Othello Racism Quotes

He, in good time, must his lieutenant be,
And I – God bless the mark! – his Moorship’s ancient.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 1, Scene 1. Iago’s jealousy is on full display in his remarks about Cassio being promoted to Othello’s lieutenant, while Iago merely has the rank of "ancient" or flag-bearer. The racist attitude of Iago towards the black Moor Othello is evident in how he sarcastically and mockingly refers to him as "his Moorship," highlighting his race. This phrase is a pun on "his worship."

Call up her father,
Rouse him: make after him, poison his delight,
Proclaim him in the streets; incense her kinsmen,
And, though he in a fertile climate dwell,
Plague him with flies: though that his joy be joy,
Yet throw such changes of vexation on ‘t,
As it may lose some colour.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 1, Scene 1. In his bid to ruin Othello, a vindictive Iago hatches a malevolent plan to recruit the easily manipulable Roderigo to do his dirty work for him. He incites Roderigo to wake up Desdemona’s father in order to destroy Othello’s marital bliss and enrage her family by shouting in the streets about the pair’s secret marriage. Iago’s use of poison and plague imagery and metaphor associates him with corruption and disease and foreshadows how he will poison Othello’s mind in Act 3. His racism is also suggested in his wish that the black Othello’s joy will "lose some colour."
Iago old black ram quote about Othello

Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
Is tupping your white ewe.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 1, Scene 1. Shakespeare’s most notorious villains Iago is a manipulative, sinister and destructive character. He uses an inflammatory animal and racist metaphor to compare Othello to a "black ram," and another metaphor to describe Desdemona as a "white ewe." Iago is shouting this to Desdemona’s father Brabantio in order to incite his rage against Othello. He dehumanizes the black Othello and portrays the match between him and the white or pure Desdemona as something unnatural. “Tupping” is an old English slang word for having sex, and Iago uses it here to convey something dirty and vulgar. Iago also sees Desdemona as Brabantio’s property – "your white ewe" – which is in keeping with Iago’s sexism and low regard for women. Iago’s hatred of Othello is evident here.

Arise, arise;
Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,
Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 1, Scene 1. Iago shouts this out in the street at night in front of Brabantio’s house. Using a metaphor, he suggests to Brabantio that the "devil" Othello will make his daughter Desdemona pregnant, so that Brabantio will be grandfather to an evil devil child. The malevolent Iago is displaying his racial prejudice here, as he attempts to whip up a father’s anger against his daughter’s elopement with the black Othello.

Zounds, sir, you are one of those that will not serve God, if the devil bid you. Because we 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 gennets for germans.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 1, Scene 1. Brabantio appears at his window to hear a voice shouting up to him from the dark below. It is Iago, hidden in the shadows, using racist language and a vulgar and insulting animal metaphor to tell him that his daughter Desdemona is being ravished by a "Barbary horse" – Othello. The Barbary horse is a North Africal breed of horse. Master maniplator Iago, in his bid to set Brabantio against Othello, warns that Brabantio’s grandsons will be beasts too.

It is too true an evil: gone she is;
And what’s to come of my despised time
Is nought but bitterness. Now, Roderigo,
Where didst thou see her? O unhappy girl!
With the Moor, say’st thou? Who would be a father!
How didst thou know ’twas she? O she deceives me
Past thought! What said she to you? Get more tapers:
Raise all my kindred. Are they married, think you?

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 1, Scene 1. A bitter, shocked and betrayed father is how Brabantio describes himself after discovering Desdemona missing from the house. For him it is confirmation of his worst fear of the secret romance between her and Othello, revealed to him earlier by Roderigo and Iago. In his speech to Roderigo he accuses his daughter of deceiving him. He also displays his racial prejudice against Othello by describing Desdemona’s relationship with "the Moor" as "too true an evil." He asks Roderigo if the pair are married, and Roderigo says that he believes they are.

O thou foul thief, where hast thou stow’d my daughter?
Damned as thou art, thou hast enchanted her!
For I’ll refer me to all things of sense,
If she in chains of magic were not bound,
Whether a maid so tender, fair, and happy,
So opposite to marriage that she shunned
The wealthy curlèd darlings of our nation,
Would ever have, t’ incur a general mock,
Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom
Of such a thing as thou – to fear, not to delight!
Judge me the world, if ’tis not gross in sense
That thou hast practiced on her with foul charms,
Abused her delicate youth with drugs or minerals
That weakens motion.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 1, Scene 2. Brabantio, in his first encounter with Othello in the play, claims that Othello must have used witchcraft to manipulate Desdemona and get her to elope with him. In a metaphor, he likens Othello’s spell to chains used to enshare his daughter. Brabantio shows racial prejudice and hatred towards Othello. He remarks that a beautiful and fair-skinned virgin girl who shunned Venice’s wealthy handsome men would never risk her reputation to run to Othello’s "sooty bosom" unless he used "foul charms" on her. He dehumanizes Othello by calling him a "thing" rather than a person. Gender roles of the time are also reinforced, as Brabantio speaks of Desdemona as a possession, "stow’d" somewhere by the "foul thief" Othello.

