ENG 2DP: Othello
PRACTICE FREE RESPONSE QUESTION #3
The passages below are spoken by Othello at two distinct time periods in the play. The
first speech is early in the play when Othello is speaking to Brabantio, and the second
conversation is after he has been manipulated by Iago. Read the passages carefully
and then write a well-organized essay in which you analyze Othello’s use of language
and what it contributes to your understanding of his character. In your essay consider
such things as diction, syntax, tone, and detail.
Do not merely summarize and contrast the passages.
Passage #1
OTHELLO: Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,
My very noble and approved good masters,
That I have ta’en away this old man’s daughter,
It is most true; true, I have married her;
The very head and front of my offending
Hath this extent, no more. Rude1 am I in my speech,
And little bless’d 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,
And little of this great world can I speak,
More than pertains to feats of broil and battle;
And therefore little shall I grace my cause
In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious
patience, I will a round unvarnish’d2 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 I, Scene III, 87 – 105)
1
unpolished
plain 3 withdrawal 4 purification 5 i.e.,
people’s hearts
once
in
marriage; now
their
hands
offer
up
affection (but less flattering than the terms Othello used earlier) 7 cold
2
gave
their
away
their
hands
hearts too easily 6 term of
ENG 2DP: Othello
Passage #2
DESD: Well, my good lord.
OTHELLO: Give me your hand: this hand is moist, my lady.
DESD: It yet hath felt no age nor known no sorrow:
OTHELLO: This argues fruitfulness and liberal heart;
Hot, hot, and moist. This hand of yours requires
A sequester3 from liberty, fasting and
prayer, Much castigation,4 exercise
devout,
For here’s a young and sweating
devil here That commonly rebels.
‘Tis a good hand, A frank one.
DESD: You may, indeed, say so;
For ‘twas that hand that gave away my heart.
OTHELLO: A liberal hand. The hearts of old gave
hands; But our new heraldry is hands, not hearts.5
DESD: I cannot speak of this. Come now, your promise.
OTHELLO: What promise, chuck?6
DESD: have sent to bid Cassio come speak with you.
OTHELLO: I have a salt and sorry rheum7
offends me; Lend me thy handkerchief.
DESD: Here, my lord.
OTHELLO: That which I gave you.
DESD: I have it not about me.
OTHELLO: Not?
DESD: No, faith, my lord.
OTHELLO: That is a fault. That handkerchief
Did an Egyptian to my mother give;
She was a charmer, and could almost read
The thoughts of people. She told her, while she kept it,
‘Twould make her amiable and subdue my father
Entirely to her love, but if she lost it
Or made gift of it, my father’s eye
Should hold her loathed and his spirits should hunt
After new fancies. She dying gave it me,
And bid me, when my fate would have me wive,
To give it her. I did so, and take heed on’t;
Make it a darling like your precious
eye; To lose’t or give’t away were
such perdition3As nothing else
could match.
DESD: Is’t possible?
OTHELLO: ‘Tis true: there’s magic in the web
of it. A sibyl,9 that had number’d in the
world
The sun to course two hundred compasses,
In her prophetic fury sew’d the work;
3
ruin 9 prophetess, fortune-teller
ENG 2DP: Othello
The worms were hallow’d that did breed the
silk, And it was dyed in mummy which the
skilful Conserved of maidens’ hearts.
DESD: Indeed! is’t true?
OTHELLO: Most veritable; therefore look to’t well.
DESD: Then would to God that I had never seen’t!
OTHELLO: Ha! wherefore?
DESD: Why do you speak so startingly and rash?
OTHELLO: Is’t lost? is’t gone? speak, is
it out o’ the way?
DESD: Heaven bless us!
OTHELLO: Say you?
DESD: It is not lost; but what an if it were?
OTHELLO: How!
DESD: I say, it is not lost.
OTHELLO: Fetch’t, let me see’t.
DESD: Why, so I can, sir, but I will not now.
This is a trick to put me from my suit:
Pray you, let Cassio be received again.
OTHELLO: Fetch me the handkerchief: my mind misgives.
DESD: Come, come; You’ll never meet a more sufficient man.
OTHELLO: The handkerchief!
DESD: I pray, talk me of Cassio.
OTHELLO: The handkerchief!
DESD: A man that all his time
Hath founded his good fortunes on
your love, Shared dangers with you—
OTHELLO: The handkerchief!
DESD: In sooth, you are to blame.
OTHELLO: Away!
(Act III, Scene IV, 36 – 107)