| who hast had my purse | as if the strings were thine – Roderigio |
| I know my price, | I am worth no worse a place – Iago |
| bookish theoric…mere prattle without | practice is all his soldiership – Iago |
| In following him I | follow but myself – Iago |
| But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve for daws | to peck at: I am not what I am – Iago |
| thick | lips – Roderigio |
| thieves, thieves!Look to you house, your daughter | and your bags! thieves! thieves!…..you’re robbed – Iago |
| an old black ram is | tupping your white ewe – Iago |
| devil | Iago |
| Barbary | horse – Iago |
| “you’ll have coursers for/cousins and | jennets fo germans” – Iago |
| “your daughter and the moor are | making the beast with two backs” – Iago |
| “knave of common hire, a gondolier… | extravagant and wheeling stranger” – Roderigio |
| “the gross clasps of a | lascivious Moor” – Roderigio |
| “lead to the Sagittary | the raisèd search” – Iago |
| “O heaven! How got she out? | O treason of the blood!” – Brabantio |
| “Let him do his spite/…for I | love the gentle Desdemona” – Othello |
| “I must be found./My parts, my title | and my perfect soul shall manifest me rightly” – Othello |
| “he hath tonight | boarded a land caract” – Iago |
| “thou hast practised on her with foul charms/ | Abused her delicate youth with drugs and minerals” – Brabantio |
| “a maid so | tender, fair and happy” – Brabantio |
| “so opposite to marriage that she shunned/ | the wealthy curlèd darling” – Brabantio |
| “valiant | Moor/Othello” – Senator & Duke |
| “my particular grief is | so floodgate and o’bearing nature” – Brabantio |
| “Ay, to me(she is dead): she is abused, stol’n | from me and corrupted” – Brabantio |
| “Whoe’er he be in that this foul proceeding/Hath thus beguiled your daughter of | herself,/and you of her, the bloody book of law /shall yourself read in the bitter letter” – Duke |
| “rude I am | in my speech” – Othello |
| “I won | his daughter” – Othello |
| “A maiden | never bold” – Brabantio |
| “To fall in love with what | she feared to look upon” – Brabantio |
| “to vouch | this is no proof” – Duke |
| “her father loved me, oft invited me,/still | questioned me to the story of my life” – Othello |
| “She’d come again a with a greedy | ear devour up my discourse” – Othello |
| “She wished/that heaven had made her such a man…she and bade me, if I had a friend | that loved her/I should but teach him how to tell my story/and that would woo her” – Othello |
| “I think this tale would | win my daughter too” – Duke |
| “I do percieve here | a divided duty” – Desdemona |
| “I am glad at soul I have no other | child,/for thy escape would teach me tyranny” – Brabantio |
| “the robbed that smiles steals something from the thief:/ | He robs himself that spends a bootless grief” – Duke |
| “That I would love the Moor to live with him,/My downright violence and | storm of fortunes/ may trumpet to the world.” – Desdemona |
| “My heart’s subdued/even to the very | quality of my lord” – Desdemona |
| “I saw Othello’s visage | in his mind” – Desdemona |
| “Let me go with him – Desdemona – “Let her | have your voice” – Othello |
| “I therefore beg it not/to please | the palate of my appetite” – Othello |
| “A man he is of honesty and trust:/ | to his conveyance I assign my wife” – Othello |
| “If virtue no delighted lack/your | son-in-law is far more fair than black” – Duke |
| “Look to her Moor, if thou hast eyes to see:/ | She has deceived her father and may thee” – Brabantio |
| “I will incontinently | drown myself” – Roderigio |
| “Our bodies are | our gardens” – Iago |
| “I take this that you call | love to be a sect or scion” – Iago |
| “Put money in | thy purse” – Iago |
| “She must change for youth: when | she is sated with his body” – Iago |
| “a frail vow betwixt an erring barbarian and | a supersubtle Venetian” – Iago |
| “I hate | the Moor” – Iago |
| “It is thought abroad that ‘twixt my sheets/ | he has done my office” – Iago |
| “Smooth | dispose” – Iago |
| “free and | open nature” – Iago |
| “I have’t: it is engend’red: hell and night/must | bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light” – Iago |
| “warlike | Moor Othello” – Gentleman |
| “worthy governor…. | brave Othello” – Montano |
| “he hath | achieved a maid” – Cassio |
| “th’essential vesture of creation/ | does tire the engineer” – Cassio |
| “tempests…/as having a sense of beauty, do omit/their mortal | natures, letting go safely by/the divine Desdemona” – Cassio |
| “our great | captain’s captain” – Cassio |
| “Alas she has no speech” – Desdemona – | “in faith: too much” – Iago |
| “You rise to play | and go to bed to work” – Iago |
