Devine Othello Study Quotes, English History, Poetry Terms

“Preferment goes by letter and affection,/ And not by old gradation, where each second/ Stood heir to th’ first.” Iago to Roderigo (only way to move up in life is to kiss up to someone)
“We cannot all be masters, nor all masters/ Cannot be truly followed.” Iago to Roderigo (only some people can be leaders, but some leaders aren’t worthy to have followers)
“You shall mark/ Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave/ That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,/ Wears out his time, mush like his master’s ass,/ For naught but provender; and when he’s old, cashiered” Iago to Roderigo (kiss-ass; a servant works his whole life to serve his master, but when he grow old he’s tossed away without a thought)
“Heaven is my judage, not I for love and duty,/ But seeming so, for my peculiar end;/ For when my outward action doth demonstrate/ The native act and figure of my heart/ In compliment extern, ’tis not long after/ But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve/ For daws to peck at; I am not what I am.” Iago to Roderigo (allusion to Jesus in the Old Testament “I am who I am;” Iago is the devil)
“I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.” Iago to Brabantio (Desdemona and Othello are doing the nasty in the ‘devil’s position’)
“Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters’ minds/ But what you see them act, Is there not charms/ By which the property of youth and maidhood/ May be abused?” Brabantio to Roderigo (women are deceitful; Othello seduced Desdemona with magic)
“Let him do his spite. My services which I have done the signiory/ Shall out-tongue his complaints.” Othello to Iago (since Othello is such an important war hero, his heroic deeds speak for him and his reputation)
“Damned as thou art, thou hast enchanted her!/ For I’ll refer me to all things of sense,/ If she in chains of magic were not bound,/ Whether a maid so tender, fair, and happy,/ So opposite to marriage that she shunned/ The wealthy curled darlings of our nation,/ Would ever have t’ incur a general mock,/ Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom/ Of such a thing as thou – to fear, not to delight.” Brabantio to Othello (Othello has clearly enchanted Desdemona because a black thing such as him should never have married her under normal means)
“Rude am I in speech,/ And little blessed with the soft phrase of peace:/ For since these arms of mine had seven years’ pith/ Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used/ Their dearest action in the tented field;” Othello to Brabantio (basically, “I’m not a great speaker because I’ve been at war” but he’s doing a good job)
“She loved me for the danger I had passed,/ And I loved her that she did pity them./ This only is the witchcraft I have used.” Othello to Duke/Court (Desdemona fell in love with Othello’s war stories not necessarily Othello himself AKA OTHELLO HAS NO CLUE WTF LOVE IS)
“Look at her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see: She has deceived her father, and my thee.” Brabantio to Othello (Desdemona fooled her own father, so she may fool her husband too)
“Since I could distinguish betwixt a benefit and an injury, I never found man that knew how to love himself.” Iago to Roderigo (everybody has insecurities so Iago picks a weak point and gets in the person’s head where they’re most vulnerable)
“If the balance of our lives had not one scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us to most preposterous conclusions.” Iago to Roderigo (we are in control of our own lives but most things we can’t control)
“I have’t! It is engendered! Hell and night/ Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light.” Iago to audience (Iago’s plan is basically the equivalent of the devil’s child; allusion to Jesus being the light of the world and book of revelation)
“You are pictures out of doors. Bells in your parlors, wildcats in your kitchen, saints in you injuries, devils being offended, players in your housewifery, and housewives in your beds.” Iago to Desdemona and Emilia (all women are whores and Iago is misogynistic af)
“Nay, it is true, or else I am the Turk: You rise to play, and go to bed to work.” Iago to Emilia (all women wake up to flirt and go to bed to have sex)
“But my Muse labors, and thus she is delivered: if she be fair and wise, fairness and wit–the one’s for use, the other useth it.” Iago to Desdemona (women use their looks to get what they want)
“She never yet was foolish that was fair, for even her folly helped her to an heir.” Iago to Emilia (no matter what kind of woman she is, she’s still a *****)
“Come, my dear love. The purchase made, the fruits are to ensue; That profit’s yet to come ‘tween me and you. — Good night.” Othello to Desdemona (Othello wants to consummate the marriage)
“Not to-night, good Iago. I have very poor and unhappy brains for drinking. I could well wish courtesy would invent come other custom of entertainment.” Cassio to Iago (Cassio’s a light weight and is already at his limit)
“I fear the trust Othello puts him in, On some odd time of his infirmity, will shake this island.” Iago to Montano (Iago is falsely slamming Othello’s trust in Cassio to give Montano a bad image of the lieutenant)
“Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.” Cassio to Iago (reputation is the only thing that matters to Cassio and society)
“Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit and lost without deserving, You have lost no reputation at all unless you repute yourself such a loser.” Iago to Cassio (reputation is gained by lying but brought down without reason; reputation is only lost if you believe it is)
“When devils will the blackest sins put on, they do suggest as first with heavenly shows, as I do now.” Iago to audience (the devil disguises as an angel; aka Iago disguises himself as ‘honest Iago’ to other characters)
“Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul/ But I do love thee! and when I love thee not,/ Chaos is com again.” Othello to Desdemona (when he and Desdemona aren’t in love, everything else will fall into chaos; Iago will catch Othello’s soul)
“My lord, you know I love you.” Iago to Othello (Iago is pulling a Judas and betraying Othello)
“Men should be what they seem; or those that be not, would they might seem none!” Iago to Othello (men should be truthful in image; ironic because Iago is anything but truthful about himself)
“Good name in man and woman, dear my lord. Is the immediate jewel of their souls. Who steals mu purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing; ‘Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands; But he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him and makes me poor indeed.” Iago to Othello (opposite of what Iago to said to Cassio about others’ opinions; before Iago said others’ opinions don’t matter but now he’s saying they do)
“Is it the green-eyed monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on.” Iago to Othello (jealousy is a monster that eats itself)
“Poor and content is rich, and rich enough;/ But riches fineless is as poor as winter/ To him that ever fears he shall be poor.” Iago to Othello (if you’re rich but worried about losing the fortune, you’re the equivalent of poor; if you’re poor but content, then you’re the equivalent of rich)
“Think’st thou I’Id make a life of jealousy,/ To follow still the changes of the moon/ With fresh suspicions?” Othello to Iago (aka “Do you really think I’m jealous? Because I’m definitely not.”
“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. Othello to Iago (Othello can’t get jealous because Desdemona chose him and he looks down on people who doubt themselves)
“In Venice they do let God see the pranks they dare not show their husbands; their best conscience is not to leave’t undone, but keep’t unknown.” Iago to Othello (Venetian women, aka like Desdemona, let God see their habits of sleeping around but not their husbands)
“Why did I marry? This honest creature doubtless sees and knows more, much more, than he unfolds.” Othello to Iago (FATAL DECISION; Othello believes Iago that Desdemona deceived him)
sonnet a 14 line poem with a formal rhyme scheme (typically having ten syllables per line aka iambic pentameter)
Petrarchan 1 octave (abba abba) 1 sestet (cdecde)
Elizabethan 3 quatrains (abab cdcd efef) 1 couplet (gg)
verse a single metrical line in a poetic composition
stanza a group of lines of verse, usually set off from other groups by a space (the stanzas of a poem often have the same internal pattern of rhymes)
prose written or spoken language in its ordinary form (without metrical structure)
Henry VIII six wives’ fates divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived
language Shakespeare wrote in early modern English