O
heaven! O heavenly powers!
-Emilia
Othello Act
V, scene ii Line 218
All right then, just two days ago we had the ‘The
handkerchief!’ line from Act III, scene iv of Othello. Now today we’ve zipped
right to the very end of the play. We’re in the last scene, and there are just
154 lines left in the play.
Everything’s hitting the fan here as we’re way past asking
about a hanky. Othello has already suffocated his wife Desdemona in their
bedroom, and now Iago’s wife Emilia, along with Iago, Gratiano, and Montano are
there, and Othello is explaining that his wife was unfaithful with Michael
Cassio and that’s why he killed her. When he finishes his statement with the
part about Cassio having the handkerchief Emilia can’t control herself any
longer. That’s when she lets loose with today’s Random line crying O heaven! O heavenly powers! A few lines
later she explains that she stole the hanky and gave it to Iago, not realizing
what her rat of a husband was going to do with it. And if things weren’t
unraveling before, well that really does it.
So you’ve got to wonder if that’s the first thing Will came
up with for Emilia’s line. Consider that it’s an exclamation about the terrible
doings of Iago, and she uses the word ‘heaven’ twice when in fact what’s taking
place here is about as far away from heavenly as it can be. I’m thinking that Will
went through a few ideas before coming up with this one.
“Okay, let’s see, he’s just killed his wife,
and he’s about to kill himself. And that rat Iago’s wife has just realized that
she helped the rat by stealing the hanky. So what should I have her say? Hmmm.
Have her scream? No, that can’t be right. Too predictable. There’s got to be
something better than that. ‘Rat, you dirty rat!’ No, no, that’s not right
either. Something else, there’s got to be something else. I’ve got it!
‘Heavens!’ Yes, ‘heavens!.’ Everything’s going straight to hell in a
handbasket, so what should she say? ‘Heavens!’ Of course! Oh that’s hysterical!”
That old Will had himself one serious sense of humor.
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