O! O! 'tis foul!
How closely here animate and inanimate Nature are woven together, the
reasoning with the unreasoning. The poet makes the storm, rain,
thunder, and lightning live, and at the same time endues his human
figures with a strength of feeling and passion which gives them
kinship to the elements. In _Othello_, too, there _is_ uproar in
Nature:
Do but stand upon the foaming shore,
The chidden billow seems to pelt the clouds....
I never did like molestation view
On the enchafed flood.
but even the unruly elements spare Desdemona:
Tempests themselves, high seas and howling winds,
The gather'd rocks and congregated sands.
Traitors ensteep'd to clog the guiltless keel--
As having sense of beauty, do omit
Their mortal natures, letting go safely by
The divine Desdemona.
Cassio lays stress upon 'the great contention of the sea and skies';
but when Othello meets Desdemona, he cries:
O my soul's joy!
If after every tempest come such calms,
May the winds blow till they have wakened death!
And let the labouring bark climb hills of seas
Olympus-high, and duck again as low
As hell's from heaven. If it were now to die,
'Twere now to be most happy.
Iago calls the elements to witness his truthfulness:
Witness, you ever-burning lights above,
You elements that clip us round about,
Witness, that here Iago doth give up
The execution of his wit, hands, heart,
To wrong'd Othello's service.
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