I will incontinently drown myself…It is silliness to live, when to live is torment, and then have we a prescription to die when death is our physician.
– William Shakespeare
Othello, Act 1, Scene 3. A despondent Roderigo is so obsessively in love with Desdemona that when he hears of her marriage to Othello he threatens to drown himself. He appear to have no other reason for living than Desdemona, now unattainable to him. A simpleton and weak character, this makes him ripe for Iago to manipulate and use to enact his plan for revenge against Othello. In this passage death is personified as a doctor.