Shakespeare from the Margins: Language, Culture, Context

*When Cassio left my wife. What didst not like? And when I told thee he was of my counsel In my whole course of wooing, thou criedst, “Indeed!” And didst contract and purse thy brow together, As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain Some horrible conceit. If thou dost love me, Show me thy thought. (III.iii. 106-16)* These powerful lines-forging their punning links between monster and show, hideous and hid-are the ones that lead first to Othello’s suspicion of “close dilations, working from the heart” (123) and then to hunger for information from one he assumes “sees and knows more, much more, than he unfolds” (243). Beyond their immediate resonance in the temptation scene, they also forge links (through “contract and purse,” “shut up,” and “show”) with the opening of the play or theatrical show, which begins with enigmatic reference to something not to be told (“Tush, never tell me!”) and to a purse whose mouth can be opened or shut (1.1.1-3).