Emilia (Othello) the ensign's wife is in the final sentence of the tale when, long after Desdemona's murder and once her husband is dead, she reveals what she knows of the past. Though Emilia is mentioned in 1.3 when Othello asks Iago to allow his wife to accompany Desdemona to Cyprus as her attendant, the character first appears on stage in 2.1 when she disembarks in Cyprus with Iago, Desdemona, and Roderigo. She banters briefly with her companions before leaving the stage, presumabably in Desdemona's entourage. Though not specifically mentioned, she probably appears as Desdemona's attendant at the beginning of 2.3, then
Othello (character) the 1709 engraving in Nicholas Rowe's edition of Shakespeare), assume him to be a black man, while the earliest known North African interpretation was not until Edmund Kean's production of 1814. Honigmann questions the view that Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud ben Mohammed Anoun, Moorish ambassador of the Arab King of Barbary to Queen Elizabeth I in 1600, was one inspiration for Othello. He stayed with his retinue in London for several months and occasioned much discussion, and thus might have inspired Shakespeare's play, written only a few years afterwards. The exact date that Othello was written is unknown, though sources