Othello Character Quotes

O ill-starr’d wench!
Pale as thy smock! when we shall meet at compt,
This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven,
And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my girl!
Even like thy chastity.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 5, Scene 2. When Iago’s treachery is exposed, Othello looks at the body of his wife on the bed and makes this speech. He uses a simile to describe Desdemona as white as her nightgown. Realizing his terrible error, he says that when they meet on Judgment Day her look will hurl his soul out of heaven and into hell. When he speaks about her body being cold, like her chastity, he is not referring to his wife being frigid or some kind of ice maiden. But rather Othello is saying that Desdemona died pure and chaste, she stayed true to him and was never unfaithful. Cold means dead here, it also signifies Desdemona’s purity, being the opposite of hot and lustful. It has been argued by some that Desdemona actually died a virgin and Othello never consummated his marriage to her.

Whip me, ye devils,
From the possession of this heavenly sight!
Blow me about in winds! roast me in sulphur!
Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!
O Desdemona! Desdemona! dead!
Oh! Oh! Oh!

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 5, Scene 2. Othello sees the vivid images of hell and hellsfire for him as he looks at the body of Desdemona. He feels so guilty for the murder of his wife that he calls on the devils of hell to punish him. This is after Emilia reveals the shocking truth about her manipulative husband Iago and the handkerchief.

Soft you; a word or two before you go.
I have done the state some service, and they know ‘t.
No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 5, Scene 2. In the moments before he kills himself, Othello appears to be more concerned with his reputation and the legacy he will leave behind than with the death of Desdemona. He believes that the service he has done for Venice should be weighed against his crime of murdering his wife. Before he is led away by Lodovico, he asks of his horrified countrymen, when they are writing the story of what happened, to do it honestly. They must speak of him as he is, neither minimizing not exaggerating his crime. With the play coming to its tragic close, Othello is attempting to recover some of his lost reputation and pride. Wanting to shape how he will be remembered, he reminds the Venetians of the honorable role he played as a soldier and warrior.

Then, must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought
Perplex’d in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 5, Scene 2. The veil of blindness is finally lifted from Othello’s eyes as he realizes he has been manipulated and duped by Iago. But the terrible truth dawns on him too late and only after he has smothered his innocent wife. In his final suicide speech, he takes responsibility for his actions, putting them down to his too passionate a love for Desdemona and being tricked into extreme jealousy. A metaphor compares Desdemona and her purity and preciousness to a white pearl, which Othello acknowledges he threw away by killing her. Using derogatory and racist language, he likens himself in a simile to a low-class savage, viewing himself as very much the outsider from a different race. In Shakespeare’s Folio version of the play "base Indian" reads "base Judean," sometimes taken as a reference to Judas who betrayed Jesus. Othello is attempting to salvage some of his good name and reputation here.

Set you down this;
And say besides, that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turban’d Turk
Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,
I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
And smote him, thus.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 5, Scene 2. In the play’s startling and tragic ending, Othello speaks this as he stabs and mortally wounds himself. His dying words show that he doesn’t see himself as human anymore, but as a dog. Othello, who grew up a Muslim warrior and converted to Christianity, recalls killing a "malignant" Muslim Turk once on the battlefield. He stabs himself while saying this, so identifying himself with the enemy Turk and acknowledging his alien status as a Moor in Venice. At the end Othello has internalized the prejudice towards black outsiders in white Venetian society.

I kiss’d thee ere I kill’d thee: no way but this;
Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 5, Scene 2. Othello ends his life with this thyming couplet, addressing his wife who lies dead beside the body of Emilia. As he falls on the bed beside Desdemona, his dying words are words of love and atonement for throwing such a "pearl" away. Deeply regretting the murder of his wife, he decides that he cannot live without her and takes his own life by stabbing himself.
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