SHHS Othello - key quotes Flashcards
(94 cards)
1
Q
‘I have a pain upon my forehead here’
A
Act 3 scene 3 - Othello to Desdemona. Iago has just began to plant the seeds of suspicion in Othello’s mind and Desdemona drops her handkerchief not long after this.
2
Q
‘Zounds, sir, you’re robbed, for shame put on your
gown!
Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul,
Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
Is tupping your white ewe!’
A
Act 1 scene 1 - Iago to Brabantio. He reveals that Desdemona and Othello have married in secret.
3
Q
‘That I have ta’en away this old man’s daughter
It is most true; true, I have married her’
A
Act 1 scene 3 - Othello to Senate, confessing his marriage to Desdemona.
4
Q
‘Of my whole course of love, what drugs, what charms,
What conjuration and what mighty magic-
For such proceeding I am charged withal -
I won his daughter.’
A
Act 1 scene 3 - Othello to Senate- previous to telling the story of how he courted Desdemona.
5
Q
‘But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitten lusts; whereof I take this, that you
call love, to be a sect or scion’.
A
Act 1 scene 3 - Iago to Roderigo, after Roderigo complains of his unrequited love for Desdemona.
6
Q
‘Put money in thy purse!’
A
Act 1 scene 3: Iago to Roderigo - repeated six times. His advice in relation to seducing Desdemona.
7
Q
‘She must change for youth; when she is sated with his body she will find the error of her choice: she must have change, she must.’
A
Act 1 scene 3 - Iago to Roderigo about Desdemona - claiming that her love for Othello is inconstant.
8
Q
‘O my souls joy!’
A
Act 2 scene 2 Othello to Desdemona on their reunion at Cyprus.
9
Q
‘I have found great love amongst them. O my sweet,
I prattle out of fashion, and I dote
In mine own comforts.’
A
Act 2 scene 2 - Othello discusses the people of Cyprus as he welcomes Desdemona there.
10
Q
‘As hell’s from heaven. If it were now to die
‘Twere now to be most happy.’
A
Act 2 scene 2 - Othello on meeting Desdemona at Cyprus - the highest and happiest point of their relationship.
11
Q
‘Tis not a year or two shows us a man
They all are but stomachs, and we all but food.’
A
Act 3 scene 4 - Emilia to Desdemona after Othello shows signs of jealousy.
12
Q
‘Lend me thy handkerchief’.
A
Act 3 scene 4 - Othello to Desdemona - Othello knows at this point that the handkerchief is missing.
13
Q
‘To lose’t or give’t away were such perdition
As nothing else could match.’
A
Act 3 scene 4 - Othello talks of the missing handkerchief to Desdemona (which she denies)
14
Q
‘Look where he comes,
If she be false, O then heaven mocks itself,
I’ll not believe’t.’
A
Act 3 Scene 3, Desdemona and Emilia enter after Iago has begun to poison Othello’s mind against Desdemona.
15
Q
‘he she loved proved mad and did forsake her’
A
Act 4 scene 3 - Desdemona recalls a song of Barbary (‘Willow Willow’) wherein a woman wept for her lover gone mad.
16
Q
‘Let nobody blame him, his scorn I approve -
Nay, that’s not next.’
A
Act 4 scene 3 - Desdemona is trying to recall the words to the song ‘Willow’
17
Q
‘But I do think it is their husband’s faults if wives do fall.’
A
Act 4 scene 3 - Emilia speaks to Desdemona about infidelity.
18
Q
‘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…’
A
Act 4 scene 3 - Emilia speaks to Desdemona about infidelity.
19
Q
‘But words are words: I never yet did hear
that the bruised heart was pierced through the ear.’
A
Act 1 scene 3 - Brabantio to Senate - about Othello.
20
Q
‘Go to, woman,
Throw your vile guesses in the devil’s teeth.’
A
Act 3 scene 4 - Cassio spurns Bianca for her jealousy when he tells her to take the work out of the handkerchief he has given her.
21
Q
‘Not that I love you not.’
‘But that you do not love me.’
A
Act 3 scene 4 - Cassio to Bianca and then Bianca to Cassio.
22
Q
‘Why gnaw you so your nether lip?
Some bloody passion shakes your very frame.’