Mine’s not an idle cause: the duke himself,
Or any of my brothers of the state,
Cannot but feel this wrong as ’twere their own;
For if such actions may have passage free,
Bond-slaves and pagans shall our statesmen be.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 1, Scene 2. Determined to undo his daughter’s marriage to the black Moor Othello, a furious Brabantio has ordered Othello’s arrest and that he be hauled before the Duke and council. He believes that he has just cause to make a case that Othello bewitched Desdemona into eloping with him. Brabantio’s racial prejudice is very evident as he warns that if Othello gets away with this, "bond-slaves and pagans shall our statesmen be."

She is abused, stol’n from me, and corrupted
By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks;
For nature so preposterously to err,
Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense,
Sans witchcraft could not.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 1, Scene 3. Brabantio lays charges against Othello before the Duke of Venice of using potions and black magic to seduce and steal Desdemona away from him. He demands justice from the Duke who is in council with the Senators. The racial overtones are clear in Brabantio’s pleadings as he associates the black Moor’s race with witchcraft. He uses sexist language in comparing his daughter to a piece of property that has been "stol’n" from him.

To fall in love with what she fear’d to look on!
It is a judgment maim’d and most imperfect
That will confess perfection so could err
Against all rules of nature, and must be driven
To find out practises of cunning hell.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 1, Scene 3. Brabantio expresses disbelief that his daughter Desdemona would willingly fall in love with someone so fearful looking as Othello. Here Brabantio openly displays his racial prejudict against the black Othello. As far as he is concerned such an interracial marriage is against the "rules of nature." He is convinced that Othello has used "practises of cunning hell" – witchcraft – to win his daughter’s hand.

If virtue no delighted beauty lack,
Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 1, Scene 3. In this rhyming couplet the Duke of Venice imparts these words of wisdom to Brabantio, using color imagery and a double pun. The word black has a double meaning here, it refers to Othello’s skin color and also means ugly. The Duke is telling Brabantio that if virtue can be beautiful, then Othello is "fair" or beautiful. This of course is a backhanded compliment loaded with racial prejudice. It implies that others of Othello’s race are not virtuous like him and he is the exception.

Make all the money thou canst: if sanctimony and a frail vow betwixt an erring barbarian and a supersubtle Venetian not too hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell, thou shalt enjoy her; therefore make money.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 1, Scene 3. Iago offers this advice to Roderigo on how to win Desdemona. He urges him to gather all the money he can so that he can effectively buy her. He uses racist language when he speaks of the frailty of the marriage vows between her and "barbarian" Othello. His sexist view of women as men’s sexual playthings is shown when he predicts that Roderigo will "enjoy her" – have sex with Desdemona. In this passage Iago identifies himself with "all the tribe of hell," practically admitting that he is demonic.

Her eye must be fed. And what delight shall she have to look on the devil? When the blood is made dull with the act of sport, there should be, again to inflame it and to give satiety a fresh appetite, loveliness in favor, sympathy in years, manners, and beauties, all which the Moor is defective in.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 2, Scene 1. Iago’s undisguised racism and hatred for Othello emerge once more, as he tries to convince Roderigo that Desdemona will soon tire of her black devil husband. When she has her sexual fill of Othello, he predicts that she will seek another sexual partner. Iago’s crude use of a food and appetite metaphor equates human love with pure animal lust and gratification. But love is something Iago doesn’t believe in.

Blessed fig’s-end! the wine she drinks is made of grapes: if she had been blessed, she would never have loved the Moor.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 2, Scene 1. Iago rubbishes Roderigo’s idealized idea of Desdemona as a woman of high virtue – "full of most blessed condition." He uses the metaphor of the wine that she drinks to say that she is just like every other woman. His racial prejudice is evident in declaring that if Desdemona was "blessed" she would never have loved a black man like Othello.

Not to affect many proposed matches
Of her own clime, complexion, and degree,
Whereto we see in all things nature tends –
Foh! one may smell in such a will most rank,
Foul disproportion thoughts unnatural.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 3, Scene 3. Iago questions Desdemona’s decision to marry a black foreigner like Othello as something unnatural. She went against her nature by rejecting young men of her own country, her skin color and status, he claims. Iago suggests that this is a sign of Desdemona’s dark and unnatural thoughts. Speaking to Othello, he is playing on his insecurities as a black Moor married to a white Italian woman.

Haply, for I am black
And have not those soft parts of conversation
That chamberers have.

– William Shakespeare

Othello, Act 3, Scene 3. Othello’s feelings of insecurity about being a black man married to a white woman are evident here. He admits that he doesn’t have the conversational skills of men who are comfortable in the chambers of ladies. He seems to think that the racial differences between Desdemona and himself could cause a rift in their relationship. This self-doubt comes after Iago raises Othello’s suspicions about his wife’s fidelity.

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.
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