ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE - V

Adapted from the retelling by Elsie Finnimore Buckley

Fifth Story
In which Orpheus returns to the overworld with his beloved, but his impatience proves too strong

"It will be harder than thou thinkest," the king replied. "Nevertheless, I will call Eurydice."

He signed to a messenger to fetch her. In a few moments he returned, and behind him came Eurydice from the Garden of Death. The dank dew hung heavy about her, and she walked with her eyes upon the ground, while her long black hair hid the paleness of her face. Thus did she come into the centre of the hall, and, not speaking or moving, Orpheus gazed upon her till she raised her eyes and saw him. With a cry she sprang towards him.

"Orpheus!" she said.

But, remembering the words of the king, he turned and fled before her through the misty halls and out by the great gate, where Cerberus lay tamed with his heads between his paws. And he tried to shut his ears to her pleading as they sped across the plain, but every word that she said cut his heart like a stab, and more than once he almost turned to answer her, so piteous was her cry.

"Oh, Orpheus, what have I done? Why dost thou flee from me? Oh, give me one word, one look, to say thou lov'st me still."

But he remained firm in his resolve, and sat himself in 

Charon's boat, and steeled his heart, whilst she sat beside him, but could not touch him. For he was a living soul, and she was a shade, and might not touch him if she would. But still she pleaded with him.

"O Orpheus, my heart is starving for one look, one word. I know thou lovest me, but oh! to see thine eyes tell me so and hear thy lips say it."

He longed to turn and clasp her in his arms, and tell her how he loved her better than life. But still he refrained, and hugged his lyre close to his breast in his agony; and as soon as the boat touched the shore he leapt out and hastened up the steep, dark path, whilst the sweat stood out in drops upon his brow, so hard was the way and so stifling the air. Behind him followed Eurydice, and if the way was hard for him, for her it was ten times harder. She had no strength for words, and only by her sobs did Orpheus know she was following still. So they went on, till at length the air grew pure and fresh, and the daylight shone before them at the mouth of the cave. With eager steps Orpheus pressed forward, longing for the moment when he might clasp his wife in his arms and speak to her once more. But as the way grew easier for him, it grew harder for Eurydice; since no one may pass from death to life without sore travail and pain. So she struggled and stumbled after him, and her heart gave way within her as she felt she could follow no farther.

"Orpheus!" she cried in her despair, "thy hand."

Ere reason could restrain him, his heart had answered her sudden cry, and he turned and held out his arms to help her. All too late he knew his folly. For even as he was about to hold her she slipped away, and as smoke is borne away on the wings of the wind, so was she borne away, helpless and lifeless, to the realms of the dead, and her voice floated back like the echo of a dream,

"Farewell, Orpheus. Alas! Alas! farewell!"

So for the second time did he lose Eurydice; and if his grief was great before, it was ten times greater now. For as the cup of joy had touched his lips it had slipped from his hand and broken, and he knew that the chance the gods had given him once they would give him never again, but that all his life long he must dwell in loneliness without Eurydice his wife. Blindly he went forward with his lyre beneath his arm. The strings hung broken and lifeless, for the rocks and thorns had torn them as he passed on his way up from Hades. But he heeded not nor made any effort to mend them, for the strings of his heart hung broken too, and the music in his soul was dead. In black despair he wandered on, and the sunshine to his eyes was darkness, and the fair forms of earth were sadder than the phantoms of Hades had seemed to him while hope still beat in his breast. As a colt that has wandered far by unknown paths returns at last surely to his homestead, so did his feet carry him back to Pelion and the dear home of his boyhood. Not till he stood in the path which led up to the cave did he know where he had come; but when he saw the mouth of the cave before him his eyes were opened once more, and a faint joy stole into his heart as he went on and sat down on a stone outside. All was silent and deserted, and he sat for awhile alone with his own sad thoughts, till he felt a touch upon his shoulder, and looked up into the face of Chiron standing beside him.

ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE - II

Adapted from the retelling by Elsie Finnimore Buckley

Second Story
In which Orpheus discovers true love, but also sorrow and despair

Thus did the gift of song fall upon Orpheus, so that he became the greatest of all singers upon earth. All day long he would wander about the woods and the hills, and tame the heart of every living thing with the magic of his voice.

One day it chanced that he came into a wood where he had never been before, and he followed a grass-grown track which led to the mouth of a cave. On one side of the cave stood a tall beech-tree, whose moss-covered roots offered a tempting seat, and close by a clear stream gushed forth from the rocks. He drank eagerly of the water, for he had wandered far and was thirsty; and when he had quenched his thirst, he sat down on the roots of the beech-tree and began his song. As before, the wild things gathered about him, and crouched at his feet, tame and silent, as he sang; and from the shadow of the cave crept a wood-nymph, and lay upon the grass, with her chin between her hands, looking up into his face. For a time he did not see her, so silently had she come; but at last the power of her eyes drew his eyes upon her, and he turned his head and looked at her. When he saw her, his arm fell useless by his side and his voice died away in his throat, for he had never looked upon anyone so fair. Her hair was black as the storm-cloud, but her eyes were blue as the summer sky, and she lay like a white flower in the grass at his feet. For a long moment he gazed into her face without speaking, as she gazed back at him, and at last he spoke.

"Who art thou, maiden?" he asked.

"I am Eurydice," she answered.

"Thy hair is black as midnight, Eurydice," he said, "and thine eyes are bright as the noonday."

"Are not midnight and noonday fair to thine eyes?" she asked.

"They are fair indeed, but thou art fairer."

"Then I am well content," she said.

"I know not thy name nor thy face, Eurydice," said he, "but my heart beats with thy heart as though we were not strangers."

"When two hearts beat together, Orpheus, they are strangers no more, whether they have known each other all their days, or have met as thou and I have met. Long ago the fame of thee, and of thy singing, reached mine ears, but I hardened my heart against thee, and said, 'It is an idle rumour, and he is no better than other men, before whose face I flee.' But now the gods have brought thy steps to the hollow cave where I dwell, and thou, by thy magic, hast drawn me to thy feet, so that I, who doubted thy power, must follow thee whithersoever thou wilt."

"Shall I sing thee a song, Eurydice—the song thou hast sown in my heart?"

"Yes, sing me that song," she answered.

So he struck the chords of his lyre and sang her the song that was born of her beauty. One by one the wild creatures stole back to the forest, for that song was not for them, and they two were left alone beneath the spreading boughs of the beech-tree. As he sang, Eurydice crept closer to him, till her head rested on his knee and her long black hair fell in a cloud about his feet. As she drew nearer his voice grew lower, till it became but a whisper in her ear. Then he laid his lyre on the ground beside him and put his arms about her, and their hearts spoke to each other in the tongue that knows not sound nor words.

So it came to pass that Orpheus returned no more to dwell with Cheiron and his companions in the hollow cave below Pelion, but lived with Eurydice, his wife, in her cave in the heart of the forest. But he never forgot his boyhood's happy days, nor all that Cheiron had done for him. He would come often to see him and take counsel with him, and sing to the lads his magic song. For a few short years he lived a life the gods might envy, till the dark days came, when not even music could bring comfort to his heart. For one day, as he roamed with Eurydice through the dark forest, it chanced that she unwittingly trod upon a snake, and the creature turned upon her and pierced her white foot with its venomous fang. Like liquid fire the poison ran through her veins, and she lay faint and dying in his arms.

"O Eurydice," he cried, "Eurydice, open thine eyes and come back to me!"

For a moment the agony of his voice awoke her to life.

"Orpheus," she said, "beloved, this side of the river of death we can dwell together no more. But love, my dear one, is stronger than death, and some day our love shall prevail, never again to be conquered."