A
Act 5 scene 2 - Desdemona to Othello - prior to Othello’s murder of her.
23
Q
‘I saw my handkerchief in’s hand.’
A
Act 5 scene 2 - Othello tells Desdemona of his suspicions/jealousies.
24
Q
‘Commend me to my kind lord - O, farewell!’
A
Act 5 scene 2 - Desdemona’s final words before she dies at the hands of Othello.
25
'O lay me by my mistress' side'.
Act 5 scene 2 - Emilia after Iago stabs her.
26
'Nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak
Of one that love not wisely, but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe'
Act 5 scene 2 - Othello's final speech before he kills himself.
27
'I kissed thee ere I killed thee: no way but this,
| Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.'
Act 5 scene 2 - Othello's final words before he kills himself.
28
'Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings,
I'd whistle her off and let her down the wind
To prey at fortune. Haply for I am black
And have not these soft parts of conversation
That chamberers have, or for I am declined
Into the vale of years - yet that's not much-
She's gone, I am abused, and my relief
Must be to loathe her. O curse of marriage,
That we can call these delicate creatures ours
And not their appetites! I had rather be a toad
And live upon the vapour of a dungeon
Than keep a corner in the thing I love
For others' uses.'
Act 3 scene 3 - Iago has suggested Othello does not indulge in his suspicions any longer - despite poisoning his mind with them himself.
29
'This is some minx's token, and I must
| take out the work?'
Act 4 scene 1 - Bianca to Cassio, who has just handed her Desdemona's handkerchief recently found in his chamber.
30
'By heaven, that should be my handkerchief!'
Act 4 scene 1 - Othello when spying on the conversation between Cassio, Bianca and Iago.
31
'Good, good, the justice of it pleases'
Act 4 Scene 1 - Othello to Iago, after they plotted the death of Desdemona.
32
'Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men.'
Act 5 scene 1. Othello, watching Desdemona sleep, reflects upon the murder he will soon commit.
33
'I will kill thee and love thee after'
Act 5 scene 1 - Othello before killing Desdemona
34
'My wife, my wife! What wife? I have no wife.'
Act 5 scene 1 - Othello before killing Desdemona
35
'Because we have 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 jennets for germans!'
Act 1 scene 1 - Iago to Brabantio
36
'I am one, sir, that comes to tell you that your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.'
Act 1 scene 1 - Iago to Brabantio.
37
'Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors...That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter
It is most true; true I have married her.'
Act 1 scene 3 - Othello to senate
38
'Yet, by your gracious patience,
I will a round unvarnished tale deliver
Of my whole course of love, what drugs, what charms,
What conjuration and what mighty magic -
For such proceeding I am charged withal -
I won his daughter.'
Act 1 scene 3 - Othello to senate.
39
'A maiden never bold,
Of spirit so still and quiet that in her motion
Blushed at herself; and she, in spite of nature,
Of years, of country, credit, everything,
To fall in love with what she feared to look on?'
Act 1 scene 3 - Brabantio to senate.
40
'It is judgement maimed and most imperfect
That will confess perfection so could err
Against all rules of nature, and must be driven
To find out practices of cunning hell
Why this should be. I therefore vouch again
That with some mixtures powerful o'er the blood
Or with some dram conjured to this effect
He wrought upon her.'
Act 1 scene 3 - Brabantio to senate.
41
'This to hear
Would Desdemona seriously incline...
My story being done
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs,
She swore in faith 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange,
'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful;
She wished she had not heard it, yet she wished
That heaven had made her such a man. She thanked me
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. Upon this hint I spake:
She loved me for the dangers I had passed
And I loved her that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have used.'
Act 1 scene 3 - Othello to Senate and Brabantio.
42
'My noble father,
I do perceive here a divided duty.
To you I am bound for life and education:
My life and education both do learn me
How to respect you; you are the lord of duty,
I am hitherto your daughter. But here's my husband:
And so much duty as my mother showed
To you, preferring you before her father,
So much I challenge that I may profess
Due to the Moor my lord.
Act 1 scene 3 - Desdemona to Brabantio
43
'I had rather adopt a child than get it.
