OTHELLO WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
“O BEWARE, MY LORD, OF JEALOUSY.” STUDENT WORK BOOK
Aim: to build skills in critical autonomy by focusing on quotations from the play.
Task: As you reread the play, focus on the significant quotations in this booklet and take meaningful notes on them. You could comment on character, theme, imagery or the purpose of that line in the play.
This booklet is not a series of comprehension questions. It is not designed just to keep you busy; it helps you think.
Top Tips for Reading Shakespeare o Read to the punctuation, not the ends of the lines. Punctuation makes meanings clearer. o Inversion is common in Shakespeare so rearrange the words into a natural speaking order.
 subject – verb – object
 the verb is the most important part of the sentence: find it o Read with intonation, not in a monotone. Try to look for the actors’ inflexions. o Thou and thee mean “you” and thy and thine mean “your.” o Expect a great deal of metaphorical language. No CGI or SFX in Shakespeare’s day. He used IGI. o Consider the purpose of each scene and speech. The most common purposes are:
 to advance the plot, often by foreshadowing
 to build suspense (a plot function)
 to illustrate a character trait
 to develop a theme
 to describe the setting
So, write meaningful notes in the spaces provided to explain the significance of the given quotation. The first few have been done for you. The “//” represent the start of a new line in the play script.
Act I, scene i. Venice, a street.
Iago: “Abhor me … Despise me.”
Iago tells the audience how to respond to him. We are supposed to dislike Iago. These lines are crucial in characterising him as the villain and yet are subtle because of Iago’s irony here: audience is not sure whether to believe him. This is possibly the only time he is truthful.
Iago: “I follow him to serve my turn upon him.” and “In following him, I follow but myself.”
This illustrates Iago’s deceit. He will appear to be loyal to Othello but all the time will be plotting his revenge for being passed over for promotion in favour of Cassio. Theme: appearance and reality.
Iago: “I am not what I am.”
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Iago: “Yet, for necessity of present life // I must show out a flag and sign of love // Which is indeed but sign.”
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Act I, scene ii. Venice, another street.
Iago: “But I pray you, sir, // Are you fast married?”
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Othello: “I must be found: // My parts, my title and my perfect soul // shall manifest me rightly.”
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Othello: “Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.”
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Act I, scene iii. Venice, in the Duke’s court.
Duke: “Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you // against the general enemy Ottoman.”
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Othello: “Rude am I in my speech, // and little blest with the soft phrase of peace.”
(Make mention of the irony in Othello’s words.)
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Othello: “…the battles, sieges, fortunes, // That I have passed.”
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Othello: “She loved me for the dangers I had passed; // And I loved her that she did pity them. // This is the only witchcraft I have used.”
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Desdemona: “My noble father … I am hitherto your daughter: but here’s my husband.”
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Othello: “…my Ancient; // a man he is of honesty and trust.”
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Duke: “If virtue no delighted beauty lack, // Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.”
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Brabantio: “Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see: // She has deceived her father and may thee.”
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Othello: “My life upon her faith! - Honest Iago, // My Desdemona must I leave to thee.”
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Iago: “Virtue! A fig! ‘tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. // Our bodies are gardens; to the which our wills are // gardeners.”
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Iago: “…put money in thy purse.”
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Iago: “If thou canst cuckold him, thou dost thyself a pleasure, // me a sport.”
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Iago: “I hate the Moor. // And it is thought abroad that ‘twixt my sheets // He’s done my office: I know not if’t be true; // but I for mere suspicion in that kind, // will do as if for surety.”
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Iago: ”I have it. It is engendered: Hell and night // must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light.”
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Act II, scene i. Cyprus. Every scene from now on is set in Cyprus.
Cassio: “…he hath achieved a maid // that paragons description and wild fame; // One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens.”
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Iago: “…well said, whisper: with as little a web as this will I ensnare as great a fly as Cassio.”
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Iago (aside): “O, you are well tuned now! // but I’ll set down the pegs that make this music // As honest as
I am.”
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Iago: “…nothing can or shall content my soul // Till I am evened with him wife for wife. // Or failing so, yet that I put the Moor // at least into a jealousy so strong // That judgement cannot cure.”
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Act II, scene ii
Othello announces a party. The purpose of this tiny scene was most likely to give the actors a bit more time to change costume before the next scene, the party scene. It’s a biggie. Look out. Woah!
Act II, scene iii
Othello: “Now by heaven // My blood begins my safer guides to rule.”
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Cassio: “Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself and what remains is bestial.”
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Iago: “Divinity of hell! // When devils will the blackest sins put on // They do suggest at first with heavenly shows // As I do now.”
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Iago: “I’ll pour this pestilence into his [Othello’s] ear: // That she repeals him for her body’s lust.”
