Roderigo cupped his hands around his mouth. ‘Do it loudly and urgently, as though the house were on fire.’ ‘This is her father’s house,’ said Roderigo. They were outside one of the biggest houses in Venice, a smart, well cared for mansion. You can take the shine off his pleasure.’ Shout his name out in the streets get her relatives worked up, let the fertile climate he’s enjoying be plagued with flies. ‘Let them disturb him and pursue him and spoil his pleasure. ‘What’s the thick-lips got that he can get away with this?’ he said. If my outward actions were a true reflection of what’s in my heart then I might as well wear my heart on the outside for jackdaws to peck at. As heaven is my judge I don’t do it for love and duty – but only seem to be doing that and it’s for my own special benefit. As sure as you are Roderigo, if I were the Moor I would not want to be Iago. ‘But there are others who cultivate the illusion of duty while their minds are firmly on themselves. They only pretend to be serving their masters, do well out of it, and when they have lined their pockets, they’ve done themselves a favour. Iago began walking again and Roderigo followed. We can’t all be masters and not all masters can be followed. You see it all the time – dutiful, knee-crooking servants who seem to love their own humiliating slavery and go through life like donkeys for nothing more than their food. I work for him so that I can get my own back. ‘Judge for yourself whether I have any reason to love the Moor.’ It’s the curse of military service – promotion goes by favouritism and not by seniority, where you work yourself up step by step.’ Iago took Roderigo’s arm and stopped him. ‘By heaven, I would rather be his hangman!’ This clerk is about to become his Lieutenant and I – for God’s sake! – his Moorship’s Ensign.’ And I, who have proved myself to him at Rhodes, at Cyprus, and on other battlefields both Christian and heathen, have to be cut off and put down.

All talk and no action is the sum total of his soldiership. Our Venetian consuls in their togues can talk war with as much authority as he can. But he sweeps them aside with a bombastic beating about the bush, with a speech horribly stuffed with military language, and in conclusion, cuts the ground from under their feet.’ Putting on a deep pompous voice, Iago continued: ‘Indeed,’ says he, ‘I have already chosen my officer.’ And what was he? Believe it or not, a great theorist, one Michael Cassio, a Florentine, a fellow who’s never put a squad in the battlefield – who knows as much about war as a spinster does, apart from the theory of it that you can get from books. I swear I know my value – I’m worth no less a rank. ‘Three of our greatest city dignitaries approached him with a petition to make me his Lieutenant.

‘You told me you hated him,’ said Roderigo petulantly. They walked along a dark canalside alley, passing beneath the stone arches that supported the wealthy houses in that part of Venice. ‘You won’t even listen! If I even imagined this then hate me.’ ‘Rubbish! I take it very unkindly that you, Iago, who have had the use of my purse as though its strings were your own, knew this was going on.’ He interrupted Iago’s smooth explanation in mid flow. Each Shakespeare’s play name links to a range of resources about each play: Character summaries, plot outlines, example essays and famous quotes, soliloquies and monologues: All’s Well That Ends Well Antony and Cleopatra As You Like It The Comedy of Errors Coriolanus Cymbeline Hamlet Henry IV Part 1 Henry IV Part 2 Henry VIII Henry VI Part 1 Henry VI Part 2 Henry VI Part 3 Henry V Julius Caesar King John King Lear Loves Labour’s Lost Macbeth Measure for Measure The Merchant of Venice The Merry Wives of Windsor A Midsummer Night’s Dream Much Ado About Nothing Othello Pericles Richard II Richard III Romeo & Juliet The Taming of the Shrew The Tempest Timon of Athens Titus Andronicus Troilus & Cressida Twelfth Night The Two Gentlemen of Verona The Winter’s Tale This list of Shakespeare plays brings together all 38 plays in alphabetical order. Plays It is believed that Shakespeare wrote 38 plays in total between 15.

Othello full text