Othello character quotes Flashcards
“I know my price, I am worth no worse a place.”
Iago (talking about being passed over for promotion)
“Put money in thy purse. […] put but money in thy purse. […] fill thy purse with money. […] Therefore, put money in the purse.”
Iago manipulating Roderigo
“I follow him to serve my turn upon him.”
Iago (he pretends to serve Othello whilst he’s waiting to exact revenge)
“By Janus, I think no.”
Iago invokes the two-faced God
“I hate the Moor, and it is thought abroad that ‘twixt my sheets he has done my office. I know not if ‘t be true, but I, for mere suspicion in that kind, will do as if for surety.”
Iago ‘explaining’ why he might hate Othello
Oh, you are well tuned now, but I’ll set down the pegs that make this music, as honest as I am.”
Iago describing his manipulation of Othello
“I know, Iago, thy honesty and love doth mince this matter.”
Othello on how much he trusts Iago
“So will I turn her virtue into pitch, and out of her goodness make a net to enmesh them all.”
Iago’s plan to use Desdemona’s goodness to manipulate Othello
Men should be what they seem, or those that be not, would they might seem none!”
Othello- men should be honest
“Oh, beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger, but, oh, what damned minutes tells he o’er who suspects, yet doubts- suspects, yet soundly loves!”
Iago - the play’s most famous line!
“Now art thou my lieutenant.”
Othello to Iago on how much he trusts him (and only him)
“O damned Iago! O damned inhuman dog!”
Roderigo’s dying words
“I look down towards his feet, but that’s a fable.”
Othello - at the anagnorisis he looks at Iago’s feet thinking they;ll be cloven hooves like the devil
“Demand from me nothing. What you know, you know. From this time forth I will never speak word.”
Iago - his final words of the play
She loved me for the dangers I had passed,
And I loved her that she did pity them. (1.3.)
Othello - describing how he and Desdemona fell in love
Even so my bloody thoughts with violent pace
Shall ne’er look back, ne’er ebb to humble love.
Othello at the peripeteia
Then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely but too well
Othello telling Ludovico, Gratiano and Montano how they should report the murder of Desdemona and his imminent death
I do perceive here a divided duty
Desdemona about her duty as a wife to Othello and daughter to Brabantio
His unkindness may defeat my life
But never taint my love.
Desdemona on how she’ll remain loyal to Othello no matter what
’Tis my breeding
That gives me this bold show of courtesy.
Cassio - explaining his culture makes him kiss Emilia as a greeting, not a sign of disrespect
Oh, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself and what remains is bestial
Cassio after being demoted following the fight
They are not ever jealous for the cause
But jealous for they’re jealous
Emilia on men
I’ll tear her all to pieces!”
Othello on Desdemona when he thinks she has been unfaithful
My mother had a maid called Barbary,
She was in love, and he she loved proved mad
And did forsake her. She had a song of “Willow,”
An old thing ʼtwas, but it expressed her fortune
And she died singing it. That song tonight
Will not go from my mind.
Desdemona the ‘Willow Song’ before she dies