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Iago: “So will I turn her virtue into pitch // And out of her own goodness make the net // That shall enmesh them all.”
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Act III, scene i
Emilia: “She [Desdemona] speaks for you stoutly.”
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Act III, scene ii
In this minute scene, Othello sends word to Venice. Why might Shakespeare have included this scene which does not advance the plot any? Could it be to characterise Othello as being loyal to the Venetian state and therefore still ruled by reason, despite what he said in II, iii: “My blood begins my safer guides to rule.”
Act III, scene iii
This is the climax of the play and arguably the most important scenes.
Just note how many times Iago calls Othello “my lord” in this scene.
Desdemona: “Therefore be merry, Cassio; // Thy solicitor shall rather die // than give thy cause away.”
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Iago: “Ha! I like not that.” then ”Nothing, my lord; or if – I know not what.”
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Iago: “Cassio, my lord? No, sure I cannot think it // That he would steal away so guilty-like, // Seeing you coming.”
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Othello: “Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul // But I do love thee; and when I love thee not, //
Chaos is come again.”
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Othello: “As if there were some monster in his [Iago’s] thought // Too hideous to be shown.”
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Othello: “If thou dost love me, // show me thy thought.”
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Othello: “I know thou’rt full of love and honesty, // And weigh’st thy words before thou giv’st them breath.”
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Iago: “Men should be what they seem; // Or those that be not, would they might seem none.”
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Iago: “Who steals my purse steals trash … But he that robs me of my good name // Robs me of that which enriches not him // And makes me poor indeed.”
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Iago: “O beware, my lord, of jealousy: // It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock // The meat it feeds on.”
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Iago: “Look to your wife. Observe her well with Cassio; // Wear your eye thus: not jealous, nor secure.”
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Othello: “If she be false, O then heaven mocks itself; // I’ll not believe it.”
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Emilia: “This [handkerchief] was her first remembrance from the Moor. // My wayward husband hath a hundred times // Woo’d me to steal it; … What he will do with it, heaven knows, not I.”
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Iago: “Trifles light as air // Are to the jealous confirmations strong // as proofs of holy writ.”
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Othello: “Arise black vengeance from thy hollow cell!”
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Othello: “Within these three days, let me hear thee say // That Cassio’s not alive.” and “I will withdraw //
To furnish me with some swift means of death // for the fair devil. Now art thou my lieutenant.”
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Act III, scene iv
Desdemona: “…my noble Moor // Is true of mind and made of no such baseness // As jealous creatures are.”
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Othello: “There’s magic in the web of it [the handkerchief].”
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Desdemona: “My lord is not my lord; nor should I know him.”
Consider how Othello’s language / vocabulary is changing to mirror that of Iago’s from this scene onwards.
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Desdemona: “Something … from Venice, or some unhatch’d practice … // hath puddled his clear spirit.”
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Emilia: “’[Jealousy] is a monster // Begot upon itself, born of itself.”
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Act IV, scene i
Iago: “Work on, // My medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught.”
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Othello: “A horned man’s a monster and a beast.”
There’s a double meaning in that.
(And that is a quotation from another Shakespeare play. Prize if you work out which play.)
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Iago: “As he shall smile, Othello shall go mad.”
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Othello: “Ay, let her rot and perish, and be damned tonight, for she shall not live.”
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Othello: “O, well-painted passion.”
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Lodovico: “Is this the nature // Whom passion could not shake?”
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Act IV, scene ii
Othello: “Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell.”
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Emilia: “I will be hanged if some eternal villain, // Some busy and insinuating rogue, // Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office, // Have not devised this slander.”
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Desdemona: “O good Iago / What shall I do to win my lord again?”
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Roderigo: “…your words and performances are no kin together.”
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Act IV, scene iii
Emilia: “Is it sport?”
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Act V, scene 1
Iago: “Every way makes my gain.”
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Othello: “O brave Iago, honest and just, // That hast such noble sense of thy friend’s wrong! // Thou teachest me.”
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Iago: “This is the night // That either makes me or fordoes me quite.”
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Act V, scene ii
Othello: “Put out the light, and then put out the light.”
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Othello: “I will kill thee // And love thee after.”
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Othello: “Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse // Of sun and moon.”
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Emilia: “My husband?” Note that she repeats this several times. Why?
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Othello: “Roast me in sulphur! // Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!”
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Othello: “I look down towards his feet; but that’s a fable. // If thou be’st a devil, I cannot kill thee.”
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Iago: “Demand me nothing. What you know, you know. // From this time forth, I never will speak a word.”
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Othello: “Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, // Nor aught set down in malice. Then must you speak
// of one who loved not wisely but too well; // Of one not easily jealous but, being wrought, // Perplexed in th’extreme…”
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