"That Which Heaven Hath Forbid the Ottomites":
The Turks in Shakespeare's Othello
- "Are we turned Turks, and to ourselves do that
Which Heaven hath forbid the Ottomites?" (II.iii.169-70)
Thus cries the distraught Othello, in Shakespeare's play of the same
name, on observing dissension in his own ranks. His turn of phrase brings
again to mind the Turks, those shadowy enemies always lurking in the
background but never seen. Though invisible in the drama, the Turks play
a significant part in Othello: references to the Turks and
their Islamic/infidel culture illustrate the progress and illuminate the
themes of the tragedy.
The Ottoman Empire was the closest Islamic state to Shakespeare's Europe
-- and the most dangerous. The fall of Constantinople in 1453 heralded the
utter destruction of the old Byzantine Empire and the rise of the new
regime of the Ottoman Turks. Straddling Asia Minor and the Hellespont,
the new government cut off Mediterranean access to the Black Sea and
deprived Europe of its land route to India. (The search for a new route
led Columbus to his discovery of the New World). The Ottomans steadily
marched up the Balkan peninsula, overcoming Serbia in 1459, Bosnia in 14
63, Hungary in 1541. The Turks beseiged Vienna in 1529, in 1568 they
forced the Hapsburg monarchs to pay an annual tribute, and they fought
again with Austria in Shakespeare's own day, from 1593-1606.
Italy and the Ottomans faced each other across the Adriatic, with
Venice right at the crux. In 1522, the capitulation on Rhodes of the
Knights of the Order of St. John (who later became the Knights of Malta)
allowed a Turkish control over all Genoan and Venetian trade that was not
broken until the Ottoman defeat in the naval battle of Lepanto in 1571.
Even then, in the same year the Turks took Cyprus, another gateway to the
markets of the Levant and the Arabic trade routes to Asia.
In 1604, when Othello's first recorded performance took
place, the Ottoman realm stretched from Arabia to Egypt to Mesopotamia
(modern Iraq) to the Crimea to Hungary. The Turks and their vassal states
surrounded the Black Sea, and their vassal states covered the south coast
of the Mediterranean -- Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli (modern Libya). Only the
defeat dealt at Lepanto had kept the Turks from dominating the Mediterranean,
and even so, their armies were formidable. They imported 20,000 Russian
and African slaves annually for the army. Their "toll of boys"
required that every fifth Christian boy be surrendered to the elite
"janissaries," a corps of Christian children brought up as
slaves to become fanatical Moslem warriors. Any production of Othello
must be aware that the Turks were the terror of Europe.
Shakespeare makes no mention of the Turks until I.iii, when the Duke,
Senators, and Officers of Venice debate how to respond to rumors of a
Turkish invasion. The Turks are shadowy -- all reports differ on how many
ships they have mustered, whether "a hundred and seven galleys", "a
hundred forty", or "two hundred" (I.iii.3-4). And the enemy fleet
practices deception, trying to convince the Senate their object of
conquest is Rhodes, not Cyprus.
"Honest Iago" has been doing much the same, though on a
smaller scale, in the two preceding scenes. In I.i, Iago tricks Roderigo
into stirring up Senator Brabantio over his daughters' disappearance, then
disappears to rejoin the Moor. But Iago's efforts are just trouble-making
diversions, for, as he himself says, "I do know the State, / However
this may gall him [Othello] with some check, / Cannot with safety cast
him; for he's embarked... [and] Another of his fathom they have none / To
lead their business." (I.i.144-6,149-50) In the next scene (I.ii),
Iago begins by describing to Othello his outrage against Roderigo and
Brabantio for the "scurvy and provoking terms" (I.ii.7) which
Iago himself began (the infamous "black ram" image, etc.)! He
even goes so far as to draw his sword on Roderigo, and only Othello's
calming speech prevents a fight. Iago continues to conceal his goals in
I.iii, when he convinces Roderigo to "put money in his purse"
for Iago's proxy wooing of Desdemona, when Iago really wants the wealth
for himself.
Act II opens on Cyprus, an island just south of Asia Minor, the
Ottoman center of power. Again, Shakespeare never shows us the Turks, but
leaves them as a menacing power offstage: a storm destroys much of the
Turkish fleet but leaves the Venetians unscathed. But no sooner are the
real Turks defeated than Iago seems to take their place. "Nay, it is
true, or else I am a Turk: / You rise to play, and go to bed to work,"
(II.i.113-4) maintains Iago. At least one woman in the play is
chaste -- Desdemona -- as Iago well knows. Already Othello's ancient has
identified himself with the forces of Satan or the infidels: his "I
am not what I am" (I.i.62) is a reversal of God's self-description in
Genesis. And so Iago sets himself to the devil's work, or the Turks', both
being allied in the Christian European world-view.
