Analyze one or more of the play’s bizarre comic scenes. How do these scenes echo, reflect, distort, or comment on the more serious matter of the play?

Consider the clown scene. The first two acts of this play are filled with the web of tension an deceit. Shakespeare uses the clown scene as a bit of comic relief to lighten the constant tension. The clown says, “Why, masters, have your instruments been at Naples, that they speak i’ th’ nose thus?”

The scene follows a rather bawdy pun on the word "instruments." This of course would be picked up on by the groundlings or common folk in the audience. The clown suggests that Othello might pay the musicians to stop playing!