Favorite Quote
Hi! Since you asked, and I like Act III, Scene II of Othello, where Desdemona and Emilia discuss whether they would cheat on their husbands and why. I like Emilia’s reasoning that, if she had the whole world after doing something, it wouldn’t matter if the thing were wrong. I especially love Emilia’s last speech — “But I do think it is their husbands’ faults If wives do fall: say that they slack their duties, And pour our treasures into foreign laps, Or else break out in peevish jealousies, Throwing restraint upon us; or say they strike us, Or scant our former having in despite; Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace, Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know Their wives have sense like them: they see and smell And have their palates both for sweet and sour, As husbands have. What is it that they do When they change us for others? Is it sport? I think it is: and doth affection breed it? I think it doth: is’t frailty that thus errs? It is so too: and have not we affections, Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have? Then let them use us well: else let them know, The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.” By 1600 standards, that’s almost proto-feminist in its declaration that the same excuses men use are just as appropriate coming from women. -Elisabeth
3 years ago • Notes