othello quotes

• The food that to him now is as luscious as locusts shall be to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida. She must change for youth.


  He now finds her sweet, but before long he'll think she's bitter. She'll want to exchange him for a younger man.
• I have 't.It is engendered!Hell and night Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.


  That's it. I've laid the seeds of my plan, and it will come to fruition with the help of Hell.
• Come on, come on. You are pictures out of door,Bells in your parlors, wild-cats in your kitchens.

  Come on, come on. You women are the picture of perfection out in public, but annoying as ringing bells in your parlors and like wild-cats in your kitchens.
• Saints in your injuries, devils being offended,Players in your housewifery, and hussies in your beds.


  When you've been hurt, you act like saints, but when you're offended you act like devils. You all fool around when you should be doing your housewife duties, and you are hussies in bed.
• He takes her by the palm. Ay, well said,whisper! With as little a web as this will I ensnare as great a fly as Cassio. Ay, smile upon her, do, I will gyve thee in thine own courtship. 


  [To himself] He takes her hand. Ah, yes, whisper together. This is all I need to trap Cassio like a fly in my web. Yes, smile at her. I will use your own politeness against you.
• If after every tempest come such calms,May the winds blow till they have wakened death,And let the laboring bark climb hills of seas Olympus-high, and duck again as low As hell’s from heaven!


  If this is my reward for every sea-storm, then let the winds rage and blow all they can, and let my ships have to climb up mountainous waves and drop down from their crests as if falling from heaven to hell!
• [aside]Oh, you are well tuned now, But I’ll set down the pegs that make this music,As honest as I am.


  [To himself] You are happy now, but I'll ruin your happiness, no matter how honest you may think I am.
• The thought whereof Doth, like a poisonous mineral, gnaw my inwards,And nothing can or shall content my soul Till I am evened with him, wife for wife.


  The thought of it gnaws my insides like a poison, and I won't be satisfied until I've gotten even with him—a wife for a wife.
• Reputation is an idle and most false imposition, oft got without merit and lost without deserving. 


  Reputation is an empty, stupid idea. Often people get good reputations when they don't deserve it, and people lose their reputations unfairly.
• When devils will the blackest sins put on They do suggest at first with heavenly shows As I do now.


  When devils do the worst sins, they first put on the pretence of goodness and innocence, as I am doing now.
• So will I turn her virtue into pitchAnd out of her own goodness make the net That shall enmesh them all.


  In this way I'll turn her own virtue into a sort of tar, to entrap her—and everyone else—with her own goodness.
• Men should be what they seem,Or those that be not,would they might seem none!


  Men should be what they seem to be. And if they aren't, I wish they wouldn't pretend to be anything that they're not!
• Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,Is the immediate jewel of their souls.

  IAGO

  A good reputation is the most precious jewel of a man's or a woman's soul, my dear lord.
• But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him And makes me poor indeed.


  But if someone steals my good reputation from me, then he really does make me truly poor, and steals something that doesn't even make him any richer.
• Oh, beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock The meat it feeds on


  Oh, my lord, beware of jealousy! It is a green-eyed monster that mocks whoever it eats away at.
• I know our country disposition well.In Venice they do let God see the pranksThey dare not show their husbands.


  I know the people of my country well. Women of Venice let God see the sorts of exploits they wouldn't dare let their husbands see.
• Ay, there’s the point. As, to be bold with you,Not to affect many proposèd matchesOf her own clime, complexion, and degree,Whereto we see in all things nature tends


  Yes, that's the point. At the risk of being too honest, it was against her nature not to like so many suitors of her own country, complexion, and social rank, since those who share such similarities are naturally drawn to each other. 
• Note if your lady strain his entertainment With any strong or vehement importunity. Much will be seen in that.


  Take note if your wife strongly insists that you reinstate him. That would mean a lot.
• The Moor already changes with my poison.Dangerous conceits are in their natures poisonsWhich at the first are scarce found to distaste,But with a little act upon the bloodBurn like the mines of sulfur.