| “What wouldst write of me, if | thou shouldst praise me?” – Desdemona |
| “had tongue at will and yet was never loud….see suitors following and | not look behind….she was a wight, if ever such wights were… to suckle fools and chronicle small beer” – Iago |
| “most lame | and impotent conclusion” – Desdemona |
| “with as little a web I will ensnare as | great a fly as Cassio” – Iago |
| “If it were now to die/’twere now to be most happy, for I fear/my soul hath her content so absolute/ | that not another comfort like to this/succeeds in unknown fate” – Othello |
| “O, you are well-tuned now!/But I’ll set down pegs that | make this music/ as honest as I am” – Iago (aside) |
| “Her eye must be fed: and what delight shall she | have to look on the devil?” – Iago |
| “When the blood is made dull with the act of sport, there should | be a game to inflame it and to give satiety a fresh appetite” – Iago |
| “find some | occasion to anger Cassio” – Iago |
| “a constant, loving, noble nature. And a dare think | to Desdemona he’ll prove a most dear (word play) husband” – Iago |
| “I do love her too,/not out of absolute love….but | partly to diet my revenge” – Iago |
| “I do suspect the lust Moor hath | leaped into my seat” – Iago |
| “nothing can or shall content my soul/till I | am evened with him, wife for wife” – Iago |
| “I fear Cassio with | my night-cap too” – Iago |
| “the purchase made the | fruits are to ensue” – Othello |
| “she is | sport for Jove” – Iago |
| “What an eye she has! Methinks a parley to provocation” | – Iago – “An inviting eye, yet methinks right modest” – Cassio |
| “most exquisite…fresh and | delicate creature…perfection” – Cassio |
| “Are we turned turks, to ourselves do that/which heaven | has forbid the Ottomites? For Christian shame, put by this barbarous brawl” – Othello |
| “All’s well | sweeting:/Come away to bed” – Othello |
| “Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost | the immortal part of myself and what remains is bestial” – Cassio |
| “reputation is an idle and most false imposition: oft | got without merit and lost without deserving” – Iago |
| “Our general’s wife | is now the general” – Iago |
| “importune (sexual connotations) her to help | to put you in your place again” – Iago |
| “I’ll pour pestilence | into his ear” – Iago |
| “I will turn her | virtue into pitch” – Iago |
| “And out of her own goodness I will make the | net/ that will enmesh them all” – Iago |
| “I never knew a Florentine more | kind and honest” – Cassio |
| “My lord shall never rest/I’ll watch him tame and talk him out of patience/ | his bed shall seem a school, his board (table) a shrift (confessional)” – Desdemona |
| “I’ll intermingle everything he | does with Cassio’s suit” – Desdemona |
| “I cannot think it/that he would | steal away so guilty-like/seeing your coming” – Iago |
| “Why then, tomorrow night, on Tuesday morn/On Tuesday noon, | or night; on Wednesday morn:/I prithee name the time, but let it not/exceed three days” – Desdemona |
| “When I love thee | not/chaos is come again” – Othello |
| “Men should be | what they seem” – Iago |
| “Good name in man and woman, dear my lord/ | is the immediate jewel of their souls” – Iago |
| “But he that filches from me my good name/robs me | of that which not enriches him/and makes me poor indeed” – Iago |
| “O, beware my lord, of jealousy:/it is the green-eyed monster | which doth mock the meat it feeds on” – Iago |
| “Think’st thou I’d make a life of jealousy,/to follow still | the changes of the moon with fresh suspicions?” – Othello |
| “For she had eyes and chose me. No Iago/ | I’ll see before I doubt” – Othello |
| “And on the proof, there is no more but this:/ | Away at once with love and jealousy” – Othello |
| “In Venice they do let heaven see the pranks/ | They dare not show their husbands” – Iago |
| “She did deceive her father, marrying you:/And when | she seemed to shake and fear your looks/she loved them most” – Iago |
| “To seel her father’s | eyes up close as oak” – Iago |
| “I do not think | but Desdemona’s honest” – Othello |
| “Set on | thy wife to observe” – Othello |
| “Why did | I marry?” – Othello |
| “This fellow’s of | exceeding honesty” – Othello |
| “If I do prove her haggard,/though that her jesses were my | dear heartstrings,/I’d whistle her off and let her down the wind/to prey at fortune” – Othello |
| “Haply, for I am black/and have not those | soft parts of conversation/that chamberers have” – Othello |
| “O curse of marriage!/that we can call these delicate | creatures ours/and not their appetites” – Othello |
| “I had rather be a toad/and live upon the vapour of a | dungeon/than keep a corner for the thing I love/for other’s uses” – Othello |
