monologue

At the start of the year i decided to perform a monologue from Othello, it was Iago’s monologue from Act 1 scene 3 “virtue? A fig!…”

I started to learn a monologue from Richard III later on in the year, but I couldn’t get my head around it, so when it came time for us to perform our Shakespearean monologues I decided to go once again with Iago’s monologue to see how much I improved over these last few months.

“Virtue? A fig! ‘Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners. So that if we will plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with many—either to have it sterile with idleness, or manured with industry—why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills. If the balance of our lives had not one scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us to most prepost’rous conclusions. But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts. Whereof I take this that you call love to be a sect or scion.”