Mojo, The Bard, & Me

It yet hath felt no age nor known no sorrow.

 

Desdemona

 

Othello                                                 Act III, scene iv                  Line 37

This is part of an exchange that’s all about hands, and specifically Desdemona’s hand.  Just to give you a little more context, at the end of the previous scene Iago has managed to completely convince Othello that Desdemona’s having an affair with Michael Cassio, and Othello has decided that he’s going to be killing Desdemona. Now in this scene he greets Desdemona and right after that says ‘Give me your hand.  This hand is moist, my lady.’ To which Desdemona replies with today’s Totally Random line, ‘It yet hath felt no age nor known no sorrow.’ Well just wait, the sorrow is coming fast. But before that Othello goes on at length about the hand in reply to Desdemona’s reply.

This argues fruitfulness and liberal heart;

Hot, hot, and moist. This hand of yours requires

A sequester from liberty: fasting and prayer,

Much castigation(self discipline, self correction, self denial), exercise devout,

For here’s a young and sweating devil here

That commonly rebels. ‘Tis a good hand,

A frank one.

And Desdemona replies:

You may, indeed, say so;

 For ‘twas that hand that gave away my heart.

And Othello answers: 

A liberal hand. The hearts of old gave hands;

But our new heraldry is hands, not hearts.

And very shortly after this the scene devolves quickly into the ‘Thehandkerchief!’ issue.  In the meantime, though, it's all about hands. Spend some time with the hand back and forth and see what you can come up with. Perhaps we'll follow up on it tomorrow.

Well this hand is not very moist; it's pretty dried out. And it's felt some age, and known a bit of sorrow, but lots of happiness as well.