentful wish, only too
familiar in common life, to inflict pain in return for a slight.
Passion, in Shakespeare's plays, is perfectly easy to recognise. What
vestige of it, of passion unsatisfied or of passion gratified, is
visible in Iago? None: that is the very horror of him. He has _less_
passion than an ordinary man, and yet he does these frightful things.
The only ground for attributing to him, I do not say a passionate
hatred, but anything deserving the name of hatred at all, is his own
statement, 'I hate Othello'; and we know what his statements are worth.
But the popular view, beside attributing to Iago what he does not show,
ignores what he does show.
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