insult in their least looked-for and most galling shapes, searching
every thread and fibre of his heart, and finding out the last remaining
image of respect or attachment in the bottom of his breast, only to
torture and kill it! In like manner, the "So I am" of Cordelia gushes
from her heart like a torrent of tears, relieving it of a weight of love
and of supposed ingratitude, which had pressed upon it for years. What a
fine return of the passion upon itself is that in Othello--with what a
mingled agony of regret and despair he clings to the last traces of
departed happiness--when he exclaims,

------"Oh now, for ever
Farewel the tranquil mind. Farewel content;
Farewel the plumed troops and the big war,
That make ambition virtue! Oh farewel!
Farewel the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, th' ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war:
And O you mortal engines, whose rude throats
Th' immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit,
Farewel! Othello's occupation's gone!"

How his passion lashes itself up and swells and rages like a tide in
its sounding course, when in answer to the doubts expressed of his
returning love, he says,

"Never, Iago. Like to the Pontic sea,
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on
To the Propontic and the Hellespont: