Iago

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

Kemper wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/37782>:

<< I got the distinct impression that Iago had a thing for Othello.
The following passage's general interpretation is that Iago thinks
Othello has slept with his (Iago's) wife, Emilia:
Iago: '... I hate the Moor:
And it is thought abroad, that 'twixt my sheets
He has done my office: '(snip)

Instead of 'office' I heard 'orifice'. I know. It's a stretch. But
Shakespeare is a tricky willie when it comes to language. >>

To me, it seems that more important to know the usage of the word
'orifice' in that turn of 16th to 17th century era. Did any people
besides anatomists use the term 'bodily orifices', and was it well
enough known to the common theater-goers that hearing the word
'orifice' would have rung that bell for them? Not to mention the usage
of the word 'done'.

<http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=orifice> says:
<< 1541, from M.Fr. orifice "the opening of a wound" (14c.), from L.
orificium "an opening," lit. "mouth-making," from os (gen. oris)
"mouth" + facere "make" >> 

Lee Storm replied to Kemper in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/37783>:

<< Phrases like loving someone well is more like a brotherly love,
IMO, or a truly deep friendship... (snip) wondering why people always
take the worst line of interpretation, IMHO.) >>

Lee, why is Kemper's suggestion that << Poor Iago thought himself a
villain, but he was just a victim of suppressed sexuality. Emilia was
a beard! >> a *worse* line of interpretation than the one Carol quoted
in the post I reference next, "a motiveless malignancy"?

Carol wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/37792>: 

<< he refers to Othello as "the old black ram" in connection with
Othello's beautiful young wife, Desdemona, suggesting that Desdemona
will soon grow tired of her and look for someone younger. Iago is
married, and he seems sexually attracted to Desdemona rather than
Othello >>

It is difficult for me to understand motiveless evil. I've never
understood why Efnysien threw his nephew Gwern into the fire. I
haven't read Othello since high school and I don't remember it, so I
don't know what I think Shakespeare meant for Iago. 

Just in general, possible motives for conspiring against a person
include feeling that one has been insulted by that person and racial
prejudice, as you mentioned, but also a whole zoo of love-gone-wrong
scenarios: the person I love cheated on me, the person I love broke up
with me, the person I love rejected me... 

So if Mr A murdered Mr and Mrs B, it could be that Mr A was infatuated
with Mrs B, thus hated her for rejecting him and hated Mr B for having
her, and it also could be that Mr A was infatuated with Mr B and felt
the same hatred for the inamorato who had rejected him and the person
preferred by the inamorato.

It gets more complicated if self-directed homophobia is thrown into
the mix. Mr A doesn't want to admit to himself that he fancies Mr B,
so he hates Mr B for making him feel feelings he doesn't want to feel,
but he doesn't even want to admit to himself why he hates Mr B so he
makes up some other reason ... in our culture, a man might hate a
woman because he's attracted to her, but he wouldn't so need to
conceal the reason from himself unless  he were kind of obsessive
about celibacy.