| “Here… the ravening beast, / howls through his triple throats like a mad dog / over the spirits sunk in that foul paste.” Who is spoken about? | Cerberus |
| “Gulttony was my offense, and for it / I lie here rotting like a swollen log.” | Ciacco |
| “My dearest friend, and fortune’s foe, has strayed / onto a friendless shore and stands beset / by such distresses that he turns afraid / from the True Way, and news of him in Heaven / rumors my dread he is already lost. I come, afraid that I am too-late risen.” | Beatrice |
| “I cannot count so much nobility; / my longer theme pursues me so that often / the word falls short of the reality. / The company of six is reduced by four.” Who is spoken about? | The Virtuous Pagans: Ovid, Horace, Lucan, Homer, Virgil, and Dante |
| “Love, which permits no loved one not to love, / took me so strongly with delight in him / that we are one in Hell, as we were above.” | Francesca |
| “May you weep and wail to all eternity, / for I know you, hell-dog, filthy as you are.” To whom is the Pilgrim speaking? | Filippo Argenti |
| “As frogs before the snake that hunts them down / churn up their pond in flight … so I saw more than a thousand ruled souls / scatter away from who crossed dry-shod / the Stygian marsh into Hell’s burning bowls. With his left hand he fanned away the dreary vapors of that sink as he approached.” Who is spoken about? | Messenger God |
| “I swear to you that never in word or spirit / did I break faith to my lord and emperor / who was so worthy of honor in his merit. / If either of you return to the world, speak for me.” | Pier Delle Vigne |
| “Season by season / her changes change her changes endlessly, / and those whose turn has come press on her so, / she must be swift by hard necessity.” Who is spoken about? | Dame Fortune |
| “Their wings are wide, their feet clawed, their huge bellies / covered with feathers, their necks and faces human / They croak eternally in the unnatural trees.” Who is spoken about? | The Harpies |
| “In all of Hell’s corrupt and sunken halls / I found no shade so arrogant toward God, / not even him who fell from the Theban walls.” Who is spoken about? | Vanni Fucci |
| “The sinner’s legs and thighs began to join: / they grew together so, that soon no trace / of juncture could be seen from toe to loin.” Which group is spoken about? | Thieves |
| “Do not deny / to the brief remaining watch our senses / stand experience of the world beyond the sun. / You were not born to live like brutes, / but to press on toward manhood and recognition!” | Ulysses |
| “Up on your feet! There is no time to tire! The man who lies asleep / will never waken fame, and his desire / and all his life will drift past him like a dream, / and all the traces of his memory fade from time / like smoke in air, / or ripples on a stream.” | Virgil |
| “Since then he has been mine, / for who does not repent cannot be absolved / nor can we admit the possibility / or repenting a thing at the time it is willed, / for the two acts are contradictory.” Who is spoken about? | Guido da Montefeltro |
| “Less shame would wash away a great fault than yours. / Therefore, put back all sorrow from your mind.” | Virgil |
| “In my first / life’s time, I had enough to please me: here, / I lack a drop of water for my thirst. The rivulets that run from the green flanks / of Casentino to the Arno’s flood, / spreading their cool sweet moisture through their banks / run constantly before me, and their plash / and ripple in imaginations tires me / more than the disease that eats my flesh.” | Master Adam |
| “Ah, Pisa! foulest blemish on the land / where ‘si’ sounds sweet and clear, since those nearby you / are slow to blast the ground on which you stand.” | Dante |
| “Soon you will be / where your own eyes will see the source and cause / and give you their own answer to the mystery.” | Virgil |
| “In every mouth he worked a broken sinner / between his rake-like teeth.” Who is spoken about? | Satan |
| “O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! That we should with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause transform ourselves into beasts!” | Cassio (talking to Iago. Cassio wonders why he got so drunk and hurt Montano.) |
| “Our general’s wife is now the general.” | Iago |
| “I cannot speak enough of this content. / It stops me here: it is too much of joy.” | Othello (talking to Desdemona. Saying their love gives him so much joy.) |
| “Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is betel. My reputation, Iago, my reputation!” | Cassio |
| “O, thou foul thief, where hast thou stowed my daughter? Damned as thou art, thou hast enchanted her!” | Brabantio |
| “I have it. It is engendered. Hell and night / Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light.” | Iago (soliloquy) |
| “They are all but stomachs, and we all but food; / they eat us hungrily, and when they are full / they belch us.” | Emilia |
| “Do it not with poison. Strangle her in her bed, even the bed she hath contaminated.” | Iago |
| “A most unhappy one [a division]. I would do much t’atone them, for the love I bear to Cassio.” | Desdemona |
| “No, my heart is turned to stone. I strike it, and it hurts my hand. O, the world hath not a sweeter creature!” | Othello |
| “Farewell the tranquil mind! Farewell content! / Farewell the plumed troops and the big wars / That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!” | Othello (talking to Iago giving his farewell speech.) |
