Othello Quotations

Black ram

“Even now, now, very now, an old black ram / Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise!”

Othello’ status and influence

“My parts, my title, and my perfect soul / Shall manifest me rightly”- Othello

Brabantio suggests that Desdemona will betray Othello

“Look to her Moor, if thou has eyes to see: / She has deceived her father and may thee”.- Brabantio

Desdemona’s split between Othello and Brabantio

“I do perceive here a divided duty”- Desdemona

Desdemona ties her fate to Othello

“And to his honours and his valiant parts / Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate”- Desdemona

Iago parodies Exodus

“I am not what I am”- Iago

Iago fakes his affection for Othello

“I must show out a flag and sign of love / Which is indeed but a sign”- Iago

Iago is manipulative (classical allusion)

“By Janus”- Iago

Iago uses Roderigo

“Put money in thy purse.”

Iago suspects that Othello is sleeping with Emilia

“I hate the Moor, / And it is thought abroad that ‘twixt my sheets / He has done my office.”

Iago makes a monstrous plan

“I have’t. It is engendered. Hell and night / Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light.”- Iago

Othello and Desdemona reunite (Act Two)

“My fair warrior!”- Othello

Iago wishes to corrupt Desdemona’s reputation

“So will I turn her virtue into pitch, / And out of her own goodness make the net / That shall enmesh them all.”- Iago

Othello suggests that everything will fall apart when he no longer loves Desdemona

“Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul / But I do love thee! And when I love thee not, / Chaos is come again.”- Othello

Iago will “ensnare” Cassio

“With as little a web as this will I ensnare as great a fly as Cassio.”- Iago

Cassio’s reputation

“Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation!”

The green-eyed monster

“O, beware, my lord, of jealousy: / It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock / The meat it feeds on.”- Iago, to Othello

Othello rejects Desdemona’s handkerchief

“[He puts the handkerchief fro him, and she drops it]”

Trifles are likened to biblical authority

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

Othello’s aggression starts to appear (blood)

“O, blood, blood, blood!”- Othello

The curse of marriage

“O, curse of marriage, / That we can call these delicate creatures ours / And not their appetites!”- Othello

Emilia is reduced to Iago’s servant

“I nothing but to please his fantasy”- Emilia

Emilia’s comments on jealousy

“It is a monster, / Begot upon itself, born on itself.”- Emilia

Iago recalls Desdemona’s deception of Brabantio

“She did deceive her father marrying you”- Iago

Iago taunts the unconscious Othello

“Work on, / My medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught… My lord, I say! Othello!”- Iago

Othello’s language deteriorates when he considers other men sleeping with Desdemona.

“Lie with her? Lie on her? We say lie on her when they belie her. Lie with her!”- Othello

Lodovico criticises Othello

“Is this the noble Moor whom our full senate / Call all in all sufficient?”- Lodovico

Extinguishing the light as a euphemism for murder

“Put out the light, then put out the light”- Othello

Desdemona does not understand the reason for her abuse

“I understand a fury in your words, / But not the words”- Desdemona

Othello accuses Desdemona of deception

“Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell.”- Othello

Desdemona asks to be shrouded in her wedding sheets.

“If I die before thee, prithee shroud me / In one of those same sheets”- Desdemona

Iago suggests a cruel poetic justice for Desdemona’s imagined betrayal.

“Strangle her in the bed, even the bed she hath contaminated”- Iago

Emilia discusses the equality between men and women

“Let husbands know / Their wives have sense like them: they see and smell / And have their palates for both sweet and sour”- Emilia

Iago envies Cassio’s “beauty”

“He hath a daily beauty in his life that makes me ugly.”- Iago

Emilia attacks Othello, comparing him to Desdemona with religious imagery

“O, the more angel she, / And you the blacker devil!”- Emilia

Iago stabs Cassio

“[Iago from behind wounds Cassio in the leg, and exit]”

Iago’s final words

“Demand me nothing: what you know, you know. / From this time forth I never will speak word”- Iago

Emilia accuses Iago of a great villainy

“Villainy, villainy, villainy!… O villainy! / I thought so then. I’ll kill myself for grief. / O villainy, villainy!”- Emilia

Emilia accuses Iago of deception

“You told a lie, an odious, damned lie!”- Emilia

Iago kills Emilia

“[Iago, from behind, stabs Emilia and exit]”