“I told you not to wipe your knob on the curtains, I didn’t tell you to use the mystical bloody handkerchief and then storm in here and throw a wobbly over my being an adulteress because it got lost in the laundry.”

“It is true,” said Emilia, emerging from behind a dressing screen. “I am witness to it.”

“Ah!” said Othello, somewhat surprised that there was someone else in the room. “You saw me wipe my knob on the handkerchief?”

“Oh look, Emilia,” said Desdemona. “You’ve embarrassed him. He was the one in the nun suit at that point. Such a charming, impassioned lad is my Moor. Such a love.”

“No, General,” said Emilia. “I took the handkerchief to the laundry, where your lieutenant, Iago, absconded with it after being frightened off by the fool’s giant apprentice.”

“Iago?” said the Moor, dropping his arms as if the puppeteer had cut his strings.

“Aye, good sir,” said Emilia. “Iago.”

Desdemona went to her husband and squeezed his strong shoulder to steady him in his confusion. “You’d better tend to that sneeze, love. We can’t have the high general of Venice marching about the castle with crusty dragons perching in the caves of his noble nose.”

“Even the most powerful move to my will,” said Iago, to no one in particular. “Not by force or by threat, but by wit and guile. Othello is not so much caught in my net as he throws it over himself and comes along, thinking he is the fisher. As my own evils came alive as a dark killing creature, so will I with cleverness conjure the Moor from night-faced devil to cuckolded beast eating its own tail.

“I have instructed Othello to tell his wife that he will be out late, inspecting the vessels in the harbor until well into the night. Over a flagon of wine at the alehouse, I will fill his mind with vision of misdeeds and betrayal until he is enraged like the caged tiger taunted with sharpened rod. Then will I bring him to Cassio’s house, listen at the window while the Florentine does his dread deed with Bianca, who is well known for her lustful howling. And what husband, when so enraged, can distinguish the moans of one woman when he expects it is his own? And when I see the Moor’s temper has well come to a boil, then shall I call Cassio to the door and stand aside as the infuriated Moor murders him. Cassio, although a Florentine, is a darling of Venice, and the council, led by Antonio’s young senator, will depose Othello and appoint me to head the Venetian forces. First will come power, then, with our Crusade, will come wealth.”

CHORUS: And so, mad Iago, his vision as shallow as his intellect, his strategies as weak as his character, did draw plans for his own undoing.