The False Friend; or, the Fate of Disobedience is a she-tragedy written by Mary Pix, and first performed at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1699.
She hopes to make the couple doubt each other's fidelity, and when this doesn't work, she tricks Emilius into giving Louisa poison.
Jacqueline Pearson argues that Pix treats Appamia and her desires 'with deep sympathy "...as a result of Pix's sympathy for Appamia - the central emotional pivot, I think, of the play - the character is modeled not only on the evil Iago but also on the heroic Othello".
[2] Unlike Shakespeare's Iago, Appamia ultimately repents of her actions, and through her final words, Pix gives the audience a moral message: "Let me for ever Warn my Sex, and fright 'em from the thoughts of Black Revenge, from being by Violent Passions Sway'd.
[5] K. Heavey writes that Pix "recognised the dramatic and pathetic potential of a comparison between Medea and a scorned woman".