Act II also displays Iago's deep-seated misogyny, in the verses he
devises for Desdemona. Iago is one of the most misogynistic of all
Shakespeare's villains, a condition that seems to echo the often harsh
provisions for women under strictly interpreted Islamic law (observe Iran
today). One of Iago's reasons for his hatred of Othello is that "it
is thought abroad that 'twixt my sheets / H'as done my office" (I.iii.378-9).
"I do suspect the lusty Moor / Hath leaped into my seat; ...And
nothing can or shall content my soul / Till I am evened with him, wife for
wife" (II.i.295-6, 298-9) seems, perhaps, another equivalent to the
"eye for an eye" character of Islamic law.
Iago continues his machinations, deceiving character after character
as steadily as the Ottomans devoured the Balkan states. Soon his efforts
yield violence, as Cassio and Montano engage in a drunken brawl. The
destruction the Ottomans could not wreak Iago himself brings about, and
Othello's angered entrance with "Are we turned Turks, and to
ourselves do that / Which Heaven hath forbid the Ottomites?" (II.iii.169-70)
seems strangely appropriate in light of Iago's assumed Turkishness.
Othello, too, becomes infused with something of the Turkish ferocity
and destructiveness. Iago's slanderous poisons soon take their effect,
and the Moor rages over his wife's imagined infidelities. At the height
of his indignation, Othello even uses imagery of the Black Sea, a body of
water completely surrounded by Ottoman possessions: "Like to the
Pontic Sea, / Whose icy current and compulsive course / Nev'r keeps
retiring ebb, but keeps due on / To the Propontic and the Hellespont, /
Even so my bloody thoughts." (III.iii.450-454)
Iago is successful in his machinations, and Othello gives in
completely to his veiled suggestions of vengeance -- the Moor has become a
janissary of jealousy. Othello recognizes this servitude in some ways,
such as his berating of himself as "O cursed, cursed slave!" (V.ii.274)
after discovering Iago's duplicity. And, recognizing the Turk in himself,
Othello feels he must punish him. The last mention of Turks in the play
is in Othello's death-speech: "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." Othello has ruined himself through his jealousy, and damaged
Venice as well through the chaos in his military command. But he dies
acknowledging he has "turned Turk," and attempting to destroy
that part of himself.
As Othello's condition worsens, Desdemona's care for him increases.
She instructs Emilia to "lay on my bed my wedding sheets" (IV.ii.104)
in an attempt to recapture their earlier happiness. Othello is a Moor,
one of the North Africans remaining in Spain after the overthrow of the
Islamic governments there (note he possesses "a sword of Spain, the
ice-brook's temper" (V.ii.250)). As such he might maintain one of
the Muslim customs: the sheet from the wedding night was carefully preserved,
the blood-stain on it serving as proof of the bride's virginity before
marriage. Desdemona might hope for the mark on her wedding sheet to lend
strength to her arguments of eternal faithfulness -- "If I do die
before, prithee shroud me / In one of these same sheets" (IV.iii.23-4).
This possible stain also gives special significance to certain lines later
in the play. Othello, hearing Cassio's cries for help after Roderigo's
murder attempt, steels himself for his own destructive, Turkish act with
"Thy bed, lust-stained, shall with lust's blood be spotted." (V.i.36).
Othello would have Desdemona's blood lying before him even as he bloodlessly
strangled her (though this idea may be unmerited, since he makes no
mention of the stain). And when Othello kills himself, his blood would
join Desdemona's on the bed -- a literal mingling of their bloods, in
death as well as marriage.
The Turks, their Ottoman Empire, and their Islamic culture and heritage
yield both the crisis that sets Othello in motion and layers
of meaning which reinforce the play's themes and imagery. The deception,
ferocity, and misogyny in the play can all find expression as Turkish
derivatives. In his admittedly ethnocentric view, perhaps Shakespeare
sets his play as a struggle between the liberal, enlightened Europeans and
the savage, maurading Turks. Othello must wage an inner struggle between
the two, and overcomes his sinister side, the Aleppine Turk -- but only at
the expense of his honor, his family, and his life, the traditional
sacrifices of a Shakespearean tragedy.