RODERIGO: Thou told’st me thou didst hold him in thy hate.
IAGO: Despise me, if I do not. Three great ones of the city,
In personal suit to make me his lieutenant,
Off-capp’d to him: and, by the faith of man,
I know my price, I am worth no worse a place:
But he; as loving his own pride and purposes,
Evades them, with a bombast circumstance
Horribly stuff’d with epithets of war.
– William Shakespeare
Othello, Act 1, Scene 1. Iago confides to Roderigo how he hates Othello after three powerful men failed in their pleas to Othello to make Iago his lieutenant. Feeling wronged by a prideful Othello who promotes Cassio instead, Iago’s resentment and jealousy set the tone for the rest of the play. Foreshadowed here is his plot to exact vengeance and destroy Othello.