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Now this is achieved
obviously through manipulation,

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but it's a very interesting way
that this character does so.

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Now Iago says,

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'Sblood, but you will not hear me.

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Couple of things to note.

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First, that 'Sblood is
a particularly grating piece of profanity,

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especially
for Elizabethan audiences of that time.

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The reason I point that out is

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because this is the first thing
that we hear of Iago.

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And so we are immediately
kind of having cogs turning in our head,

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reminding us that
this is a morally reprehensible character.

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And Shakespeare achieves that
by opening up with profanity.

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Essentially, Iago manages
to not even apologize to Rodrigo,

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but flip the dynamic
on its head by instead saying that,

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No, you don't understand.

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I hate Othello just as much as you do.

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So I would never kind of mess you
over in this kind of way.

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Now he goes on to explain
why he hates Othello so much

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in lines, let's say around 10 to 20.

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I want to note here that
in line 11, he says,

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I know my price.

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I am worth no worse a place.

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What he's referring to here is

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that the fact that
he should have gotten the promotion.

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He knows his price.

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Now the lexical choice of price
here is very significant

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because it suggests a kind of perspective

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that is
very calculating and very rational.

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And there is
one that aligns up with Iago, right?

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He's constantly weighing up these options
throughout the course of this play.

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And he is naturally a very calculated
and manipulative character.

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And we get that through language.

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Anyway, he goes on and on to explain
how much he doesn't like Cassio.

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And he describes this man as
being a great arithmetician.

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So good with numbers.

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A Florentine, which we discussed
a couple of videos ago just to recap.

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A Florentine was a person
who was in a city very similar to Venice,

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but one that was very well read,
a big academic, etc.

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A fellow almost damned in a fair wife
that never set a squadron in the field.

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Two things to note here.

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Number one,
a fellow almost damned in a fair wife

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tells us about Iago's perspective on love.

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That is, what he's saying is that Cassio
has a wife that is too pretty for him.

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This is a very reductive perspective

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and we'll kind of build on this
throughout the course of the play.

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But Iago doesn't seem to have any sort of
real allegiance or love for anybody else.