The Shakespeare Guide to Italy by Richard Paul Roe

Author:Richard Paul Roe
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-01-14T05:00:00+00:00

Portrait of a Venetian Senator wearing his senatorial black gown. 16th century.

When Brabantio opens the window shutters above, he is probably standing there in his night clothes, because Iago brazenly hollers at him: “Zounds, sir, you’re robbed, for shame put on your gown!” This insubordinate rascal, out on a public street, has shouted out this impudence so that anyone in the area can hear it, making it a double insult to Brabantio’s dignity.

With regard to this “gown” of Brabantio’s, Iago is referring not to a dressing gown or a bathrobe, but to Brabantio’s Senatorial gown, the specific garb that all Senators in Venice were required to wear in public. The Senatorial gown, a distinctive long black robe—lined with linen in summer and ermine in winter—was worn by Senators on the streets of Venice, causing people to be pointedly and routinely aware of their government’s presence, day in and day out, as each of the numerous Senators went about his affairs in the city, donned in his gown of office. This practice was entirely foreign to England and the rest of Europe. It is interesting to ponder how the author could compose such a precise line in his play about a Venetian Senator’s gown unless he’d personally seen, and noted, its particularity.

Iago next proceeds to shout vulgar remarks about Desdemona equally demeaning to her father, saying such things as “You’ll have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse.” And “Your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.” To these broadcasts, Roderigo joins in with an embellishment of his own, saying Desdemona has not only gone, but that she was:

At this odd-even and dull watch of the night,

Transported with no worse nor better guard

But with a knave of common hire, a gondolier …

Confident that Brabantio will insist on finding Desdemona immediately, Iago slips away, but as he does, he instructs Roderigo to “Lead to the Sagittary the raised search …” By this brief instruction, he has effectively told Roderigo exactly where Othello and Desdemona are to be found. Brabantio then arrives downstairs with servants and torches, ready, as expected, to begin the hunt for his daughter.

When Brabantio joins Roderigo down on the street, their anxious conversation includes the following:

Brabantio: Do you know

Where we may apprehend her with the Moor?

Roderigo: I think I can discover him, if you please

To get good guard, and go along with me.

Brabantio: Pray you lead on. At every house I’ll call,

I may command at most: get weapons, ho!

And raise some special officers of night.1

On, good Roderigo, I’ll deserve your pains. (Emphasis mine)

Being admonished that he must “get good guard,” Brabantio turns to his servants and orders them to “get weapons.” Those weapons would have to be miscellaneous household items, since the bearing of arms in Venice was restricted to authorized officials in uniform. He also instructs them to “raise some special officers of night.”

That simple direction Iago gave to Roderigo to “Lead to the Sagittary the raised search” is something Roderigo will be able to carry out promptly; he knows the city well.

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