Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1881-07-23
The Real Iag0.
IY RICHARD GRANT WHITE.

~ NithAhD WHILE
iago was young man. only twenty-eioht
years old,-the youngest of all the men VINO
figure iii the tragedy. excepting possibly. Rod
ergo lie says of himself that he has looked
upon the world for four times seven wears.
Brave, and good soldier. he was also of that
order OF ability which Lifts man speedily above
his fellows. His manners and his guise were of
dashing military sort; and his manner had
corresponding bluntness, tempered at times
by tact to a warm-hea,ted effusiveness.
by the very tact which prompted the
bluntness. For that, although not exactly as
sumed, was consciously adopted Nevertheless,
he had little malice in his composition; aud un-
less for some good reason he would rather serve
than injure those around him. He made himself
liked by ALL and was regarded not only as a
man of great ability in his profession and of
sagacty i'm affairs, but as a warm-hearted:
.'Whole-souied" man and the very prince of good
fellows. Being all this, and being genial and
sympathetic, he was eminently popular. He
was, moreover, a heartiess. selfish. cold-booded.
unpr1ncipied and utterly INSCRIPTIONS
scoundrel.
1t was because he was this manner of man
that he was able to work that woful ruin i'm
which the love Of Otllello and Desdemona ends
ruin which in its extremity, however he did
not plan, and did not at first desire In fact he
had no Inclination to do harm to any one: he
would not have gone ont of his way to tread
upon worm, II 1T had kept out Of his way. and
been no barrier to his success in life
1t is needless to say that no such Iaso has been
seen upon the stage for the last two hundred
years; there is no memory or record of him. The
elder Booths lagO was an admirable perform-
ance, almost wonderful i'm its force and keeping
saw 1t In my bOyh0od Just as this great actor
was staggering OF the stage; and nothing equal
to it have 1 ever seen except Rachers per
1ornances. But it was the simple strong rep
resentation OF hardened, crafty villain. mon
ster OF hate and of cruelty. The climax of the
whole performance was in the Parthian look
which lago, as he was borne off wounded and
In bonds. gave Otheilo.-a Gorgon stare i'm
which hate seemed both petrified and petrify-
ing. 1t was frightful. Edwin Booths conceD-
tion OF the character, although not SO clear and
strong. Is finer. more delicate and more COM
pick. His lago is not externally mere hard
ened villain, but super-subtle Venetian. who
works out his tiendish plans with dexterous
hghtness of touch and smooth sinuOsity of move
ment that suggest the transmigration OF a SER
pent into human form. And in his visage. and
above all in his eye, burn the venom Of his soul.
which makes his face at times look snake-like
as we Say,-errOneGuSy, however: for the ewes
of a snake do not burn and flash: on the con-
trary, they have their hideous look because
of dull and stony malignancy of express
sion. But even Edwin Booths lago, although
much finer and more nearly consistent with it.
self and with the facts of the tragedy than any
other that is known to the annals of the stage is
not the IagO that Shakespeare drew. and whose
lineaments, moral and physical, have just been
set before the reader The chief cause of the
general failure to present this character truly is
the disposition and habit of the stage-a dispo-
sitiOn and habit not unknown to real
Hfe-to divide men into classes, and
to regard them individually as the EN-
Dodlment of some one passion. or motive or
type of character. Iago is a crafty hypocrite;
and therefore the stage has sought to set before
us his hypocrisy and his craft in such a manner
that they in combination are IagO. The best
iagO of the modern stage is hypocrisy and craft
embodied, and he is nothing else Now the
truth is that the embodiment of such simple
combination Of moral baseness and mental sub
tlety was not in Shakespeares mind. and is a
quite impossible agent and element of the con-
fusion and disaster of the tragedy-Auyust At
ldstic