SHHS Othello - key quotes Flashcards
‘I have a pain upon my forehead here’
Act 3 scene 3 - Othello to Desdemona. Iago has just began to plant the seeds of suspicion in Othello’s mind and Desdemona drops her handkerchief not long after this.
‘Zounds, sir, you’re robbed, for shame put on your
gown!
Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul,
Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
Is tupping your white ewe!’
Act 1 scene 1 - Iago to Brabantio. He reveals that Desdemona and Othello have married in secret.
‘That I have ta’en away this old man’s daughter
It is most true; true, I have married her’
Act 1 scene 3 - Othello to Senate, confessing his marriage to Desdemona.
‘Of my whole course of love, what drugs, what charms,
What conjuration and what mighty magic-
For such proceeding I am charged withal -
I won his daughter.’
Act 1 scene 3 - Othello to Senate- previous to telling the story of how he courted Desdemona.
‘But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitten lusts; whereof I take this, that you
call love, to be a sect or scion’.
Act 1 scene 3 - Iago to Roderigo, after Roderigo complains of his unrequited love for Desdemona.
‘Put money in thy purse!’
Act 1 scene 3: Iago to Roderigo - repeated six times. His advice in relation to seducing Desdemona.
‘She must change for youth; when she is sated with his body she will find the error of her choice: she must have change, she must.’
Act 1 scene 3 - Iago to Roderigo about Desdemona - claiming that her love for Othello is inconstant.
‘O my souls joy!’
Act 2 scene 2 Othello to Desdemona on their reunion at Cyprus.
‘I have found great love amongst them. O my sweet,
I prattle out of fashion, and I dote
In mine own comforts.’
Act 2 scene 2 - Othello discusses the people of Cyprus as he welcomes Desdemona there.
‘As hell’s from heaven. If it were now to die
‘Twere now to be most happy.’
Act 2 scene 2 - Othello on meeting Desdemona at Cyprus - the highest and happiest point of their relationship.
‘Tis not a year or two shows us a man
They all are but stomachs, and we all but food.’
Act 3 scene 4 - Emilia to Desdemona after Othello shows signs of jealousy.
‘Lend me thy handkerchief’.
Act 3 scene 4 - Othello to Desdemona - Othello knows at this point that the handkerchief is missing.
‘To lose’t or give’t away were such perdition
As nothing else could match.’
Act 3 scene 4 - Othello talks of the missing handkerchief to Desdemona (which she denies)
‘Look where he comes,
If she be false, O then heaven mocks itself,
I’ll not believe’t.’
Act 3 Scene 3, Desdemona and Emilia enter after Iago has begun to poison Othello’s mind against Desdemona.
‘he she loved proved mad and did forsake her’
Act 4 scene 3 - Desdemona recalls a song of Barbary (‘Willow Willow’) wherein a woman wept for her lover gone mad.
‘Let nobody blame him, his scorn I approve -
Nay, that’s not next.’
Act 4 scene 3 - Desdemona is trying to recall the words to the song ‘Willow’
‘But I do think it is their husband’s faults if wives do fall.’
Act 4 scene 3 - Emilia speaks to Desdemona about infidelity.
‘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…’
Act 4 scene 3 - Emilia speaks to Desdemona about infidelity.
‘But words are words: I never yet did hear
that the bruised heart was pierced through the ear.’
Act 1 scene 3 - Brabantio to Senate - about Othello.
‘Go to, woman,
Throw your vile guesses in the devil’s teeth.’
Act 3 scene 4 - Cassio spurns Bianca for her jealousy when he tells her to take the work out of the handkerchief he has given her.
‘Not that I love you not.’
‘But that you do not love me.’
Act 3 scene 4 - Cassio to Bianca and then Bianca to Cassio.
‘Why gnaw you so your nether lip?
Some bloody passion shakes your very frame.’
Act 5 scene 2 - Desdemona to Othello - prior to Othello’s murder of her.
‘I saw my handkerchief in’s hand.’
Act 5 scene 2 - Othello tells Desdemona of his suspicions/jealousies.
‘Commend me to my kind lord - O, farewell!’
Act 5 scene 2 - Desdemona’s final words before she dies at the hands of Othello.
‘O lay me by my mistress’ side’.
Act 5 scene 2 - Emilia after Iago stabs her.
‘Nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak
Of one that love not wisely, but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe’
Act 5 scene 2 - Othello’s final speech before he kills himself.
‘I kissed thee ere I killed thee: no way but this,
Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.’
Act 5 scene 2 - Othello’s final words before he kills himself.
‘Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings,
I’d whistle her off and let her down the wind
To prey at fortune. Haply for I am black
And have not these soft parts of conversation
That chamberers have, or for I am declined
Into the vale of years - yet that’s not much-
She’s gone, I am abused, and my relief
Must be to loathe her. O curse of marriage,
That we can call these delicate creatures ours
And not their appetites! I had rather be a toad
And live upon the vapour of a dungeon
Than keep a corner in the thing I love
For others’ uses.’
Act 3 scene 3 - Iago has suggested Othello does not indulge in his suspicions any longer - despite poisoning his mind with them himself.
‘This is some minx’s token, and I must
take out the work?’
Act 4 scene 1 - Bianca to Cassio, who has just handed her Desdemona’s handkerchief recently found in his chamber.
‘By heaven, that should be my handkerchief!’
Act 4 scene 1 - Othello when spying on the conversation between Cassio, Bianca and Iago.
‘Good, good, the justice of it pleases’
Act 4 Scene 1 - Othello to Iago, after they plotted the death of Desdemona.
‘Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men.’
Act 5 scene 1. Othello, watching Desdemona sleep, reflects upon the murder he will soon commit.
‘I will kill thee and love thee after’
Act 5 scene 1 - Othello before killing Desdemona
‘My wife, my wife! What wife? I have no wife.’
Act 5 scene 1 - Othello before killing Desdemona
‘Because we have come to do you service, and you think we are ruffians, you’ll have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse; you’ll have your nephews neigh to you, you’ll have coursers for cousins and jennets for germans!’
Act 1 scene 1 - Iago to Brabantio
‘I am one, sir, that comes to tell you that your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.’
Act 1 scene 1 - Iago to Brabantio.
‘Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors…That I have ta’en away this old man’s daughter
It is most true; true I have married her.’
Act 1 scene 3 - Othello to senate