Othello Key Quotes A3 Flashcards
Emilia to Cassio: ‘But he protests…
…he loves you.’ A3:1
- Othello’s still maintains his love for Cassio, this will imminently change.
What is the function of A3:2?
- Shows Othello’s at work on his ‘duties’, undistracted by thoughts of Desdemona. Acts a source for later juxtaposition.
Des: ‘For thy solicitor…
…shall rather die / Than give thy cause away.’ 3:3
- Dramatic irony. She will fulfil this prophecy.
Iago: ‘steal away…
…guilty-like’ 3:3
- Iago sows the seeds of doubt in Iago’s mind, there have been no previous such insinuations of Cassio’s possible deviance.
Des: ‘Whate’er you be, …
… I am obedient.’ 3:3
Oth: ‘I will deny…
…thee nothing’
A3:3
Othello: ‘when I love thee not…
… / Chaos is come again.’ 3:3
Iago: ‘But for a satisfaction… -
… of my thought/ No further harm.’ 3:3
- Not only is his statement deeply ironic, but we see him weaponise even the nature of human curiosity and insecurity.
Othello: ‘some monster in thy…
… thought / Too hideous to be shown.’ A3:3
- Does he recognise Iago’s villainy, yet choose to ignore it?
Othello blieves that Iago: ‘weigh’st thy words…
…before thou giv’st them breath’ A3:3
- Iago’s power is often left in the unsaid, he lets his victims surmise the situation for themself. The deliverance of his words, the mere pauses and intonation, has persuaded Othello of some potential wrongs in Cassio’s character.
Othello: ‘Passion…
… cannot rule.’ 3:3
- Yet it will.
Othello: ‘say they are…
…vile and false?’ 3:3
- Othello has begun to consult Iago, it will be his downfall. Truly he conforms to Iago’s assessment that he ‘thinks men honest that but seem so’.
Iago: ‘it is my nature’s plague…
… / To spy into abuses, and oft my jealousy / Shapes faults that are not’ 3:3
- Iago frames his flaw as something that Othello’s could use to his advantage. Linguistic trap.
A3:3 (163-4) - Iago: ‘Robs me of…
…that which not enriches him / And makes me poor indeed.’
- Does Iago inadvertently summarise the truth of his pursuit. Neither will be any richer, Iago will gain nothing except to see Othello suffer.
A3:3 (168-69) - Iago: ‘…jealousy! / It is the green-eyed monster, …
… which doth mock the meat it feeds on.’
A3:3 (172) - Othello: ‘Who dotes yet doubts, …
… suspects yet strongly loves!’
- Iago seems to be reaffirming, for Othello’s sake, the truth that love cannot exist without jealousy.
- Othello follows this with ‘O misery’, reversal in the speech distribution.
A3:3 (195) - Othello: ‘Away at once…
…with love or jealousy’
- Othello defends his relationship and his wife’s fidelity, he has not yet fallen prey to Iago’s machinations.
- Despite this he still lets Iago tell him to ‘observe her (Desdemona) well with Cassio’.
A3:3 (204-208) - Iago :‘Their best conscience…
…/ Is not to leave’t undone, but to keep’t unknown.’
- Iago alienates Othello, he decrees he knows the moral fibre of the nation’s entire female population.
Othello: ‘yet how nature, …
…erring from itself’ A3:3
- Othello has upset his natural moral compass.
A3:3 (192) - Othello: ‘she had eyes…
…and chose me’
- Othello has some security in his marriage, though he feels it has been challenged.
A3:3 (234) - Iago: ‘of her own clime, …
… complexion and degree’
- Othering
A3:3 (239) - Iago: ‘I may fear / Her will…
… recoiling to her better judgement’
A3:3 (245) - Othello: ‘Why did I…
…marry?’
- Juxtaposition, earlier: ‘sweet Desdemona’
A3:3 (271) - Othello: ‘She’s gone, …
… I am abused, and my relief / Must be to loathe her.’
