Who He Is
Michael Cassio, a Florentine, lieutenant of Othello and second in command. He is the declared motive of Iago's resentment, the involuntary instrument of the slander against Desdemona, and the only one of the plan's targets who survives, in command of Cyprus.
Trajectory
In scene 2 of Act I, he is the one who arrives to Othello with the Duke's urgent summons. In scene 1 of Act II, he disembarks first in Cyprus, before Desdemona and Othello. In scene 3 of Act II, Othello puts him in command of the night watch. Knowing he is weak with drink, Cassio drinks with the Cypriots whom Iago got drunk on purpose, and is provoked by Roderigo, whom he pursues, wounding Montano. Othello strips him of the lieutenancy on the spot.
After being drunk and disgraced by a brawl armed by Iago, Cassio mourns neither the post nor the wound.
Alone with Iago after the fall, Cassio sums up his loss in three repeated words:
Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation!(II.3, l. 259)
It is the exact point at which he gives himself away, and Iago perceives it at once: whoever treats reputation as the supreme good accepts any path that promises to restore it. The advice that comes next, to ask Desdemona for her intercession, is good, and Iago uses it as a trap: it works exactly as promised, and it is precisely because it works that it destroys all three.
Alone, Iago admits to the audience what the advice actually prepares:
And out of her own goodness make the net / That shall enmesh them all.(II.3, ll. 363-364)
In scene 1 of Act III, he pays musicians to greet the general at dawn, sends the clown to ask Emilia for an interview, and asks Iago for access to Desdemona. In scene 3 of Act III, Desdemona promises to intercede for him, and when Othello arrives with Iago, Cassio hastily withdraws: it is this innocent gesture that Iago exploits. The dream that Iago attributes to Cassio and the handkerchief with which Iago says he saw Cassio wipe his beard are the proof Othello accepts. In scene 4 of Act III, he enters with Iago, presses Desdemona and gives the handkerchief to Bianca to copy the pattern.
In the theater staged in scene 1 of Act IV, Cassio talks of Bianca, and Othello, hidden, hears it as if it were about Desdemona.
Othello narrates the meaning of the scene before Iago finishes staging it:
Iago beckons me. Now he begins the story.(IV.1, l. 135)
In the conversation with Bianca, no one lies about their own subject: Cassio talks about Bianca, Bianca talks about the handkerchief, and it is Othello alone who changes the referent. Cassio is the living proof that the truth of a man, heard badly by a listener who is already convinced, is enough for catastrophe, and Iago's outright lies in the same scene (that Cassio has already confessed, ll. 30-35) only complete it.
In scene 1 of Act V, he is attacked in the street by Roderigo and wounded by Iago, from behind:
I am maimed forever! Help, ho! Murder!(V.1, l. 28)
Othello, hearing from afar, takes it as proof that Iago has killed him:
O brave Iago, honest and just, / That hast such noble sense of thy friend's wrong!(V.1, ll. 32-33)
The cry of the wounded Cassio is taken by Othello, from afar, as proof that Iago has kept his promise to kill him, and it is the last deception in a play built out of them. That the original target of Iago's resentment ends up alive and governing Cyprus is not loose irony: it shows that the plan never had an aim of its own beyond the damage.
In scene 2 of Act V, he explains to Othello how he found the handkerchief in his own room, and comments on Roderigo's letter against Iago, which Lodovico reads. Lodovico hands him the command of Cyprus.
What He Loses, and What He Thinks He Has Lost
In scene 3 of Act II, Cassio sums up his loss in three repeated words and does not mourn the post or the wound, and the honor and reputation he mourns is the same one that Iago will use against Othello.
The Character Who Never Lies and Still Condemns
In the conversation of scene 1 of Act IV, Cassio and Bianca do not lie about their own subject: Cassio talks about Bianca, and it is Othello who changes the referent. Cassio's request in scene 3 of Act III is sincere, and Desdemona's intercession is generous. The tragedy lies in the use Iago makes of these truths, and in the lies he adds to them.
The Survivor
In scene 2 of Act V, Lodovico hands the command of Cyprus to Cassio, the original target of Iago's resentment.
Relationships
- Othello: the general who names him lieutenant, strips him of the post and takes him for Desdemona's lover. In the end, he hands him the command.
- Iago: the one who makes him drunk and comforts him, and for whom Cassio is the declared motive of hatred.
- Desdemona: the one he asks for help, and whose generosity sinks him, and sinks her.
- Emilia: the maid who takes him to Desdemona in scene 1 of Act III.
- Roderigo: the provoker of scene 3 of Act II and the ambusher of scene 1 of Act V.