Come hither, Moor:
I here do give thee that with all my heart
Which, but thou hast already, with all my heart
I would keep from thee. For your sake, jewel,
I am glad at soul I have no other child,
For they escape would teach me tyranny
to hang clogs on them.'
Act 1 scene 3 - Brabantio to Desdemona.
44
'That I did love the Moor to live with him
My downright violence and scorn of fortunes
May trumpet tot he world. My heart's subdued
Even to the very quality of my lord:
I saw Othello's visage in his mind,
And to his honours and his valiant parts
Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate,
So that, dear lords, if I be left behind,
A moth of peace, and he go to the war,
The rites for which I love him are bereft me,
And I a heavy interim shall support
By his dear absence. Let me go with him.'
Act 1 scene 3 - Desdemona to senate.
45
'And heaven defend your good souls that you think
I will your serious and great business scant
When she is with me. No, when light winged toys
Of feathered Cupid seel with wanton dullness
My speculative and officed instrument,
That my disports corrupt and taint my business,
Let housewives make a skillet of my helm
And all indign and base adversities
Make head against my estimation.'
Act 1 scene 3 - Othello to senate - to convince that Desdemona can accompany him to Cyprus.
46
'But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts; whereof I take this, that you call love, to be a sect or scion... It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the will.'
Act 1 scene 3 - Iago to Roderigo on the topic of love.
47
'These Moors are changeable in their wills...the food that to him now is as luscious as locusts shall be to him shortly as acerb as coloquintida. She must change for youth; when she is sated with his body she will find the error of her choice...she must have change, she must.'
Act 1 scene 3 - Iago tries to convince Roderigo to remain hopeful in his wooing of Desdemona.
48
'O my fair warrior!'
Act 2 scene 1 - Othello's first greeting to Desdemona when they are reunited at Cyprus.
49
'O my soul's joy,
If after every tempest comes such calms
May the winds blow till they have wakened death,
And let the labouring bark climb hills of seas,
Olympus-high, and duck again as low
As hell's from heaven. 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.'
Act 2 scene 1 - Othello is reunited with Desdemona at Cyprus.
50
'O beware, my lore, of jealousy!
It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock
The meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger,
But O, what damned minutes tells he o'er
Who dotes yet doubts, suspects yet strongly loves!'
Act 3 scene 3 - Iago begins to sow the seeds of jealousy in Othello's ear.
51
'Tis not to make me jealous
To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company,
Is free of speech, sings, plays and dances well:
Where virtue is, these are more virtuous.
Nor from mine own weak merits will I draw
The smallest fear or doubt of her revolt,
For she had eyes and chose me.'
Act 3 scene 3 - Othello denies the emotion of jealousy before he, ironically, succumbs to it himself.
52
'Look to your wife, observe her well with Cassio.
...I know our country disposition well-
In Venice they do let God see the pranks
They dare not show their husbands...'
Act 3 scene 3 - Iago starts to sow the seeds of jealousy in Othello's mind.
53
'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.'
Act 3 scene 3 - Iago talks of Desdemona's 'unnatural choice' of Othello as husband - to Othello himself!
54
'If I do prove her haggard,
Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings,
I'd whistle her off and let her down the wind
To prey at fortune.'
Act 3 scene 3 - Othello's soliloquy after suspicion of Desdemona has first been placed in his mind.
55
'I am glad I have found this napkin,
This was her first remembrance from the Moor.
My wayward husband hath a hundred times
Wooed me to steal it, but she so loves the token
-For he conjured her she should ever keep it-
That she reserves it evermore about her
To kiss and talk to. I'll have the work ta'en out
And give't Iago: what he will do with it
Heaven knows, not I,
I nothing, but to please his fantasy.'
Act 3 scene 3 - Emilia finds the handkerchief on the floor.
56
'By the world,
I think my wife be honest, and think she is not,
I think that thou art just, and think thou art not.
I'll have some proof. Her name, that was a fresh
As Dian's visage, is now begrimed and black
As mine own face.'
Act 3 scene 3 - Othello to Iago.
57
'Look here, Iago,
All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven:
'Tis gone!
Arise, black vengeance, from the hollow hell,
Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearted throne
To tyrannous hate! Swell, bosom, with thy fraught,
For 'tis of aspics' tongues!'
