In the scene Roderigo and Iago are alone. Roderigo is feeling sad at the fact that Desdemona the woman he loves is married to someone else kills him. Iago tells roderigo to go to sleep, Roderigo then says he wants to drown himself, Iago tells him he is being silly. Iago’s “Virtue! a fig!” speech is his way of giving some advice to Roderigo. Iago begins with “Virtue! a fig! ‘tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to which our wills are our gardeners” meaning that what roderigo is saying is ridiculous he need to stop being down on himself because we decide who we are and our wills are what control us. He goes on to say “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”. In other words we are like gardeners if you plant one type of herb instead of filling your garden with more variety your garden will either not be useful or will be extremely beneficial. Iago continues with “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 preposterous conclusions”. This simply means If we did not have realistic thoughts to balance our desires our natural compulsions would take over and leave us in crazy situations. He continues explaining that we can control this natural impulses “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.”. He says his opinion of love is that it is just a product of lust.
Iago claims that love is “merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the will.” Basically meaning that love is just a form of love. He says “Come, be a man. Drown thyself? Drown cats and blind puppies!”. Iago is telling Roderigo to man up and that it would be stupid to drown himself. “I say, put money in thy purse. It cannot be that Desdemona should long continue her love to the moor.” He is saying to win Desdemona over he needs to have a lot of money.
In Conclusion, Iago makes it seem as though he has good intentions giving advice to Roderigo to help him man up and win Desdemona over, But this is all just apart of his evil plan. Iago says “Put money in thy purse” multiple times within his speech. Roderigo has paid iago for his help with Desdemona but has gotten no where. This was just a way to put roderigo out of his money.
In the scene Roderigo and Iago are alone. Roderigo is feeling sad at the fact that Desdemona the woman he loves is married to someone else kills him. Iago tells roderigo to go to sleep, Roderigo then says he wants to drown himself, Iago tells him he is being silly. Iago’s “Virtue! a fig!” speech is his way of giving some advice to Roderigo. Iago begins with “Virtue! a fig! ‘tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to which our wills are our gardeners” meaning that what roderigo is saying is ridiculous he need to stop being down on himself because we decide who we are and our wills are what control us. He goes on to say “So that if we will plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or
