Othello Plants Quotes

Virtue? A fig!…Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners: so that if we will plant nettles, or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs, or distract it with many, either to have it sterile with idleness, or manured with industry, why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 1, Scene 3. Iago is dismissive and disapproving of virtue. He doesn’t believe that the character qualities of a person are inherent. Using a garden metaphor, he explains that our will controls our emotions and behavior. He is giving advice to a lovelorn Roderigo, who thinks that suicide may be the solution to his unanswered love for Desdemona. In Iago’s speech on self-control, he is telling Roderigo that he has power over his emotions and not to let them get the better of him.

And then, sir, would he gripe and wring my hand,
Cry "O sweet creature!" and then kiss me hard,
As if he pluck’d up kisses by the roots
That grew upon my lips.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 3, Scene 3. Iago uses a plant simile to describe how a sleeping Cassio mistook him for Desdemona and kissed him hard on the lips. It was as if the kisses grew on Iago’s lips and Cassio plucked them up by the roots, Iago tells Roderigo. Iago uses graphic detail to help reinforce the lie that Cassio and Desdemona are having an affair.

The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,
Sing all a green willow:
Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,
Sing willow, willow, willow:
The fresh streams ran by her, and murmur’d her moans;
Sing willow, willow, willow;
Her salt tears fell from her, and soften’d the stones;
Lay by these.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 4, Scene 3. Desdemona sings "The Willow Song" for Emilia, which has to be one of Shakespeare’s saddest songs. The melancholy ballad is about a weeping woman lamenting the cruelty of a lover who abandons her. Desdemona’s fate is foreshadowed in the mournful song.

Sing all a green willow must be my garland.
Let nobody blame him; his scorn I approve.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 4, Scene 3. In Desdemona’s song, she sings about her garland being "a green willow." This is a reminder of the "green-eyed monster" of Othello’s jealousy that has destroyed the loving relationship between him and Desdemona. She misremembers the second line of the song, which foreshadows her dying words in Act 5, in which she exonerates Othello for her murder and instead takes the blame herself. Asked by Emilia who has killed her, she will say: "Nobody; I myself." The willow tree is traditionally assocated with sadness and mourning.

I call’d my love false love; but what said he then?
Sing willow, willow, willow:
If I court moe women, you’ll couch with moe men!

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 4, Scene 3. Desdemona sings "The Willow Song" about a woman’s lost love and heartbreak, which very much mirrors her own situation. The willow is the tree of sadness and grief. Like the woman in the song, Desdemona is brokenhearted at having lost Othello’s love. Just as the man in the song has spurned the woman, amid accusations of infidelity, Othello has cruelly accused the innocent Desdemona of adultery. The song’s words "couch with moe men" means to sleep with more men.

When I have pluck’d the rose,
I cannot give it vital growth again.
It must needs wither: I’ll smell it on the tree.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 5, Scene 2. In the soliloquy he delivers before murdering his wife, Othello compares Desdemona in a simple but fitting metaphor to a rose. Once plucked the rose – a symbol of love and beauty – cannot be brought back to life but will wither away, he realizes. This suggests that Othello doesn’t want to kill Desdemona, but feels that he must. So while she lives and before he ends her life, he will take in her essence one last time – "smell it on the tree." In this passage Othello is mourning the death of love.

What did thy song bode, lady?
Hark, canst thou hear me? I will play the swan.
And die in music.
[Singing] Willow, willow, willow, –
Moor, she was chaste; she loved thee, cruel Moor.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 5, Scene 2. These are Emilia’s dying words after she is stabbed by her husband Iago for telling the truth about Desdemona’s handkerchief and innocence. Emilia expresses her love for Desdemona and condemns the brutal Othello for killing a woman who truly loved him. Appropriately she sings a line from "The Willow Song" about a woman forsaken by her lover, which was sung earlier by Desdemona shortly before her death. Now Emilia dies while singing it. The reference to playing the swan and dying in music is the ancient belief that swans sing a beautiful song just before their death – hence the saying, swan song.
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