Act 3 scene 3 - Othello has just been told about the handkerchief by Iago - he sees this as sufficient proof of her infidelity.
58
'Damn her, lewd minx: O damn her, damn her!
Come, go with me apart; I will withdraw
To furnish me with some swift means of death
For the fair devil. Now art thou my lieutenant.'
Act 3 scene 3 - Othello to Iago after being told about the handkerchief.
59
'Tis not a year or two shows us a man.
They are all but stomachs, and we all but food:
They eat us hungerly, and when they are full
They belch us.'
Act 3 scene 4 - Emilia to Desdemona after Othello expresses anger over the missing handkerchief.
60
'This is the monkey's own giving out. she is persuaded I will marry her, out of her own love and flattery, not out of my promise.'
Act 4 scene 1 - Cassio talks to Iago of Bianca.
61
'This is some minx's token, and I must take out the work? A likely piece of work, that you should find it in your chamber and know not who left it here? This is some minx's token...There give it your hobby-horse...'
Act 4 scene 1 - Bianca to Cassio regarding his request she 'take the work' out of the handkerchief.
62
'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. O, the world hath not a sweeter creature: she might lie by an emperor's side and command him tasks.'
Act 4 scene 1 - Othello to Iago after hearing the conversation between Bianca and Cassio re: the handkerchief.
63
'Hang her, I do but say what she is: so delicate with her needle, an admirable musician. O, she will sing the savageness out of a bear! of so high and plenteous wit and invention!'
Act 4 scene 1 - Othello is cursing Desdemona whilst still lamenting his love for her.
64
'But yet the pity of it, Iago - O, Iago, the pity of it, Iago!'
Act 4 scene 1 - Othello is cursing Desdemona whilst still lamenting his love for her.
65
'I will chop her into messes! Cuckold me! With Mine officer!'
Act 4 scene 1 - Othello to |ago
66
'Get me some poison, Iago, this night. I'll not expostulate with her, lest her body and beauty unprovide my mind again. This night, Iago.'
Act 4 scene 1 - Othello plots the murder of Desdemona with Iago.
67
'Do it not with poison, strangle her in her bed - even the bed she hath contaminated.'
Act 4 scene 1 - Iago and Othello plot the murder of Desdemona.
68
'Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell'
Act 4 scene 2 - Othello accuses Desdemona of infidelity.
69
'Turn thy complexion there,
Patience, thou young and rose-lipped cherubin,
Ay, here look, grim as hell!'
Act 4 scene 2 - Othello to Desdemona within their bedchamber.
70
'I hope my noble lord esteems me honest'
Act 4 scene 2 - Othello to Desdemona within their bedchamber.
71
'O, ay, as summer flies are in the shambles,
That quicken even with blowing. O thou weed
Who art so lovely fair and smell's so sweet
That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst ne'er been born!'
Act 4 scene 2 - Othello to Desdemona within their bedchamber.
72
'Was this fair paper, this most goodly book
| Made to write 'whore' upon? What committed!...Impudent strumpet!'
Act 4 scene 2 - Othello to Desdemona within their bedchamber.
73
'No as I am a Christian.
If to preserve this vessel for my lord
From any hated foul unlawful touch
Be not to strumpet, I am none.'
Act 4 scene 2 - Desdemona's response to Othello after he calls her 'whore' - takes place within their bedchamber.
74
'I cry you mercy then,
I took you for that cunning whore of Venice
That married with Othello.'
Act 4 scene 2 - Othello calls Desdemona 'whore' in their bedchamber.
75
'Hath she forsook so many noble matches,
Her father, and her country, and her friends,
To be called whore? would it not make one weep?'
Act 4 scene 2 - Emilia to Iago after Desdemona has been called 'whore' by Othello.
76
(Emilia): 'Ay. - Would you had never seen him!'
(Des): 'So would not I: my love doth so approve him
That even his stubbornness, his checks, his frowns
-Prithee unpin me - have grace and favour.'
Act 4 scene 3 - Emilia and Desdemona talk in private as Desdemona changes for bed.
77
'My mother had a maid called Barbary,
She was in love, and he she loved proved mad
And did forsake her. She had a song of 'willow',
An old thing 'twas, but it expressed her fortune
And she died singing it. That song tonight will not go from my mind. I have much to do
But to go hand my head all at one side
And sing it like poor Barbary.'
