Othello (Acts 3-5)

“My lord shall never rest: / I’ll watch him tame and talk him out of patience; / His bed shall seem a school, his board a shrift; / I’ll intermingle everything he does / With Cassio’s suit. Therefore be merry, Cassio, / For thy solicitor shall rather die / Than give thy cause away.” 3.3.24-30

Spoken by: Desdemona

Spoken to: Cassio

Meaning:

I can’t leave him alone. I’ll bring it up all the time. (Exaggerating) says she would rather die than allow Cassio to go on without his job.

“I know thou ‘rt full of love and honesty / And weigh’st they words before thou giv’st them breath, / Therefore these stops of thine fright me the more. / For such things in a false, disloyal knave / Are tricks of custom; but in a man that’s just, / They’re close dilations working from the heart / That passion cannot rule.” 3.3.136-144

Spoken by: Othello

Spoken to: Iago

Meaning:

I know you care & think before you speak. Therefore, your hesitation scares me. If you were a liar, I’d think you were tricking me. But since you are honest, it’s just your natural reaction.

“O, beware, my lord, of jealousy! / It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock / The meat it feeds on.” 3.3.195-197

Spoken by: Iago

Spoken to: Othello

Meaning:

Don’t be jealous. It’s a monster. It destroys the jealous person; ironic.

“I’ll see before I doubt; when I doubt, prove; / And on the proof, there is no more but this: / Away at once with love or jealousy.” 3.3.221-223

Spoken by: Othello

Spoken to: Iago

Meaning:

I need proof. Then I will stop being jealous or loving.

“Trifles light as air / Are to the jealous confirmations strong / As proofs of holy writ.” 3.3.370-372

Spoken by: Iago

Spoken to: Himself

Meaning:

Wants to plant the handkerchief in Cassio’s room. A small thing can hurt a jealous person greatly.

“I had been happy if the general camp, / Pioneers and all, had tasted her sweet body, / So I had nothing known. O, now, forever / Farewell the tranquil mind!” 3.3.397-400

Spoken by: Othello

Spoken to: Iago

Meaning:

I would’ve been fine if all the soldiers slept with her as long as I didn’t know (exaggeration). My mind will never be at peace again.

“They are all but stomachs, and we all but food; / They eat us hungerly, and when they are full / They belch us.” 3.4.121-123

Spoken by: Emilia

Spoken to: Desdemona

Meaning:

Men are stomachs, women are food; simile. They use us & get rid of us when they’re done.

“But jealous souls will not be answered so. / They are not ever jealous for the cause, / But jealous for they’re jealous. It is a monster / Begot upon itself, born on itself.” 3.4.180-183

Spoken by: Emilia

Spoken to: Desdemona

Meaning:

Jealous people can’t be answered with logic. They don’t have a good reason to be jealous, they just naturally are. It just comes from within them.

“As he shall smile, Othello shall go mad, / And his unbookish jealousy must construe / Poor Cassio’s smiles, gestures, and light behaviors / Quite in the wrong.” 4.1.117-120

Spoken by: Iago

Spoken to: Himself

Meaning:

As Cassio smiles, Othello will go insane. Othello’s jealousy will make him misinterpret Cassio’s facial expressions.

“Ay, let her rot and perish and be damned / tonight, for she shall not live. No, my heart is turned / to stone. I strike it, and it hurts my hand. O, the / world hath not a sweeter creature! She might lie by / an emperor’s side and command him tasks.” 4.1.200-204

Spoken by: Othello

Spoken to: Iago

Meaning:

I am going to kill Desdemona tonight. I do not feel for her anymore. She is incredibly manipulative.

“I durst, my lord, to wager she is honest, / Lay down my soul at stake. If you think other, / Remove your thought. It doth abuse your bosom. / If any wretch have put this in your head, / Let heaven requite it with the serpent’s curse, / For if she be not honest, chaste, and true, / There’s no man happy. The purest of their wives / Is foul as slander.” 4.2.13-20

Spoken by: Emilia

Spoken to: Othello

Meaning:

I swear, Desdemona is honest. Don’t think otherwise, it will hurt you pointlessly. If someone told you this, let them be damned.

“O, ay, as summer flies are in the shambles, / That quicken even with blowing! O thou weed, / Who art so lovely fair, and smell’st so sweet / That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst / ne’er been born!” 4.2.76-80

Spoken by: Othello

Spoken to: Desdemona

Meaning:

You are extremely untrustworthy. You are a weed that is deceptive. I wish you had never been born.

“But I do think it is their husbands’ faults / If wives do fall. Say that they slack their duties, / And pour our treasures into foreign laps; / Or else break out in peevish jealousies, / Throwing restraint upon us. Or say they strike us, / Or scant our former having in despite. / Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace, / Yet we have some revenge. Let husbands know / Their wives have sense like them. They see, and smell, / And have their palates both for sweet and sour, / As husbands have.” IV. 3.97-105

Spoken by: Emilia

Spoken to: Desdemona

Meaning:

I think it’s the husband’s fault when wives cheat. There’s many ways men do women wrong. Even though women are graceful & lovely, they can stand up for themselves. Women want all the same things men want; they have their own desires/lives.

“Put out the light, and then put out the light. / If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, / I can again thy former light restore / Should I repent me. But once put out thy light, / Thou cunning’st pattern of excelling nature, / I know not where is that Promethean heat / That can thy light relume.” 5.2.7-14

Spoken by: Othello

Spoken to: Himself

Meaning:

Put out the literal light & then put out the light of Desdemona’s life. If I put out the literal light & regret it, I can relight it. But, if I do the same to Desdemona, I have no power to bring her back. Contemplating this permanent decision.

“If he say so, may his pernicious soul / Rot half a grain a day! He lies to th’ heart! / She was too fond of her most filthy bargain.” 5.2.190-192

Spoken by: Emilia

Spoken to: Othello

Meaning:

If Iago said that, may his evil soul rot slowly in hell because he lies. Desdemona was too in love & loyal to her marriage with you.

“I told him what I thought, and told no more / Than what he found himself was apt and true.” 5.2.212-213

Spoken by: Iago

Spoken to: Emilia

Meaning:

I just said what I thought, Othello was the one who took it to be true.

“Demand me nothing. What you know, you know. / From this time forth I never will speak word.”  5.2.355-356

Spoken by: Iago

Spoken to: Othello

Meaning:

Don’t ask, you know what you know, I’m not going to say anything else; ironic—Iago’s talking is what got him in trouble.

“Then must you speak / Of one that loved not wisely, but too well; / Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought, / Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand, / Like the base Judean, threw a pearl away / Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes, / Albeit unused to the melting mood, / Drops tears as fast as the Arabian trees / Their medicinable gum. ”  5.2.403-412

Spoken by: Othello

Spoken to: Everyone

Meaning:

Tell my story fairly—the good & the bad. Say about me that…

1) I was not smart in love,

2) I wasn’t jealous until I was pushed to be to the extreme,

3) I just threw away the most important thing to me in my life (Desdemona),

4) I was never a cryer, but now I am excessively.

Roderigo ending

He’s 1st stabbed by Cassio but doesn’t die until Iago later does too.

Cassio ending

Othello stabs Cassio but he survives & is put in charge

Desdemona ending

Othello strangles her

Emilia ending

Iago stabs & kills her

Brabantio ending

He dies of a broken heart because of Desdemona’s marriage

Othello ending

He kills himself

Iago ending

Othello stabs him, he lives, Othello doesn’t mind; Iago is to be tortured