| “I have done the state some service, and they know ‘t. / No more of that. I pray you in your letters, / When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, / Speak of me as I am. Nothing extenuate.” | Othello (talking about how he wants to be remembered. Right before he stabs himself.) |
| “Work on, my medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught, And many worthy and chaste dames even thus, All guiltless, meet reproach.” | Iago (talking to himself about his plan.) |
| “Ay, let her rot and perish and be damned tonight, for she shall not live. No, my heart is turned to stone. I strike it, and it hurts my hand.” | Othello (talking about Desdemona. He says he is heartbroken.) |
| “O, devil, devil! / If that the Earth could teem with woman’s tears, / Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.” | Othello (talking to Ludovico about Desdemona. Othello saying he cannot forgive her.) |
| “I should have found in some place of my soul / A drop of patience. But alas, to make me / A fixed figure for the time of scorn / To point his slow unmoving finger at –“ | Othello (talking to Desdemona. He’s fed up and cannot trust her anymore.) |
| “I cannot weep, nor answers have I none / But what should go by water. Prithee, tonight / Lay on my bed my wedding sheets.” | Desdemona (talking to Emilia) |
| “With naught but truth. I have wasted myself out of my means. The jewel you have had me deliver Desdemona would have have corrupted a votaries.” | Roderigo (talking to Iago about how nothing he is doing is getting Desdemona’s attention) |
| “She had a song of willow, / An old thing ’twas, but it expressed for fortune, / And she died singing it. That song Will not go from my mind.” | Desdemona (talking to Emilia about the Willow Tree Song) |
| “I have heard it so. O these men, these men! / Dost thou in conscience think — tell me, Emilia — / That there be women do abuse their husbands / In such gross kind?” | Desdemona (talking to Emilia about marriage infidelity.) |
| “No I neither, by this heavenly light. / I might do ‘t as well i’ the’ dark.” | Emilia (talking to Desdemona about marriage infidelity. Emilia says she would cheat on her husband, just as husbands do to their wives.) |
| “Let husbands know / Their wives have sense like them. / They see, and smell, / And have their palates both for sweet and sour, / As husbands have.” | Emilia (talking to Desdemona. Emilia is furious about the double standard for men and women.) |
| “Brothers, who through a hundred thousand dangers have reached the channel to the west, to the short evening watch which your own senses still must keep, do not choose to deny the experience of what lies past the sun and of the world yet uninhabited.” | Ulysses |
| “Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul. But I do love thee! And when I love thee not, chaos is come again.” | Othello |
| “Exchange me for a goat / When I shall turn the business of my soul / To such exsufflicate and blown surmises, / Matching thy inference.” | Othello |
| “Like the base Judean, threw a pearl away / Richer than all his tribe; / of one whose subdued eyes, / Albeit unused to the melting mood, / Drops tears as fast as the Arabian trees / Their medicinal gum” | Othello (talking to Ludovico about how he wants to be remembered. Othello says describe me as all these things.) |
| “That you have found me out among the strife and misery of this place, grieves my heart more than the day that cut me from my life. But I am forced to answer truthfully: I am put down so low because it was I who stole the treasure from the sacristy.” | Vanni Fucci |
| “The very he’d and front of my offending / Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech, / And little blessed with the soft phrase of peace.” | Othello (talking to Brabatnio and the Duke saying yes, I did marry your daughter.) |
| “O, Spartan dog, / More fell than anguish, hunger, or the sea, / Look the tragic loading of this bed. / This is thy work.” | Lodovico (talking to Iago right after Othello’s suicide. Ludovico tells Iago that Iago’s an awful, cruel person.) |
| “Later, when I was dead, St. Francis came to claim my soul, but one of the black Angels said: ‘Leave him. Do not wrong me. This one’s name went into my book the moment he resolved to give false counsel.'” | Guido da Montefeltro |
| “If he say so, may his pernicious soul / Rot half a grain a day! He lies to th’ heart! She waste fond of her most filthy bargain.” | Emilia (talking to Othello when Othello questions her about what Iago said about Des and Cas. Emilia is saying Iago lied, and that Desdemona is a loyal wife.) |
| “As we walked away she told —-, a young girl of about eleven, the oldest girl after herself, to take good care of the others and to give her love to Papa when he came in from his ride.” | Sophie |
| “I’ve found no female companion here but one, a —-, Dearest Lotte, she is like you, if it is possible to be like you.” | Fraulein |
| “I can’t imagine how anyone could be so foolish as to shoot himself. The very thought disgusts me.” | Albert |
| “My dear —- I’ve had all manner of thoughts about the desire human beings have to extend themselves, to make new discoveries, to rove far and wide; and then about the impulse in them willingly to accept constraints and to proceed along the track of habit.” | Wilhelm |
| “How glad I am to be away! What a thing the human heart is!” | Werther |
Quotations: Inferno, Othello, and Werther
August 18, 2019