When she had spoken her head sank down upon his breast, and her spirit fled away, to return no more. So he bore the fair image of his wife in his arms, and laid her in the depths of the cave that had been their home. Above her head he placed a great pine torch, and all the long night watches he sat with his arms about her and his cheek against her cheek; and his heart groaned within him with a grief too great for words. Ere the day dawned he kissed for the last time the lips that could speak to him never again, and laid back her head on a pillow of leaves and moss. Then he pulled down the earth and stones about the mouth of the cave, so that no one could find the opening, and left for evermore the home he had loved so well. Onward he walked in the grey light of dawn, little caring where he went, and struck the chords of his lyre to tell all the earth of his grief. The trees and the flowers bowed down their heads as they listened, the clouds of heaven dropped tears upon the ground, and the whole world mourned with him for the death of Eurydice his wife.

"Oh, sleep no more, ye woods and forests!" he sang, "sleep no more, but toss your arms in the sighing wind, and bow your heads beneath the sky that weeps with me. For Eurydice is dead. She is dead. No more shall her white feet glance through the grass, nor the field-flowers shine in her hair. But, like last year's snow, she is melted away, and my heart is desolate without her. Oh! why may the dried grass grow green again, but my love must be dead for ever? O ye woods and forests, sleep no more, but awake and mourn with me. For Eurydice is dead; she is dead, dead, dead!"

So he wandered, making his moan and wringing the hearts of all who heard him, with the sorrow of his singing. And when he could find no comfort upon earth he bethought him of the words of his wife:

"This side of the river of death we can dwell together no more. But love, my dear one, is stronger than death, and some day our love shall prevail, never again to be conquered."

He pondered the words in his heart, and wondered what she might mean.

"If love is stronger than death," he thought, "then my love can win her back. If I can charm the hearts of all living things with the magic of my song, I may charm, too; the souls of the dead and of their pitiless king, so that he shall give me back Eurydice, my wife. I will go down to the dark halls of Hades, and bring her up to the fair earth once more."

PRESENT-DAY MILITARY SLANG

Here's a glossary of twentieth/twenty-first century military slang:

• CGU-11: seagull. Used in US Navy prank (cadet/middie has to report sighting of a "see gee you eleven" to officer on duty).
• SNAFU: Situation Normal, All F***ed Up
• FUBAR: F***ed Up Beyond All Repair/Recognition (worse than SNAFU)
• TARFU: Totally And Royally F***ed Up (worse than SNAFU and FUBAR)
• FIGMO: F*** It, I've Got My Orders (the attitude of a by-the-book and know-it-all officer)
• BOHICA: Bend Over, Here It Comes Again (an adverse situation is repeating itself)
• AWOL: Absent Without Official Leave (euphemism for "deserter")
• POW: Prisoner Of War (neither slang nor modern day, but still crops up in my production)
• BLAM: Big-Lipped Alligator Moment (not from the military, but from narratology. A Big-Lipped Alligator Moment is an utterly irrelevant, superficial, and never-spoken-of-again episode in any work of fiction [examples would be the flowers' dreams in the Third Story of The Snow Queen or the pink elephant musical number in Dumbo]).

THE RINGSTETTEN SAGA XVII: A HARD TEST

Previously on The Ringstetten Saga:
On a warm springtime's night, Katia, dressed as a Cossack, finally makes it past the fence and wakes Gustav Adolf up, while whispering about their freedom plans. The Russians did not confiscate the Swedish officers' weapons after Poltava: the young lieutenant in blue is still armed on parole and able to defend his beloved.
Both leap over the fort palisade, in the most iconic scene in the story arc, on twin mares stolen from the officers' stables: Gustav Adolf on white Foudre (Lightning) and Katinka on black Poudre (Gunpowder). When the garrison's officers give chase, the fugitives seek shelter in the woods, where they transform into flying squirrels and their steeds into flycatchers (black and white passerines). When the detachment returns empty-handed to the guardhouse, the commandant suffers from a heart attack, clenching his chest and falling unconscious.
In the meantime, the two shapeshifters are still bound for Sweden, always heading towards the setting sun. Until, in late summer, they (as squirrels once more) reach a vast and elegant baroque palace, that Katia mistakes for Versailles. They fall off a fir tree becoming human again.
But they are wearing court dresses instead of their military uniforms, and approached in that state by finely dressed and French-speaking lords and ladies, who mistake them for newcomers of their rank from the provinces. Turns out that their "Versailles" was the Czar's French-style court, on the outskirts of Saint Petersburg, and our hero and heroine receive some aid from His Imperial Majesty to board a clipper, across the Baltic, bound for Kalmar, Sweden. Once they have landed and resume their ride on land towards the Ringstetten estate, summer turns into autumn.
In the Swedish woods, Gustav Adolf and his fiancée transform back into their usual selves, Katia discarding her Cossack's uniform and putting on the frock she had packed in advance. The two young riders, galloping through copses of emerald firs and golden birches, are completely unaware of what will occur once they have reached Värmland. Something that will shatter their hopes and put them on trial.
For a white hare crosses the riders' path before they reach the Ringstetten estate. Just like before the Poltava debacle, the omen repeats itself...
During the cross-country ride, Gustav Adolf decides to tell Katia his favourite story, a tale of the old gods told by his nanny a thousand times, which reminds him of the path he's chosen to take now:
"In Elfland (Alvhem), it was always a cool northern summer, and elves and nature lived in harmony. Their ruler Frey was responsible for the friendly climate and the growth of vegetation.
One day, the smith of Elfland, called Völund, made a sword that could even threaten the gods themselves in order to protect the magical land. He gave this sword to his liege lord Frey, for him to guard Elfland from the trolls and the frost-folk who might arrive as invaders and bring a perpetual winter. This sword was a rapier with runes inlaid on its blade, and Völund had called it Lävatein.
Frey, the ruler of all the elves, was fair-haired and tall, young and dashing forever like all of his subjects. He had a younger foster brother called Skirner, who was more than a friend to him. One day, Skirner persuaded Frey to move his throne to the tallest peak in Elfland. From there, the fair lord could see into the enemy country of Giantland (Jotunheim), and there, in a hall in a rocky glacier valley, he saw a bonnie maiden as young and fair-haired as he was himself. From that day on, he neglected his duties as ruler and guardian of Elfland, and as responsible for the plants' growth and welfare.
In the end, Frey confided in his good friend Skirner that he had fallen in love with a young frost giantess, which might lead to tragedy (being members of enemy species). He couldn't leave his kingdom, or else it would be invaded by his beloved Gerd's own kin... and thus, Skirner volunteered to visit the maiden at her birthplace, the great hall outside which she had been seen.
Thus, the young lad took Frey's reflection from the pond where the secret had been told, and he put this reflection in his drinking-horn canteen. He also asked for Lävatein, for he intended to bring the sword to the in-laws in exchange for their daughter, as a gift of peace. Though Frey knew the price he had to pay, he gladly sacrificed his rapier, the only weapon in Elfland, to attain a romance with his intellectual equal.
