Othello Character Quotes

OTHELLO: Give me a living reason she’s disloyal.
IAGO: I lay with Cassio lately;
And, being troubled with a raging tooth,
I could not sleep. There are a kind of men
So loose of soul that in their sleeps will mutter
Their affairs. One of this kind is Cassio.
In sleep I heard him say "Sweet Desdemona,
Let us be wary, let us hide our loves."

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 3, Scene 3. Iago invents a lie to inflame Othello’s jealousy over Desdemona, when Othello asks for proof of her disloyalty. Iago falsely claims that as he and Cassio shared a bed one night, Cassio called out in his sleep, addressed his "sweet Desdemona" and pleaded with her to keep their love affair a secret.

O monstrous! monstrous!…I’ll tear her all to pieces.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 3, Scene 3. Othello has become so brainwashed by Iago that he has becoming like him, losing his own mind and self and using destructive and ferocious language. Consumed by rage, he says that he will destroy Desdemona. His bestial animal imagery shows how his love for her has has been replaced by pure hatred. Murderous revenge is being suggested here, foreshadowing the violence to come. Othello’s ugly threat is also an example of the abuse of male power and toxic masculinity found in the play.

All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven.
‘Tis gone.
Arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow cell!
Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearted throne
To tyrannous hate! Swell, bosom, with thy fraught,
For ’tis of aspics’ tongues!

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 3, Scene 3. Othello says that his love for Desdemona is completely gone after Iago convinces him that she is having an affair with Cassio. Appealing for help with his revenge, Othello appears to associate himself with darkness and hell. He uses personification to describe his hatred of Desdemona as "tyrannous," while love is personified as surrendering its place in his heart to hate. In a metaphor, Othello likens his jealous heart to a heart filled with venonous snakes. The motif of black and white appears in this passage with vengeance given the color of black, the color of Othello’s skin.

Like to the Pontic sea,
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne’er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on
To the Propontic and the Hellespont,
Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,
Shall ne’er look back, ne’er ebb to humble love,
Till that a capable and wide revenge
Swallow them up.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 3, Scene 3. Othello lays his tortured soul bare as he sinks deeper into madness. In an epic or extended simile, he compares his violent urges and bloody thoughts to the relentlessness of the Pontic Sea, or Black Sea. He will not stop until he has his revenge. At this point Othello hates Desdemona and says that he will never look back on love. He is convinced that his wife has betrayed him.

OTHELLO: [Kneels] Now, by yond marble heaven,
In the due reverence of a sacred vow
I here engage my words.
IAGO: Do not rise yet.
[Kneels] Witness, you ever-burning lights above,
You elements that clip us round about,
Witness that here Iago doth give up
The execution of his wit, hands, heart,
To wrong’d Othello’s service! Let him command,
And to obey shall be in me remorse,
What bloody business ever.
[They rise]
OTHELLO: I greet thy love,
Not with vain thanks, but with acceptance bounteous,
And will upon the instant put thee to ‘t.
Within these three days let me hear thee say
That Cassio’s not alive.
IAGO: My friend is dead; ’tis done at your request.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 3, Scene 3. Iago and Othello kneel together and exchange vows of evil in a perverse mock marriage ceremony. Othello forsakes his wife, goes over to the dark side and makes a diabolical pact with Iago. This is a turning point in the play, as Othello submits to Iago and is now completely under his devilish power. Iago, having persuaded Othello of his innocent wife’s infidelity, pledges fealty to Othello. He promises to deliver on Othello’s request to murder the innocent Cassio. The "ever-burning lights above" is a metaphor for the stars, as Othello and Iago blasphemously address the heavens as if talking and praying to God, while declaring their "love" union based on evil and hatred. Othello has succumbed to Iago’s relentless manipulation and is now completely controlled by him. This passage represents the "marriage" of Othello and Iago. We have dramatic irony in Iago’s vow to serve Othello, when we know that Iago is simply serving himself.

OTHELLO: I will withdraw,
To furnish me with some swift means of death
For the fair devil. Now art thou my lieutenant.
IAGO: I am your own forever.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 3, Scene 3. The murder of Desdemona is foreshadowed here, as Othello plots to kill his innocent wife. He promotes Iago to his lieutenant, while Iago pledges loyalty to his master. This is a false loyalty, a manipulation tool used by Iago to control Othello, now completely under Iago’s power. There is irony in Othello’s use of the metaphor "fair devil" to describe Desdemona. For it is he who has joined in a pact with the devilish Iago when they kneel and exchange vows of evil.

