Act 4 Scene 1 Othello Quotes

‘Naked in bed, Iago, and not mean harm?
It is hypocrisy against the devil’

begins mid convo. Iago makes Othello angry by speaking images of kissing and being naked. He pretends to act innocently, (theme of deception) by saying it might have meant nothing but Othello doesn’t see how this is possible. Metaphor. Like tricking the devil. Hell imagery.

Iago: ‘tis hers, my lord; and being hers,
She may, I think, bestow’t on any man’

Othello: ‘She is protectress of her honour too.
May she give that?’

Iago defends Des, saying that if Othello gave her the handkerchief, she can do what she wants with it. Possessive pronoun for ownership

O replies that her honour belongs to her too- can he give that away? Honour= sexual chastity. Theme of reputation

‘Her honour is an essence that’s not seen:
They have it very oft that have it not’

Iago is saying that reputation is not visible but that many that have them do not deserve them, similar to what he said in 2.3 to Cassio. Hints that he hides his real self, everyone thinks he is ‘honest’ etc.

‘O it comes o’er my memory,
As doth the raven o’er the infected house’

simile relating to the plague. The memory of Cassio having the handkerchief haunts him like the bad omen of a raven. Suggests that O has really been infected/poisoned- like Iago promised.

‘Lie with her? Lie on her? We say lie on her when they belie her. Lie with her! Zounds, that’s fulsome! Handkercheif- confessions- handkerchief!’

double meaning as it reflects Iago’s lying (he tells Othello that Cassio has confessed a sexual affair with Des). Homonym. Interrogatives. Archaism: ‘zounds’. Lexis is coming out in a jumble, uncontrolled, reflects loss of nobleness. PROSE NOT VERSE!

[He] falls into a trance.

Othello has become so angry and affected that he collapses. Stage direction. Jacobean audience understood madness as the loss of control over mind/body. Would’ve suggested a mental and physical breakdown and that O had gone mad

‘Work on
My medicine, work!’

metaphor- Iago sees Othello fall into a trance. Wants his manipulation to continue breaking apart Othello and his reputation. Exclamatory. Imperative.

‘My lord is fallen into an epilepsy.
This is his second fit; he had one yesterday.’

Iago lies, saying O normally has fits. Deception theme.

‘The lethargy must have his quiet course.
If not, he foams at the mouth and by and by
Breaks out into savage madness.’

must not interfere, let the fit have its course otherwise he will foam and go mad. Abstract noun phrase. Verb’. He appears mad to Jacobean audience.

Iago tells Othello to ‘bear your fortune like a man!’ and Othello replies…
‘A horned man’s a monster and a beast’

The image of a horned man represents a cuckhold. It is Othello using the animalistic imagery, rather than Iago. At the time, folklore held that a cuckold––a man whose wife was unfaithful––would grow horns, making his humiliated status visible to the rest of society. Although irrational, this clearly represents a significant fear for Othello. Not only would Desdemona's infidelity ruin his reputation as a noble and manly husband, it would confirm the racist beliefs that, as a Moor, Othello is more like an animal or supernatural creature than a human

‘There’s millions now alive
That nightly lie in those unproper beds’

Iago is trying to reassure Othello by saying there are lots of men who are in the same position as him. There are millions of wives who cheat. View on women? Sexual.

‘mark the fleers, the gibes, and notable scorns
That dwell in every region of his face’

hyperbole. Iago instructs O to hide and watch Cassio smile and laugh when he talks about Des. Syndetic list, noun phrase.

‘It is a creature
That dotes on Cassio; as ’tis the strumpet’s plague
To beguile many and be beguiled by one.’

Iago talking about Bianca. She loves him and it is her bad luck that she attracts many but is only attracted to one (him). Noun phrase ‘strumpet’s plague’ = whore’s curse.

[Aside] Look how he laughs already!

Stagecraft- Othello can see Cassio and Iago but not hear them. We see his interpretation of events through his commentary.

‘I am a very villain else’

Iago tells Cassio that rumour has it that Cassio is going to marry Bianca. When Cassio asks is this really true, Iago swears it is true. Irony. Noun phrase.

‘Let the devil and his damn haunt you!’
‘I was fine fool to take it.’
‘This is some minx’s token!

Bianca enters, reintroduces the handkerchief, while Othello is still watching. Reinforces the theme of sexual jealously- but at a lower strata of society as Bianca is the concubine.

‘[Aside] By heaven, that should be my handkerchief!’

Othello sees interaction between Bianca and Cassio. Motif of handkerchief.

‘I would have him nine years a-killing. A fine woman, a fair woman, a sweet woman!’

After seeing the interaction between Cassio and Iago, O is so angry that he wants to kill Cassio slowly- torture. He recognises the pity of the situation, by noting Des’ beauty. Noun phrase and then tricolon of epithets

‘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!’

the form is prose. Loss of fluency.  Juxtaposition. He emphasises her sinful nature with hell imagery but then uses comparative adj to emphasise her good nature. Suggests he is upset as well as angry. Metaphor. He has lost all emotion- foreshadows him turning into a beast/murderer. Dynamic verbs connote deterioration.

‘I will chop her into messes’

Echoes ‘I’ll tear her all to pieces’. Dynamic verb foreshadowing violence and adverbial suggests destruction

‘Do it not with poison; strangle her in her bed, even the bed she hath contaminated’

stative verb suggests infidelity, no chastity. Dynamic verb and imperative. Blood-thirsty. Iago instructs Othello on the murder. Maybe reflects experience and so Iago represents the devil- knowing all about evil.

‘And for Cassio, let me be his undertaker.’

Iago promises to take care of Cassio. Double meaning ‘undertaker’ as in he will take care of him but also as an undertaker deals with dead people, foreshadows murder.

‘I would do much
T’atone them, for the love I bear to Cassio’
‘Fire and brimstone!

Desdemona’s innocence and kindness is misinterpreted by Othello as ‘ocular proof’. She was telling Lodovico that there’s a dispute between O and Cassio and she would do anything to reconcile them. Images of hell.

‘Devil!
[He strikes her]
I have not deserved this’

Othello strikes Des in public, shows that he is not the noble fighter who uses violence for a good cause but is now abusive. Des is innocent and confused. Done nothing.

‘My lord, this would not be believed in Venice,’
‘Make her amends; she weeps’

Lodovico is taken aback. Says no one would believe it even if he swore he saw it- they perceive O as noble.
Private vs public life. Sticks up for cousin, tells O to apologise. As he stood before the senate at the beginning, he was a great presence, towering above Brabantio in stature and in eloquence, in the most political of public spaces, the court. Othello now loses control of speech and movements. Othello's trance and swoon present him at the greatest possible distance from the noble figure he was before the senate

‘Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile’

crocodile tears= fake. O does not believe D’s emotions. Trust has fallen apart completely. Metaphor. He no longer even cares for her when she is sad.

‘Goats and monkeys!’

Othello mirrors Iago’s language. His behaviour has been internalised into O. Exclamatory minor sentence

‘Are his wits safe? Is he not light of brain?’

Lodovico's outside perspective establishes the extent of the change in Othello. He is unrecognisable. Again, here, blame appears to lie with Iago. Is his speech hyperbolic? Or is it the only way this outrageous behaviour can be described? Hyperbole vs bathos (anticlimax). Interrogatives

‘yet would I knew
That stroke would prove the worst’

To Lodovico, Iago implies that Othello hits Des usually, by saying he wishes that that was the worse O could do.

‘You shall observe him,
And his own courses will denote him so’

Iago attempts to appear passive by saying that Lodovico can find out himself. His actions will show what he is like. Deception, suggests there is something to be seen