Act 4 scene 3 - Desdemona to Emilia in the bedchamber at night.
78
'O these me, these men!
Dost thou in conscience think - tell me, Emilia -
That there be women do abuse their husbands
In such gross kind?'
Act 4 scene 3 - Desdemona to Emilia in the bedchamber at night.
79
'Marry, I would not do such a thing for a joint-ring, nor for measures of lawn, nor for gowns, petticoats...But for all the whole world? ud's pity, who would not make her husband a cuckold to make him a monarch? I should venture purgatory for't.'
Act 4 scene 3 - Emilia jokes to Desdemona about committing adultery.
80
'But I do think it is their husbands' faults
If wives do fall....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...
Then let them use us well; else let them know,
The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.'
Act 4 scene 3 - Emilia's speech defending wives who 'fall'.
81
'It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul!
Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars,
It is the cause. Yet I'll not shed her blood
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow
And smooth as monumental alabaster:
Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men.
Put out the light, and then put out the light!'
Act 5 scene 1 - Othello contemplates the murder of Desdemona as she lay sleeping.
82
'Excellent wretch! perdition catch my soul
But I do love thee! and when I love thee not
Chaos is come again.'
Act 3 scene 3 - Othello on leaving Desdemona, who has just entreated him to make amends with Cassio.
83
'Put out the light, and then put out the light!'
Act 5 scene 1 - Othello watches Desdemona sleep and considers his impending murder of her.
84
'...when I have plucked the rose
I cannot give it vital growth again,
It needs must wither. I'll smell thee on the tree;
O balmy breath, that dost almost persuade
Justice to break her sword! Once more, once more:
Be thus when thou art dead and I will kill thee
And love thee after. Once more, and that's the last.
(He smells, then kisses her).
Act 5 scene 1 - Othello watches Desdemona sleep and considers his impending murder of her.
85
'So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep,
But they are cruel tears. This sorrow's heavenly,
It strikes where it doth love. She wakes.'
Act 5 scene 1 - Othello watches Desdemona sleep and considers his impending murder of her.
86
'....I never did
Offend you in my life, never loved Cassio
But with such general warranty of heaven
As I might love: I never gave him token.'
Act 5 scene 1 - Desdemona defends her honour to Othello.
87
'By heaven, I saw my handkerchief in's hand!
O perjured woman, thou dost stone my heart
And makest me call what I intend to do
A murder, which I thought a sacrifice!
I saw the handkerchief.'
Act 5 scene 1 - Othello's growing rage at Desdemona's denial of her infidelity.
88
' No - what's best to do?
If she come in, she'll sure speak to my wife.
My wife, my wife! what wife? I have no wife.
O insupportable, O heavy hour!
Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse
Of sun and moon, and that th' affrighted globe
Should yawn at alteration.'
Act 5 scene 1 - at the sound of Emilia knocking at the door, Othello grasps what he has done in murdering Desdemona.
89
'-Moor, she was chaste, she loved thee, cruel Moor,
So come my soul to bliss as I speak true!
So speaking as I think, alas, I die.'
Act 5 scene 2 - Emilia's final words as she is laid next to Desdemona, having being murdered by Iago.
90
'...O ill-starred wench,
This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven
And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my girl,
Even like thy chastity.'
Act 5 scene 2 - part of Othello's final speech which expresses his deep regret for murdering Desdemona.
91
'Whip me, ye devils,
From the possession of this heavenly sight!
Blow me about in winds, roast me in sulphur,
Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!
O Desdemon! dead, Desdemon. Dead! O, O!'
Act 5 scene 2 - part of Othello's final speech which expresses his deep regret for murdering Desdemona.
92
'...I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am...Then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely, but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe'
Act 5 scene 2 - Othello's final speech
93
```
'Set you down this,
And say besides that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turbaned Turk
Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,
I took by th' throat the circumcised dog
And smote him-thus!' (He stabs himself)
```
Act 5 scene 2 - Othello's final speech
94
'I kissed thee ere I killed thee, no way but this,
Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.'
(Kisses Desdemona, and dies)
Act 5 scene 2 - Othello's final words and actions.
