Soft you, a word or two before you go.
I have done the state some service, and they know’t.
No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am. Nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely, but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drops tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their med’cinable gum. Set you down this.
And say besides that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turbaned Turk
Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,
I took by th’ throat the circumcised dog
And smote him–thus. [He stabs himself.](5.2.397-417)
While saying this words, Othello is stabbing himself. How intense is this speech when you know that the person is saying his last words while killing himself. He tries to summarize his live in a few words, but not as a biography where we can see all kind of events through someone’s life. This farewell speech it is done for leave a good reference about himself. He tries to gain the respect and the recognition that he thinks he deserves.
He starts making a reference to his serving life. We can notice that he was not as important and relevant as he would like to, when he said “I have done the state some service, and they know’t.” He fight and serve the city while he did not get any recognition from that because they did not even realize about his effort.
Then he continues leaving some remarkable words about his love with Desdemona. He remains clean by saying “Of one that loved not wisely, but too well;Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought, Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand, Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away”. Interesting words, we can see that even though Othello just killed his love, Desdemona, he only wants to leave a good reference of him saying that he love her but not wisely, meaning that he was not wise enough to know that Desdemona did not cheat on him.
Because he does not want to end up as the jealous person of the story, he said, “of one not easily jealous”, meaning that if he get jealous it has to be a big deal where everyone easily gets jealous and not only himself. By saying this he tries to get rid of the guiltiness and putting himself as a normal person that everyone in this case would have killed Desdemona.
Also he realize that he had lost his love, his most precious thing in his life, adding the comparison Desdemona and the pearl by saying “Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away”
He ends up with his life talking about how he killed a non truly,fair venetian “a malignant and a turbaned Turk’ for the party and the glory of Venetia. To be remembered in people’s mind as a courage person to be respected and admired.
Intense reproduction of Othello’s Last Speech: