But why should Iago open the play? Or, if this seems too presumptuous a question, let us put it in the form, What is the effect of his opening the play? It is that we receive at the very outset a strong impression of the force which is to prove fatal to the hero's happiness, so that, when we see the hero himself, the shadow of fate already rests upon him. And an effect of this kind is to be noticed in other tragedies. We are made conscious at once of some power which is to influence the whole action to the hero's undoing. In _Macbeth_ we see and hear the Witches, in _Hamlet_ the Ghost. In the first scene of _Julius Caesar_ and of _Coriolanus_ those qualities of the crowd are vividly shown which render hopeless the enterprise of the one hero and wreck the ambition of the other. It is the same with the hatred between the rival houses in _Romeo and Juliet_, and with Antony's infatuated passion. We realise them at the end of the first page, and are almost ready to regard the hero as doomed. Often, again, at one or more points during the exposition this feeling is reinforced by some expression that has an ominous effect. The first words we hear from Macbeth, 'So foul and fair a day I have not seen,' echo, though he knows it not, the last words we heard from the Witches, 'Fair is foul, and foul is fair.' Romeo, on his way with his friends to the banquet, where he is to see Juliet for the first time, tells Mercutio that he has had a dream. What the dream was we never learn, for Mercutio does not care to know, and breaks into his speech about Queen Mab; but we can guess its nature from Romeo's last speech in the scene: My mind misgives Some consequence yet hanging in the stars Shall bitterly begin his fearful date With this night's revels. When Brabantio, forced to acquiesce in his daughter's stolen marriage, turns, as he leaves the council-chamber, to Othello, with the warning, Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see; She has deceived her father, and may thee, this warning, and no less Othello's answer, 'My life upon her faith,' make our hearts sink. The whole of the coming story seems to be prefigured in Antony's muttered words (I. ii. 120): These strong Egyptian fetters I must break, Or lose myself in dotage; and, again, in Hamlet's weary sigh, following so soon on the passionate resolution stirred by the message of the Ghost: The time is out of joint. Oh cursed spite, That ever I was born to set it right.