This scene serves as a crucial moment of calm before the tragic climax, establishing an atmosphere of impending doom through dramatic irony and foreboding. Desdemona's request to be shrouded in her wedding sheets transforms these symbols of marital joy into harbingers of death, while her compulsive singing of the willow song creates an elegiac mood that prefigures her fate. The scene's domestic intimacy—two women preparing for bed—contrasts sharply with the masculine world of jealousy and violence that dominates the play.The willow song functions as both foreshadowing and parallel narrative, with Barbary's story of abandonment and death mirroring Desdemona's own trajectory. Shakespeare uses this embedded narrative to explore themes of female vulnerability and the cyclical nature of women's suffering in a patriarchal society. The song's fragmented presentation, with Desdemona forgetting lines and mixing up verses, suggests her psychological disturbance and the way trauma disrupts coherent narrative.The extended dialogue between Desdemona and Emilia presents contrasting philosophies of marriage and morality. Emilia's pragmatic worldview—that women's infidelity might be justified by men's failures—challenges the play's moral framework and provides a feminist critique of double standards. Her argument that women 'have sense like them' asserts female equality and agency, while her final couplet suggests that...
Act IV, Scene 3
Another room in the castle
Othello
Act IV, Scene 3 — Another room in the castle
Scene Summary
In this intimate scene, Othello briefly appears with Lodovico and Desdemona, commanding his wife to dismiss her attendant Emilia and go to bed immediately, as he will return shortly. After the men depart, Emilia helps Desdemona prepare for bed, noting that Othello seems calmer than before. Desdemona reveals her foreboding by asking to be shrouded in her wedding sheets if she dies, then tells the story of her mother's maid Barbary, who died singing a willow song after being abandoned by her lover.
As Emilia helps her undress, Desdemona sings fragments of Barbary's willow song, a mournful ballad about a woman lamenting her faithless lover. The scene culminates in a philosophical discussion between the two women about marital fidelity, with Emilia arguing pragmatically that women might justifiably commit adultery if their husbands mistreat them, while Desdemona maintains her absolute belief in wifely virtue and fidelity.
Translation Style
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✨ Character Voice Translations
PREMIUM
Original Text
Enter Othello, Lodovico, Desdemona, Emilia and Attendants.
LODOVICO.
I do beseech you, sir, trouble yourself no further.
OTHELLO.
O, pardon me; ’twill do me good to walk.
LODOVICO.
Madam, good night. I humbly thank your ladyship.
DESDEMONA.
Your honour is most welcome.
OTHELLO.
Will you walk, sir?—
O, Desdemona,—
DESDEMONA.
My lord?
OTHELLO.
Get you to bed on th’ instant, I will be return’d forthwith. Dismiss
your attendant there. Look ’t be done.
DESDEMONA.
I will, my lord.
[_Exeunt Othello, Lodovico and Attendants._]
EMILIA.
How goes it now? He looks gentler than he did.
DESDEMONA.
He says he will return incontinent,
He hath commanded me to go to bed,
And bade me to dismiss you.
EMILIA.
Dismiss me?
DESDEMONA.
It was his bidding. Therefore, good Emilia,
Give me my nightly wearing, and adieu.
We must not now displease him.
EMILIA.
I would you had never seen him!
DESDEMONA.
So would not I. My love doth so approve him,
That even his stubbornness, his checks, his frowns,—
Prithee, unpin me,—have grace and favour in them.
EMILIA.
I have laid those sheets you bade me on the bed.
DESDEMONA.
All’s one. Good faith, how foolish are our minds!
If I do die before thee, prithee, shroud me
In one of those same sheets.
EMILIA.
Come, come, you talk.
DESDEMONA.
My mother had a maid call’d Barbary,
She was in love, and he she lov’d prov’d mad
And did forsake her. She had a song of “willow”,
An old thing ’twas, but it express’d her fortune,
And she died singing it. That song tonight
Will not go from my mind. I have much to do
But to go hang my head all at one side
And sing it like poor Barbary. Prithee dispatch.
EMILIA.
Shall I go fetch your night-gown?
DESDEMONA.
No, unpin me here.
This Lodovico is a proper man.
EMILIA.
A very handsome man.
DESDEMONA.
He speaks well.
EMILIA.
I know a lady in Venice would have walked barefoot to Palestine for a
touch of his nether lip.
DESDEMONA.
[_Singing._]
_The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,
Sing all a green willow.
Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,
Sing willow, willow, willow.
The fresh streams ran by her, and murmur’d her moans,
Sing willow, willow, willow;
Her salt tears fell from her, and soften’d the stones;—_
Lay by these:—
[_Sings._]
_Sing willow, willow, willow._
Prithee hie thee. He’ll come anon.
[_Sings._]
_Sing all a green willow must be my garland.
Let nobody blame him, his scorn I approve,—_
Nay, that’s not next. Hark! who is’t that knocks?
EMILIA.
It’s the wind.
DESDEMONA.
[_Sings._]
_I call’d my love false love; but what said he then?
Sing willow, willow, willow:
If I court mo women, you’ll couch with mo men._
So get thee gone; good night. Mine eyes do itch;
Doth that bode weeping?
EMILIA.
’Tis neither here nor there.
DESDEMONA.
I have heard it said so. O, these men, these men!
Dost thou in conscience think,—tell me, Emilia,—
That there be women do abuse their husbands
In such gross kind?
EMILIA.
There be some such, no question.
DESDEMONA.
Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?
EMILIA.
Why, would not you?
DESDEMONA.
No, by this heavenly light!
EMILIA.
Nor I neither by this heavenly light,
I might do’t as well i’ the dark.
DESDEMONA.
Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?
EMILIA.
The world’s a huge thing. It is a great price
For a small vice.
DESDEMONA.
In troth, I think thou wouldst not.
EMILIA.
In troth, I think I should, and undo’t when I had done. Marry, I would
not do such a thing for a joint-ring, nor for measures of lawn, nor for
gowns, petticoats, nor caps, nor any petty exhibition; but, for the
whole world—why, who would not make her husband a cuckold to make him a
monarch? I should venture purgatory for ’t.
DESDEMONA.
Beshrew me, if I would do such a wrong for the whole world.
EMILIA.
Why, the wrong is but a wrong i’ the world; and having the world for
your labour, ’tis a wrong in your own world, and you might quickly make
it right.
DESDEMONA.
I do not think there is any such woman.
EMILIA.
Yes, a dozen; and as many to the vantage as would store the world they
played for.
But I do think it is their husbands’ faults
If wives do fall: say that they slack their duties,
And pour our treasures into foreign laps;
Or else break out in peevish jealousies,
Throwing restraint upon us. Or say they strike us,
Or scant our former having in despite.
Why, we have galls; and though we have some grace,
Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know
Their wives have sense like them: they see, and smell
And have their palates both for sweet and sour,
As husbands have. What is it that they do
When they change us for others? Is it sport?
I think it is. And doth affection breed it?
I think it doth. Is’t frailty that thus errs?
It is so too. And have not we affections,
Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?
Then let them use us well: else let them know,
The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.
DESDEMONA.
Good night, good night. Heaven me such usage send,
Not to pick bad from bad, but by bad mend!
[_Exeunt._]
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