A3:3 (266) - Othello: ‘I’d whistle her off…
…and let her down the wind / To prey at fortune.
- The combination of this and ‘jesses’ is a use of falconry imagery.
A3:3 (23) - Des: ‘I’ll watch him tame…
…and talk him out patience.’
- Use of falconry imagery throughout the scene is contextual. Ladies of higher class could own smaller falcons, there is an implication that Othello is too dangerous/large a falcon to be controlled or tamed.
A3:3 (273-4) - Othello: ‘We can call these…
…delicate creatures ours / And not their appetites!’
A3:3 (301) - Emilia: ‘what he will do with it / Heaven knows, not I, …
… I nothing, but to please his fantasy.’
- Wishes her his validation.
A3:3 (321-2) - Emilia: ‘Poor lady, she’ll run mad…
… / When she lack it.’
- Emilia seems conflicted.
A3:3 (325-7) - Iago: ‘Trifles light as air / …
… Are to the jealous confirmations strong / As proofs of holy writ.’
A3:3 (339) - Othello: ‘thou hast set me…
…on the rack!’
A3:3 (350-1) - Othello: ‘for ever / Farewell…
…the tranquil mind, farewell content!’
A3:3 (360) - Othello: ‘Farewell: Othello’s…
…occupation gone.’
- Life, for him, is now devoid of meaning.
A3:3 (362-3) - Othello: ‘Villain, be sure thou…
…prove my love a whore, / … give me the ocular proof’
A3:3 (365-6) - Othello: ‘Thou hadst been better have…
…been born a dog / Than answer to my waked wrath.’
- Othello begins to conform to Iago’s and society’s expectations of him, the beginning of his descent.
- He also further entraps himself, he gives Iago no choice but to prove Desdemona’s infidelity.
A3:3 (378-9) - Iago: ‘O wretched fool / That lov’st…
…to make thine honesty a vice!’
- Echoing his earlier assertions on honesty being the vulnerable underbelly of humanity.
A3:3 (389-91)- Othello: ‘Her name…is now begrimed…
… and black / As mine own face.’
A3:3 (406-408) - Iago: ‘Were they as prime as goats, …
… as hot as monkeys’
A3:3 (419) - Othello: ‘So loose…
…of soul.’
- Regarding Cassio.
A3:3 (421) - Iago: ‘I heard him say ‘Sweet Desdemona, …
… Let us be wary, let us hide our loves’’
- Blatantly untrue.
Othello: ‘a foregone…
…conclusion.’ A3:3
A3:3 (434) - Othello: ‘I’ll tear her…
…all to pieces!’
A3:3 (437) - Othello: ‘Have you not sometimes seen…
…a handkerchief’
A3:3 (445-6) - Othello: ‘O that the slave had forty thousand lives!…
… / One is too poor, too weak for my revenge’
A3:3 (460) - Othello: ‘Even so my bloody thoughts…
/ Shall ne’er look back’
A3:3 (448) - Othello: ‘All my fond love…
…thus do I blow to heaven’
A1:4 (13) - Lilia: ‘Hot
To go’
A3:3 (454) - Othello kneels …
Iago kneels
What is Othello
Baby girl.
A3:3 (475) - Othello: ‘Within these three days let me hear thee say…
… / That Cassio’s not alive.’
A3:3 (478)- Iago: ‘But let her…
…live.’
A3:3 (480) - Othello: ‘Damn her…
…lewd minx.’
A3:3 (481) - Othello: ‘Now art thou…
…my lieutenant.’
- ‘I am your own for ever.’
A3:4 (25-6) - Desdemona: ‘I had rather lost…
…my purse / Full of crusadoes’
- The handkerchief is significantly more valuable than any fortune.
A3:4 (29) - Emilia: ‘Is he not…
…jealous?’
A3:4 (31) - Desdemona: ‘I think the sun where he was born…
… / Drew all such humours from him.’
