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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Free Literature Study Guides
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Bianca Quotes

What, keep a week away? seven days and nights?
Eight score eight hours? and lovers’ absent hours,
More tedious than the dial eight score times?

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 3, Scene 4. Cassio’s mistress Bianca has to work really hard to get his attention. She has been counting the hours since he last saw her – one full week, or 168 hours in total. In a metaphor she compares the time that lovers are absent as passing 160 times more slowly than normal – so to her it feels like she hasn’t seen Cassio for 26,880 hours. Bianca has an obsessive love for Cassio, but from his neglect of her it is a love that appears not to be reciprocated.

This is some token from a newer friend:
To the felt absence now I feel a cause:
Is ‘t come to this? Well, well.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 3, Scene 4. This is Bianca’s outburst of jealousy when Cassio asks her to copy a handkerchief that he found in his chambers. She fears that he may be cheating on her. The handkerchief is Desdemona’s, but Cassio doesn’t know that, and it was planted in Cassio’s chambers by Iago.

But that you do not love me.
I pray you, bring me on the way a little,
And say if I shall see you soon at night.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 3, Scene 4. Bianca loves Cassio and desperately wants to see him again, despite the fact that she believes he doesn’t love her.

A housewife that by selling her desires
Buys herself bread and clothes: it is a creature
That dotes on Cassio; as ’tis the strumpet’s plague
To beguile many and be beguiled by one.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 4, Scene 1. Iago’s scathing description of Bianca and her life as a housewife selling her body for food and clothing shows his misogynistic view of women. In love with Cassio, Iago mockingly says it is the curse of whores like Bianca to "beguile many and be beguiled by one." The irony is that Iago is a beguiler of many whose ability to deceive and manipulate comes as second nature to him.

Let the devil and his dam haunt you! What did you mean by that same handkerchief you gave me even now? I was a fine fool to take it. I must take out the work? – A likely piece of work, that you should find it in your chamber, and not know who left it there!

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 4, Scene 1. Bianca enters with the handkerchief in hand that Cassio told her he found in his chamber and asked her to copy. In an outburst of jealousy, she curses him and doesn’t believe his story of how he came by the handkerchief. Neither she nor Cassio are aware that this is Desdemona’s handkerchief.

This is some minx’s token, and I must take out the work? There; give it your hobby-horse: wheresoever you had it, I’ll take out no work on ‘t.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 4, Scene 1. A jealous Bianca fires back the handkerchief Cassio gave her, telling him to give it to his whore. She doesn’t accept his story that he found it in his room and is convinced that another woman gave it to him. Neither are aware that it is Desdemona’s missing handkerchief planted by Iago.

An you’ll come to supper to-night, you may; an you will not, come when you are next prepared for.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 4, Scene 1. Bianca still loves Cassio and wants to be with him, despite being annoyed with him and thinking he has been with another woman. Before she storms out she tells him he can come to supper and he follows her.

O my dear Cassio! my sweet Cassio! O Cassio, Cassio, Cassio!…Alas, he faints!

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 5, Scene 1. Bianca shows her love and concern for Cassio after he is stabbed. In the play love transcends social class and roles. Bianca may be a prostitute but she has a pure and genuine love for Cassio.

I am no strumpet; but of life as honest
As you that thus abuse me.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 5, Scene 1. Bianca defends herself after Emilia and Iago call her a strumpet and Iago suggests she is implicated in her lover Cassio’s stabbing. Despite her profession as a courtesan in Cyprus, Bianca rightly says that she is just as honest as her abusers. She is a great deal more honest than the pathological liar Iago.