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.
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© 1992 Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Bradley, A.C. (1992). Othello on Desdemona’s Last Words. In: Shakespearean Tragedy. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22059-5_25
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-22059-5_25
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
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