Give me your hand: this hand is moist, my lady.
…This argues fruitfulness and liberal heart:
Hot, hot, and moist: this hand of yours requires
A sequester from liberty, fasting and prayer,
Much castigation, exercise devout;
For here’s a young and sweating devil here,
That commonly rebels. ‘Tis a good hand,
A frank one.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 3, Scene 4. In Othello’s speech about Desdemona’s hand, we see his suspicions grow about his wife. Taking her hand, he personifies it as arguing her "fruitfulness and liberal heart." Here he is hinting that she is disloyal and loves too much. When Othello describes her hand as "Hot, hot, and moist," there is a suggestion of sexual promiscuity and he in fact advises her to fast and pray. And if we were under any illusion as what he is thinking, Othello makes it very clear in his use of the metaphor, "a young and sweating devil." This implies that Desdemona has too much sexual appetite. Othello’s changing emotions towards his wife are displayed in his speech, which betrays his mistrust of her. His focus on her hand foreshadows the fate he has in store for her, when he uses his own hands to smother her, believing that she has cheated on him with Cassio.

She told her, while she kept it,
‘Twould make her amiable and subdue my father
Entirely to her love, but if she lost it
Or made gift of it, my father’s eye
Should hold her loathèd, and his spirits should hunt
After new fancies.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 3, Scene 4. According to Othello, the Egyptian sorceress who gave the handkerchief to his mother told her that it was charmed. The person in possion of the handkerchief would have a loyal, loving spouse. But if it got lost or was given away, then that spouse would look for love outside of the marriage. This is an example of where Othello is trying to manipulate Desdemona. The handkerchief is Othello’s first gift to Desdemona and in an attempt to justify his jealousy and anger he is trying to link it to his wife’s fidelity.

She, dying, gave it me;
And bid me, when my fate would have me wive,
To give it her. I did so: and take heed on ‘t;
Make it a darling like your precious eye.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 3, Scene 4. Othello tells the backstory of the precious handkerchief given to his mother by an Egyptian charmer. When his mother was dying she passed it on to him to give it to his wife whenever he married. Using a simile, Othello ominously tells Desdemona to keep it close to her like her precious eye.

‘Tis true: there’s magic in the web of it:
A sibyl, that had number’d in the world
The sun to course two hundred compasses,
In her prophetic fury sew’d the work;
The worms were hallow’d that did breed the silk;
And it was dyed in mummy which the skilful
Conserved of maidens’ hearts.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 3, Scene 4. After Othello asks Desdemona to produce the handkerchief he gave to her and she cannot, he tells her of its great value. The exotic item has magical powers and was created by a 200-year-old prophetess. We don’t know how much of Othello’s handkerchief speech is true, or how much is fiction or if he is speaking symbolically. But it’s clear that the handkerchief is important to him, to the point of obsession. The reference to the handkerchief’s "web" is a reminder of the "spider" at the center of it all, Iago, spinning his web of deceit and lies.

Naked in bed, Iago, and not mean harm!
It is hypocrisy against the devil:
They that mean virtuously, and yet do so,
The devil their virtue tempts, and they tempt heaven.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 4, Scene 1. Iago has Othello like a fish on a hook after he paints a picture of Desdemona lying naked in bed with Cassio, while suggesting that she means no harm. Taking the bait, hook, line and sinker, Othello responds predictably to Iago’s manipulation and goading. He sees infidelity in this fictional picture painted by Iago. In his mind’s eye he can see the devil tempting their virtue.

It comes o’er my memory,
As doth the raven o’er the infected house,
Boding to all – he had my handkerchief.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 4, Scene 1. When Iago torments Othello about the handkerchief he gave to Desdemona, Othello wishes he could forget it, but he cannot. Obsessed with it, his mind has been so poisoned with jealousy by Iago that his peace of mind is being destroyed. The memory of Cassio with his handkerchief is driving him to the point of madness. A simile using apocalyptic language compares this memory to the ill omen of a raven flying over a sick household to prophesy death. This is foreshadowing of the tragic deaths to come.

Lie with her! lie on her! We say lie on her, when they belie her. Lie with her! that’s fulsome. – Handkerchief – confessions – handkerchief! – To confess, and be hanged for his labour; – first, to be hanged, and then to confess. – I tremble at it. Nature would not invest herself in such shadowing passion without some instruction. It is not words that shake me thus. Pish! Noses, ears, and lips. – Is ‘t possible? – Confess – handkerchief! – O devil!

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 4, Scene 1. An agitated and rambling Othello says this and falls down in an epileptic fit at Iago’s feet. Speaking in disjointed prose, he seems to have lost control of language. Just like he has lost control of his mind. The passage shows the hero’s degeneration and deteriorating mental state. He obsesses about the handkerchief, lies, Cassio lying with Desdemona and confession – the handkerchief is the one "proof" Othello has of Desdemona’s infidelity, but she hasn’t confessed. There is a sad and tragic irony in Othello saying, "It is not words that shake me thus." For it is Iago’s words that have driven Othello to this fever of jealousy and destroyed him.
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