After a warm leave-taking, Skirner went through many pitfalls and perils to reach fair Gerd's residence. There, he asked the servants to let him have a tête-à-tête with the young heiress... and then, he told her of Elfland and the fair folk, of vast gardens and calm lakes, of Frey's pocket-sized ship that could grow at his will and also fly through the skies, of the golden pig Gyllenborste, that Frey kept as a pet... and, not least, of Frey himself: young and handsome, cheerful and clever, the only match for a maiden like Gerd. Yet she didn't believe the Elven messenger... until Skirner, the sharp lad, put Frey's reflection in her drink (which made her nearly swoon with infatuation), made the engagement known to her caregivers, and handed over the rune-inlaid Lävatein to the household. 
Once the bonnie Gerd had reached the Great Hall of Elfland, a wedding without an equal was celebrated among the Fair Folk. The bride and groom received countless gifts, and the revels lasted from that full moon till the next one. No one regretted having given up the sword..." Gustav Adolf ostensibly concludes the story. The Sidhe has watched her ward return as a young and dashing officer, in spite of the many privations he has suffered. He may be wearing a steel rapier, but it remains in his scabbard, as his pistols do in their holsters. She has fallen in love with the young lieutenant, and is thus determined to take his freedom and make him hers. 
Thus, she casts ferns and strange mushrooms into the spring from which Charles XI had drunk at the start of the season, enchanting it for a second time. This spell, though, is to make any young warrior who drinks from the spring lose all his feelings, his heart freezing to ice.
Katia and Gustav Adolf soon arrive, both unaware of the impending threat to their relationship. As the thirsty lieutenant drinks his fill, he feels a sharp, stabbing pain in his chest, like a stab with a blade of ice, while the enchanted draught lands in his stomach (like if he were "warmed" with brandy, but "cooled" instead). Katia springs to his aid, but he rejects her with an ice-cold glare and continues solo, on Foudre, towards the Ringstetten estate, leaving Katia and Poudre on their own by the spring.
Then, right before the rectory, the Sidhe pulls the dragonfly trick on Birgitta, one of the Reverend's young daughters. The little redhead follows the dragonfly to a clearing where there are rune stones: the Sidhe turns her into a rune stone and takes her form to supplant her.
The Count and Countess are overjoyed with their prodigal son's homecoming, deciding to celebrate it, but he reacts coldly and without one word. His highborn parents attribute this change of character to the war and the subsequent captivity.
When Etienne and Christina pay the estate a visit, the Walloon (next in line for the title and lands of Count of Ringstetten after Gustav Adolf) is surprised by the appearance of the missing rightful heir... and by his change of personality. He tries to reconcile with the young lieutenant, but in vain. In fact, Gustav Adolf looks coldly at Etienne, insinuates that he has tried to claim the lands in his absence, and calls him a usurper. The Wallonian industrialist, feeling offended, challenges his brother-in-law to a duel on Midsummer Green, the day after the harvest fête at sunrise.
Katia makes it to the soldier's croft, where she finds his widow Kerstin and her seven children. The Northlander was called up and killed at Poltava. The young foreigner decides to help them work for their lords: the Count and Countess of Ringstetten, whose only son has just come home from the wars.
Now it's her turn to experience toil and trouble!
During the harvest celebrations, Gustav Adolf announces his intention to leave the Swedish Army and his parents having betrothed him to Birgitta. Katia, who hoped to get to dance with him but was violently shoved aside, feels completely deserted: did she leave everything she knew in vain?
So she takes the knife she had brought from the outpost and slashes her own wrists at dusk, on the edge of the woods, veiled by the evening fog... as Gustav Adolf, returning home from the dance on Midsummer Green with his parents, sees her bleeding and asks her why. A weeping and bleeding Katia calls him a traitor in response. The maiden's blood and tears on the lieutenant's skin break the spell. He asks her for forgiveness, being forgiven, and she is taken back to the estate, where her beau tends to her wounds. The Count and Countess accept Katinka for a daughter-in-law. 

The young officer spends the whole night awake thinking also of Etienne and the fact that either of them may die the next day. He tells Katia of the argument he had with the Walloon while frozenhearted. The maiden can’t be more worried either.

As the sun rises, Gustav Adolf runs off with Erik, one of the household servants, and a loaded pistol to Midsummer Green. There, he finds Etienne and a younger Walloon, who appears to be a servant of his or someone important at the steelworks.

Katia looks from behind a linden, as both duelists take their steps apart, and soon they are aiming at each other with their loaded guns. She still looks on as two gunshots are heard, scaring the crows off their nests and the rabbits away, and, a second later, she sees Etienne unscathed and Gustav Adolf reeling, bleeding and clutching his left thigh where it joins the hip. The Walloon reaches out to his brother-in-law and offers him to lean against him. Carrying a half-conscious lieutenant leaning by his side, Etienne meets Katia and tells them that he never intended to kill Gustav Adolf, whom he knows and loves since the Ringstetten heir was a child. Moreover, the soldier stationed in next shire is an old surgeon with battlefield experience from the Polish Wars, and Etienne takes his brother-in-law there for this surgeon to tend to his wounds. A draught of brandy and a bullet removal later, everyone is reconciled.
The Sidhe disenchants Birgitta and returns to her usual form, promising that she'll get revenge on the Ringstettens for losing her beau.
Pretty soon, in a modest church by Lake Vänern, merry bells are pealing over treetops and rooftops. Gustav Adolf and Katia are now husband and wife, and soon they will be count and countess!
During the wedding celebrations, the Veiled Singer reveals herself as Ilse and reconciles herself with her family. The old Count and Countess give her the right to roam free with her new loved ones, but she is welcomed, with her spouse and their three children, to the Ringstetten shire whenever she pleases.
And Gustav Adolf concludes, after the wedding fête, the ostensibly finished story of Frey:
"Years went by, elves always young and good-looking, Elfland always friendly and inviting. Then, suddenly, came the great battle of Ragnarök, the confrontation that would put an end to many worlds, including Elfland itself. And Lord Frey was merely armed with a stag's antler, helpless, against a powerful enemy.
The leader of the invading host was Surt, made of fire, the primeval ancestor of all the giants and trolls of Jotunheim. Surt, chaos incarnate, a blade of flaming steel in his right hand, 
It didn't take long for Frey to recognize his own sword, the sacred rapier Lävatein. Though that was the last instant of his existance: no sooner had a flash of regret crossed his mind that the fair lord fell, a blade of fire run through his chest into his throbbing heart.
Thus, Frey was slain with his own sword, the one he had given up for love's sake.
At the same time, the enemy fell as well, Surt's left eye pierced by the antler that Frey had thrust into it as he had lunged forward... to get run through with flaming steel.
The good lord and the devastator had, thus, slain each other at unison.
Subsequently, the land of the elves was completely devastated with fire and sword risen from the vengeful ranks of Surt, and a widowed Gerd and her little son Fjölner were slain, along with most of the fair folk of Elfland: those who didn't make it to the Middle-land (or Earth)."
Like Frey, the former Carolean sees himself as one not afraid of death or dishonour after having left the military profession to contrive to marry his intellectual equal.
Peace seems to have returned to the nation, and to the Northern world at large. The Walloons have, once more, made up with the Ringstettens. King Charles XII dies young and childless, during the siege of Fredrikshald, "a petty fortress", shot in the nape of the neck at night by "an unknown hand", still unclear if of friend or foe, on the 30th of November 1718. General Rehnskiöld, released from captivity, rejoined the Swedish Army and witnessed the death of his liege lord. Aurora von Königsmarck, in her ancestral seat, has died peacefully in her sleep, having accidentally pricked herself with a brooch, which may have been poisoned. And Parliament has been reinstated in Sweden.
Gustav Adolf, now done with his military career and resting on his laurels, is made aware of it all and reflects on the effects of all of these changes. What are great people but mortals, and aren’t empires condemned to decadence? How will the world, or at least the province, remember his legacy?
Three decades after that, two more rune stones stand next to each other, beside Liselotte's, on the road to church, and Katia and her spouse are rulers of the peaceful shire. Etienne, now widowed and elderly, having handed over the steel mill to his eldest son, lives in the hall with them, and he is the children's tutor. The foreign countess has given birth to seven children, of which only the youngest three have survived their first year as punishment from the Sidhe: twin boys, both blond and amber-eyed, and a slightly younger platinum blond and blue-eyed little girl. But... has the Sidhe really forgotten her oath of revenge and decided to put daring Krister, curious Kristian, and self-indulgent Ulrika to the test?

THE HANDKERCHIEF MURDERS

THE HANDKERCHIEF MURDERS

This is Part Two of my Othello series.
For those who don't know the story, here is a succint summary. I was introduced to this play by one Charles Lamb, the best children's storyteller in Regency London (IMHO), so I will base my abstract on his version, but adding my own remarks.

So, there is this thirty-something non-com called Iago, who has developed an obsessive hatred for younger, cuter, more dashing Lieutenant Cassio... maybe because he loves this officer and isn't loved back, or maybe because their dark-skinned commanding officer, Othello, (the titular character and a newb when it comes to European culture) prefers the young lieutenant (he was even the best man at the general's wedding!). Thus, Iago hates Othello, AKA The Moor (read "The Dark Non-European") as well.
So, Iago has a cunning plan that actually can't fail (love this Blackadder catchphrase!).
Anyway, at the start, there is a lot to celebrate: the enemy's wiped out, the war is over, victory is theirs, and Othello, the outpost's governor, has just married a posh and cute-looking Desdemona. What more could be celebrated? What could possibly go wrong?
And then, Iago makes his move. That very evening, Cassio is on guard duty. Aware that the lieutenant is a lightweight, Iago successfully tries to get him drunk, which leads a rather intoxicated Cassio to start a fight under the influence. And thus, his commanding officer does not trust him any longer.
But didn't that commanding officer have a wife? So, advised by Iago, Cassio asks Desdemona to try to bridge the gap between her spouse and the young lieutenant.
Next step for Iago: to make the Moor believe the encounters between his wife and Cassio are actually the tip of a rather bad iceberg (that is, an affair). It is a bit trickier, given how much Othello loves his better half, but then, she loses a handkerchief that her lady-in-waiting, Emilia, picks up. And Emilia is married to Iago...
So, Cassio finds the handkerchief in his quarters and decides to keep it until he can give it to Desdemona, but this is misinterpreted not only by Othello, but also by the lieutenant's own girlfriend Bianca: both fall prey to the green-eyed monster (mentioned for the first time in literature!).
Nice work, Iago! It is not a love triangle as you intended, but a love square!
So, the Moor gives Iago three days to kill Cassio and decides to get rid of his wife himself.
That very evening, everyone's favorite noncom and his thugs set up a lieutenant trap, and Cassio falls head first into it (he is so lovably naive!). With a slash in his right leg, he is left for dead on the pavement, and he should have bled to death if Bianca hadn't found him and taken him to the surgeon's. But he is officially pronounced dead.
At the same time, Desdemona is all snuggled up in her coversheets, when Othello enters the bedchamber and wakes her up (in true fairytale style) with a kiss (although not a true love's kiss). He insults and physically beats her to pieces... but he doesn't stop there. In spite of the young lady's pleas for mercy and proclamation of her innocence, the Moor strangles her in a fit of jealous rage.
Enter Emilia, who laments her mistress's death, informs the general that Cassio is still alive, and reveals her husband's optionicidal (that means "lieutenant-killing") gambit, followed by young Cassio himself in a litter.
Shortly after the lady-in-waiting is disposed of by her spouse for knowing too much, the great general realizes his mistakes and bursts into tears: his beloved Desdemona was true after all! He then commands soldiers to arrest Iago and appoints the lieutenant his successor as governor.
Then, in a flood of tears, Othello stabs himself to the heart with his own sword and dies with one cold last kiss from his late lady.
Neither Lamb nor Shakespeare gives details on what happens after the Moor's suicide.
My own guess: Iago is tortured and executed, while Cassio recovers from his wound and marries Bianca.

MY STYLE 2: THEMES, SETTINGS, CAST

My stories often feature young aristocratic people of at least average attractiveness, who have to cope with feelings like loneliness, feeling left out, star-crossed love, regret, and dissappointment, in rural and semi-urban communities (royal courts, fortresses and barracks, outposts, military camps, the itinerant life of minstrels and performers). In the past few years, most of my stories ended with both leading characters together in death (the exception being "Ludwig and Károly", with a bittersweet ending: one of the titular rivals dies of his wounds and the other marries the heroine). Since the summer of 2012, I have changed these endings to "happily ever afters" embittered by the loss of one leading character, yet light and rife with hopes for the future.