, including his own wife. This is evident in the extremely subtle and serious subtext of a lighthearted scene. The apparent lightheartedness of a discussion of men's and women's roles in life makes later events all the more powerful. When Cassio decorously kisses Emilia in greeting in Cyprus, Iago says, "Sir, would she give you so much of her lips / As of her tongue she oft bestows on me, / You'ld have enough" (II.i.101-3). Challenged good-naturedly by Desdemona, Iago's insult to his wife becomes a declaration of what women are really like, especially those who don't know their place. He is speaking with apparent irony, with "knavery's plain face," as he says at the end of II.ii, but he is speaking what for him is deadly earnest truth:
Iago. Come on, come on; you are pictures out of doors,
Bells in your parlours, wild-cats in your kitchens,
Saints in your injuries, devils being offended,
Players in your housewifery, and housewives in your beds.
Desdemona. O, fie upon thee, slanderer!
Iago. Nay, it is true, or else I am a Turk:
...