  The Moor is already being changed by my poisonous advice. Dangerous suspicion are like poisons that don't even taste very bad at first, but slowly act on the blood and burn the insides before long like unquenchable sulfur.
• Thou hast set me on the rack.I swear ’tis better to be much abusedThan but to know ’t a little.


  You have tortured me. I swear it's better to be horribly betrayed and not realize it than to know a bit about it.
• O wretched fool That lov’st to make thine honesty a vice!


  Oh what a fool I am for being honest to a fault!
• Look here, Iago,All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven—'tis gone.Arise, black vengeance, from the hollow hell!


  Look, Iago, I let go of all my fond love; it's all gone. Black vengeance, come to me from the depths of hell! 
•  Swell, bosom, with thy fraught,For ’tis of aspics' tongues!


  May my chest swell up with hate, as deadly as the venom of poisonous snakes!
• Even so my bloody thoughts with violent paceShall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble loveTill that a capable and wide revengeSwallow them up.


  so my bloody thoughts only move forward with a violent current and never look back. My anger is like a tide and if it ever recedes back to love it is swallowed up again by a huge wave of revenge.
• And but my noble Moors true of mind and made of no such baseness As jealous creatures are, it were enough To put him to ill thinking.


  Losing my handkerchief would be enough to make my husband jealous, if he were less loyal and more of a jealous man.
• To lose ’t or give ’t away were such perditionAs nothing else could match.


   To lose that handkerchief or give it away would be a sin greater than any other.
• She told her, while she kept it' Twould make her amiable and subdue my father Entirely to her love,


  She told my mother that as long as she had the handkerchief, she would be desirable and my father would be helplessly in love with her,
• Heaven keep the monster from Othello’s mind!


  May heaven keep that monster away from Othello's mind!
• A hornèd man’s a monster and a beast.


  A man who's been cheated on isn't a man; he has the cuckold's horns, and so is a monstrous beast
• And his unbookish jealousy must construe Poor Cassio’s smiles, gestures, and light behavior Quite in the wrong.


  And his unrestrained jealousy will misinterpret poor Cassio's smiles, gestures, and jovial behavior
• It is a monster Begot upon itself, born on itself.


   Jealousy is a monster that gives birth to itself.
• No, my heart is turned to stone. I strike it and it hurts my hand.


   No, my heart has turned to stone. If I beat my chest, it hurts my hand. 
• Whose solid virtue The shot of accident nor dart of chanceCould neither graze nor pierce?


  The man whose solid virtue was invulnerable to anything chance or fortune could throw at it?
• This is a subtle whore,A closet, lock and key, of villainous secrets.


  Desdemona is a sneaky whore, a locked closet full of villainous secrets.
• Heaven stops the nose at it and the moon winks, The bawdy wind that kisses all it meets Is hushed within the hollow mine of earth And will not hear ’t. 


  Heaven and the moon itself, the wind and the depths of the earth all turn away and don't want to hear about it.
• If Cassio do remain He hath a daily beauty in his life That makes me ugly.


  If Cassio survives, his beauty every day makes me seem ugly by comparison.
• And mak’st me call what I intend to do A murder, which I thought a sacrifice!


  You turn my heart to stone and make me call what I intend to do a murder, instead of a sacrifice!
• She was false as water.


  She was as unfaithful as water is inconstant.
• Let heaven and men and devils, let them all,All, all cry shame against me, yet I’ll speak.


   I don't care if all angels and devils and humans cry out that I am shameful for disobeying my husband, I will still speak out.
• Blow me about in winds, roast me in sulfur,Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!—Oh, Desdemona! Desdemona! dead! Oh! Oh!


  Blow me around in winds, burn me in sulfur flames, wash me in gulfs of liquid fire! Oh, Desdemona! Desdemona! Dead! Oh! Oh!