A3:4 (36) -Othello: ‘This hand is…
…moist, my lady.’
A3:4 (40) - Othello: ‘This argues fruitfulness…
…and liberal heart: / Hot, hot and moist.’
A3:4 (40) - Othello: ‘This hand of yours requires…
… / A sequester from liberty, fasting and prayer, / Much castigation.’
Othello: ‘The hearts of old gave hands…
… / But our new heraldry is hands, not hearts.’ 3:4
- Hands can be given (in marriage), hearts cannot be contained.
A3:4 (58) - Othello: ‘That handkerchief …
… / Did an Egyptian to my mother give’
A3:4 (62-3) - Othello: ‘If she lost it…
… / Or made a gift of it, my father’s eye / Should hold her loathed.’
Othello: ‘To lose’t or give’t away…
…were such perdition / As nothing else could match.’ 3:4
A3:4 (76-77) - Othello: ‘it was dyed in mummy, …
… / Conserved of maiden’s hearts.’
A3:4 (97) - Othello: ‘The handkerchief…
…Zounds!’
A3:4 (100) - Emilia: ‘Is not this man…
…jealous?’
A3:4 (105-7) - Emilia: ‘They are all but stomachs, and we all but…
…food: / They eat us hungerly, and when they are full / they belch us.’
A3:4 (125) - Desdemona: ‘My lord is…
…not my lord’
A3:4 (149) - Desdemona: ‘We must think men…
…are not gods’
A3:4 (159) - Emilia: ‘jealous souls will…
…not be answered’
Emilia: ‘It is a monster…
… /Begot upon itself, born on itself.’ 3:4
A3:4 (159) - Bianca: ‘This is some token…
…from a newer friend!’
A3:4 (192) - Cassio: ‘And think it no addition, nor my wish, …
… / To have him see me womaned.’
I: ‘Long live she so…
…And long live you to think so’ 3,3
O: ‘Even so my bloody thoughts…
…with violent pace shall ne’er look back, ne’er ebb to humble love.’ 3:3
Cassio to Iago: ‘Give me advantage of some brief…
… discourse with Desdemon alone’ 3:1
Calls her Desdemon, plays to Iago’s plan
Cassio to Des: ‘[I’m] never anything but…
…your true servant’ 3:3
(I: ‘Did Cassio know of you love?’) O: ‘O yes and went…
…between us very oft’ 3:3
Othello to Iago: ‘Discern’st thou aught…
‘What dost…
…in that?
…thou think
[3:3] A question, an invitation to speculate.
Othello to Iago: ‘as if thou hadst shut up in thy brain…
…some horrible conceit’ 3,3
Othello to Iago: ‘Exchange me for a goat when I shall turn the business of my soul…
…to such exsufflicate and blown surmises’ 3,3
Iago: ‘She did deceive her father…
…marrying you’ 3,3
echoes Bra, ‘she has deceived her father and may thee’
O: ‘Leave me, …
… Iago’ 3,3
- He returns and tells him to ‘scan this thing no further’
O (alone): ‘If I do prove her…
…haggard, though that the jesses were my dear heart-strings’ 3,3
- she is pulling on her restraints - his heart.
O: ‘Haply for I am black…
…And have not these soft parts of conversation chamberers have’. 3,3
O (alone): ‘keep a corner in the thing…
…I love for others’ uses’ 3,3
O (alone): ‘If she be false, O then heaven…
…mocks itself, I’ll not believe it’ 3,3
I: ‘to have a ___ wife’
‘foolish’ 3,3
O: ‘tis better to be much abused…
…than but to know’t a little’
O: ‘If thou dost slander her and…
…torture me… nothing canst thou to damnation add greater than that’
O: ‘I think my wife is honest…
…and think she is not’
I to O: ‘fools as gross…
…as ignorance made drunk’
Iago: ‘did I today see Cassio…
…wipe his beard with it’
