Author: Robert Walker

“I HATE THE MOOR”

– IAGO IN OTHELLO BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (ACT 1, SCENE 3)

Iago is such a terrifying character because he revels in what he is doing. The motivating reasons can be analysed: broken pride, a sense of betrayal, jealousy, ambition, desire for power over others – or even unrequited love turned sour, if you want to read it that way. It’s true that villains often fool themselves into believing their actions are justified, or the fault of fate or caused by others; but the main factor with Iago is that he knows he is the villain and sadistically enjoys the suffering he causes. His motivation is the full embracing of enmity.

IAGO:

I hate the Moor: 
And it is thought abroad, that ‘twixt my sheets 
He has done my office: I know not if’t be true; 
But I, for mere suspicion in that kind, 
Will do as if for surety. He holds me well; 
The better shall my purpose work on him. 
Cassio’s a proper man: let me see now: 
To get his place and to plume up my will 
In double knavery—How, how? Let’s see:— 
After some time, to abuse Othello’s ear 
That he is too familiar with his wife. 
He hath a person and a smooth dispose 
To be suspected, framed to make women false. 
The Moor is of a free and open nature, 
That thinks men honest that but seem to be so, 
And will as tenderly be led by the nose 
As asses are. 
I have’t. It is engender’d. Hell and night 
Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light.

“FRIENDS, ROMANS, COUNTRYMEN”

– ANTONY IN JULIUS CAESAR BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (ACT 3, SCENE 2)

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest–
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men–
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once, not without cause:
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?
O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.