| “If she be false, | heaven mocked itself!” – Othello |
| “her first | remembrance of the Moor” – Emilia |
| “My wayward husband hath a hundred times/wooed | me to steal it” – Emilia |
| “she reserves it for evermore/to | kiss and to talk to” – Emilia |
| “I nothing but | to please his fantasy” – Emilia |
| “A good wench: | give it to me” – Iago |
| “Trifles light as air/are to the jealous | confirmations strong/as proofs of holy writ” – Iago |
| “The Moor already changes | with my poison” – Iago |
| “Avaunt, be gone! Thou hast | set me on the rack” – Othello |
| “O, you mortal engines, whose rude throats/th’immortal Jove’s dread clamours (thunder) | counterfeit/Farewell! Othello’s occupation’s gone” – Othello |
| “give me the | ocular proof” – Othello |
| “I think my wife be honest and think she is not/I | think thou art just and thou art not” – Othello |
| “My name, that was as fresh/as Diana’s visage, | is now as black and begrimed/as mine own face” – Othello |
| “‘Sweet Desdemona/let us be wary, let us hide our loves’… | kiss me hard…laid his leg/o’er my thigh…’cursed fate that gave thee to the Moor'” – Iago |
| “Arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow hell!…Swell | bosom, with thy fraught,/For ’tis of aspics’ tongues!” – Othello |
| “O, blood, | blood, blood!” – Othello |
| “my bloody thoughts with violent pace/shall ne’er look back, | ne’er ebb to humble love,/till that a capable and wide revenge/swallow them up” – Othello |
| “Within these three days let me hear | thee say/that Cassio’s not alive” – Othello |
| “I had rather lost my purse/ | full of crusadoes” – Desdemona |
| “my noble Moor/is true of mind and made of no such | baseness/as jealous creatures are, it were enough/to put him to ill thinking” – Desdemona |
| “I think the sun where he was born/drew | all such humours from him” – Emilia |
| “This hand is moist…this argues | fruitfulness and liberal heart” – Othello |
| “the hearts of old age gave hands,/but | our new heraldry is hands, not hearts” – Othello |
| “while she kept it ‘Twould maker her amiable and subdue my father/entirely to her love, but if she | lost it/Or made a gift of it, my father’s eye/should hold her loathed and his spirits should hunt/after new fancies” – Othello |
| “there’s magic | in the web of it” – Othello |
| “They are all but stomachs, and we all but food:/ | they eat us hungerly and when they are full/they belch us” – Emilia |
| “My lord is | not my lord” – Desdemona |
| “They are not ever jealous for the cause…it is | a monster/begot upon itself, born on itself” – Emilia |
| “most fair Bianca… | sweet love” – Cassio |
| “Take me | this work out” – Cassio |
| “This is some | token from a newer friend” – Bianca |
| “I do attend here on the general/And think it no | addition, nor my wish,/to have him see me womaned” – Cassio |
| “It is not words that shakes me thus. Pish! Noses, ears and lips. | is’t possible? Confess? Handkerchief? O devil! [falls into a trance]” – Othello |
| “A horned man’s a | monster and a beast” – Othello |
| “There’s many a beast then in | a populous city” – Iago |
| “his unbookish jealousy must conster/poor Cassio’s | smiles, gestures and light behaviours/quite in the wrong” – Cassio |
| “I marry? What? | A customer?” – Cassio |
| “She haunts me in every place…thither comes the bauble and falls me thus about my neck… | so hangs and lolls and weeps upon me, so shakes and pulls me…such another fitchew” – Cassio |
| “Let the devil and | his dam haunt you!” – Bianca |
| “my heart is | turned to stone” – Othello |
| “She could sing the savageness | out of a bear” – Othello |
| “I will chop her | into messes” – Othello |
| “Do it not with poison: strangle her in bed | even the bed she hath contaminated” – Iago |
| “My lord, this would not | be believed in Venice” – Lodovicio |
| “If that the earth could teem with woman’s tears | every drop she falls would prove a crocodile” – Othello |
| “Ay, you did wish that I would make her turn:/sir, she can turn, and | turn and yet go on/and turn again” – Othello |
| “Is this the nature (Othello’s) whom | passion could not shake?” – Lodovicio |
| “I durst, my lord, to wager she is honest, | lay down my soul at stake” – Emilia |
| “simple bawd…subtle wh*re… | a closet lock and key of villainous secrets” – Othello |
| “Heaven knows that thou art | false as hell” – Othello |
| “Am I the motive of | your tears, my lord?” – Desdemona |
| “Thou young and rose-lipped cherubin/ | Ay here look grim as hell!” – Othello |
| “Alas, what ignorant | sin have I committed?” – Desdemona |
| “Strumpet… | *****” – Othello |
| “No, as I am a Christian: to preserve | This vessel for my lord from any other foul unlawful touch” – Desdemona |
