A haggard is an untamed hawk; one that is caught after it is adult so that any taming is superficial and so that there always remains a tendency to revert to the wild. Jesses are small leather straps around the hawk's leg which are usually supplied with a ring that can be attached to the glove on the hawker's hand. To whistle her off would be to let her go.
Actually, though, Othello is already convinced of Desdemona's infidelity. When she comes in to call him gaily to dinner, she sees something is wrong and asks if anything ails him. He answers, ominously:
—Act III, scene iii, line 283
He touches his forehead, and to the Elizabethan audience, any reference to the forehead means the horns that sprout there and signify cuckoldry.
The innocent Desdemona offers him her handkerchief to bind his head but he pushes it roughly away and it falls to the ground unnoticed by her.
The handkerchief is a very special one, a gift to Desdemona from Othello. Now it lies there and Emilia picks it up. Her husband, Iago, had often asked her to steal it for him (we are not told why) and now she can give it to him.
Iago is elated on receiving it. He sees how he can use it in his plan. When Othello enters, Iago muses with grim satisfaction on the perturbed appearance of the general. He says to himself, concerning Othello:
—Act III, scene iii, lines 327-30
There has always been a use for the equivalent of tranquilizers, for there have always been tensions. Before the days of modern chemistry, tranquil-izing herbs were found in nature, and of these the chief was a certain species of poppy which was originally grown along the shores of the eastern Mediterranean for the sake of its edible seeds.
Undoubtedly, other parts of the plant were nibbled on and it must have been noticed that nibbling the fruit eased small pains and discomforts, reduced tension, and encouraged sleep. It was eventually discovered that one could express juice from the fruit and use that as a sedative. The Greek word opion is a diminutive form of the word for juice, and in Latin that becomes opium.
One wonders if the famous lotus-eaters in the Odyssey, who ate of the lotus and wished nothing more than to dream away their lives in tranquil content, were not really poppy-eaters.
There is a less exaggerated mention in the Odyssey of a tranquilizing drug. When Helen and Menelaus are hosts to Telemachus (the son of Ulysses) in Sparta, they serve wine to which Helen adds a drug "that banishes all care, sorrow, and ill humor." A little opium might do that too. In Greek, the name of the drug Helen uses is nepenthes, meaning "no sorrow."
As for mandragora, that is an older form of mandrake (see page I-336).
Othello's state of mind has brought Iago himself to danger, for in his present frenzy, he demands proof or he will have Iago's life. Without flinching, Iago makes up the necessary lie. He says he once shared a bed with Cassio, who talked in his sleep and revealed his affair with Desdemona. He then adds the climactic bit when he says that the handkerchief Othello gave Desdemona is now in the possession of Cassio.
That does it. Othello is reduced to such a pitch of mad fury that he cries for blood. Coolly, Iago urges Othello to be patient and his intentness on revenge may vanish. But Othello says:
—Act III, scene iii, lines 450-57
The "Pontic Sea" is the Black Sea, which is connected to the Mediterranean through narrow straits. At its southwest corner is the Bosporus, about twenty miles long and no more than half a mile wide at its narrowest. It runs just about north and south and at its southern end widens out into a small body of water which we call the Sea of Marmara. (The ancient Greeks called it the "Propontis," meaning "before the Pontus," since a Greek traveler leaving the Aegean Sea must travel through the Propontis before getting to the Pontus.)
The Propontis narrows to a second strait, the Dardanelles, or, to the Greeks, the Hellespont (see page I-466).
The Mediterranean Sea, into which the Hellespont opens, is a warm sea. The sun beats down upon it and sometimes the hot, dry winds blow northward out of the Sahara Desert. Much water is lost by evaporation and only a small part of it is replaced by river water. Only one major river flows into the Mediterranean and that is the Nile; and after its long trip through desert regions not as much water is delivered into the Mediterranean by the Nile as one might suppose from the length of the river. The other rivers that flow into the Mediterranean-the Ebro, Rhone, Po, Tiber -don't count for much, despite their historic associations.
The result is that if the Mediterranean were existing in isolation it would gradually dry and shrink to a smaller size than it is.
It is quite otherwise with the Black Sea, which is distinctly cooler than the Mediterranean and free of the Saharan winds. There is less evaporation, to begin with. This smaller amount of evaporation is more than made up for by the giant rivers that flow into it-the Danube, Dniester, Bug, Dnieper, and Don.
If the Black Sea existed in isolation, it would overflow.
The result is that the waters of the Black Sea pass constantly through the straits and pour ceaselessly into the Mediterranean without ever any ebb to this steady flow, and it is to this that Othello refers. (Water is also constantly pouring into the Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean through the Strait of Gibraltar.)
Othello intends death now, as soon as the case is proved. He orders Iago to arrange the assassination of Cassio. Iago now has everything he wants. Cassio has been amply paid back for daring to move over his head-to the death. Othello has been destroyed; the noble general he once was he can never be again.
There remains Desdemona. She has not offended Iago. He seems to have a momentary qualm about her. When Othello orders him to kill Cassio, Iago says:
—Act III, scene iii, lines 471-72
Yet the immediate effect of this is to drive Othello further into his maddened rage, so that he cries out:
—Act III, scene iii, lines 472-75
We might even imagine that Iago's soft request for mercy was designed to provoke this anger; that without any personal hatred for Desdemona at all, he nevertheless enjoyed pushing the buttons.
Desdemona has by now realized she has lost her handkerchief and is very disturbed. Othello (testing whether she has given it to Cassio, as Iago said) asks for it, and the nervous Desdemona, forced to admit she doesn't have it on her person, is afraid to say she has lost it. Othello harshly warns her that the handkerchief is important; it has magic properties and is a love charm: