the frame, subject matter, and arrangement of the tales (Neely 82).
A debate on love and marriage begins in the Prologue to the work and continues through the tales. The Othello story is actually a rebuttal of the story ahead of it, a story in which a husband discovers his wife's infidelity and arranges to have her "accidentally" drowned. In the eighth story, the one after Disdemona and Othello, a different outcome is seen as a wife forgives her husband for his unfaithfulness and wins his love once more:
Throughout the tales of the Third Decade it is most often the men who intensify the conflicts, practicing infidelity or taking revenge on wives they suspect of infidelity; the wives, even when wronged, often succeed in mending the relationships. The men in Othello similarly seek revenge; the women similarly seem to secure harmonious relationships but fail to do so (Neely 82).
The Ensign in Cinthio has different motivations from Iago, and indeed his actions are directed in a different way. Iago hates the Moor and seeks to bring him down, while the Ensign has a different motivation in that he loves Disdemona. Because he has been rejected, he seeks revenge not on the Moor but on Disdemona. The change is significant if problematic:
One effect of this change is to obscure the villain's motive. Another is to alter the lady's position in the narrative structure, demoting her from one of the two ultimate figures in the story to an intermediary (Rose 69).
The Ensign is described by Cinthio as follows, with reference to the Moor:
He had in the Company an Ensign, a man of very fine appearance but of the most depraved nature that ever a man had in the world. This man was in great favour with the Moor, who had not the slightest notion of his wickedness (Cinthio 150).
Cinthio says that the Ensign was gods at hiding his true nature and that outwardly he seemed only to be a fine warrior like Hector or Achilles. In Cint...