| “I took you for that cunning ***** of Venice that married with Othello. You mistress [Enter Emilia] that | Have office opposite to Saint Peter and keeps the gate of hell! (hell=slang for vagina)” – Othello |
| “Tonight lay on my bed | My wedding sheets: remember” – Desdemona |
| “The Moro’s abused by | Some villainous knave” – Emilia |
| “Alas, Iago what shall I do to | Win my lord again?” – Desdemona |
| “His unkindness may defeat my life | But never taint my love” – Desdemona |
| “I cannot say the word ‘*****’ it | Does abhor me now I speak the word” – Desdemona |
| “The jewels you have had from me to deliver Desdemona | Would have half corrupted a votarist” – Roderigio |
| “Harltory | (Bianca) – Iago |
| “If I do die before | Prithee shroud me in one of these same sheets” – Desdemona |
| “She was in love and her love proved | Mad and did forsake her” – Desdemona |
| “Lodovicio is a | Proper man” – Emilia |
| “If I court more women you’ll | Sleep with more men” – Desdemona (willow song) |
| “small | vice” – Emilia |
| “who would not make her husband a | a cuckold to make him a monarch” – Emilia |
| “Their wives have sense like them: they see and smell | and have their palates for both sweet and sour” – Emilia |
| “The ills we do, their | ills instruct us so” – Emilia |
| “minion (wh*re)…strumpet…thy bed, lust-stained, | shall with lust’s blood be spotted” – Othello |
| “O my dear Cassio! My sweet Cassio! | O Cassio Cassio Cassio!” – Bianca |
| “I do suspect this trash | to be a party in this injury” – Iago |
| “This is the | fruits of whoring” – Iago |
| “O fie upon | thee strumpet!” – Emilia |
| “I am no strumpet but of life as | honest as you that thus abuse me” – Bianca |
| “I’ll not shed her blood nor scar that whiter skin of hers | than snow, and smooth as monumental alabaster” – Othello |
| “she must die else | she’ll betray more men” – Othello |
| candle: “If I quench thee…I can again thy former light restore vs. | “when I have plucked thy rose, I cannot give it vital growth again: It needs must wither” – Othello |
| “Be thus when thou art dead and I | will kill thee and love thee after” – Othello |
| “Think on thy sins” – Othello – “They | are the loves I bear to you” – Desdemona |
| “I never did offend you in my life, never loved Cassio… | I never gave him token” – Desdemona |
| “O perjured woman thou dost stone my heart and makes me call | what I intend to do a murder, which I thought a sacrifice” – Othello |
| “Had all his hairs been lives my great | revenge had stomach for them all” – Othello |
| “Alas, he is betrayed | and I undone!” – Desdemona |
| “Banish me…tomorrow… | half an hour…one prayer” – Desdemona |
| “It is too | late [smothers her]” – Othello |
| “She’ll sure speak to my wife: my wife, | my wife! what wife? I have no wife.” – Othello |
| “Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse of sun and moon, and | that th’affrighted globe did yawn at alteration” – Othello |
| “A guiltless death I die… | nobody: I myself. Farewell” – Desdemona |
| “O, more the angel she, | and you the blacker devil” – Emilia |
| “she was false as water” – Othello – “thou | art rash as fire to say that she was false” – Emilia |
| “Had she been true, if heaven would make me such another world of one | entire and perfect chrysolite, I’d not have sold her for it” – Othello |
| “My | husband? (repeated)” – Emilia |
| “You have done well, that men must | lat their murders on your neck” – Emilia |
| “Go, charm your tongue” – Iago – “I | will not charm my tongue” – Emilia |
| “Fie, your sword | upon a woman?” – Gratiano (Iago threatens to stab Emilia) |
| “Lay me by my | mistress’ side” – Emilia |
| “when we meet at compt this look of | thine will hurl my soul from heaven” – Othello |
| “whip me, ye devils…blow me about in winds, roast me in | sulphur. Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!” – Othello |
| “Nought I did in hate, | but all in honour” – Othello |
| “I will never | speak a word” – Iago |
| “Speak of me | as I am” – Othello |
| “Then must speak of one that loved | not wisely but too well” – Othello |
| “Like the base Indian, threw a pearl | away richer than all his tribe” – Othello |
| “in Aleppo once where a malignant and turbaned Turk beat a Venetian and traduced | the state I took by the throat the circumcised dog and smote him thus (stabs himself) – Othello |
| “All that is | spoke is marred” – Gratiano |
| “I kissed thee ere I killed thee: no way | but this/killing myself, to die upon a kiss” – Othello |
| “This I did fear, but I thought he had no weapon, | for he was great of heart” – Cassio |
| “Myself will straight aboard and to the state/ | this heavy act with heavy heart relate” – Lodovicio |
All Othello quotes
September 1, 2019