...rhetoric in the very first scene of the play: Zounds, sir, you are robb'd, for shame put on your gown, Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul;...very now, an old black ram Is tupping your white ewe. . . . (1.1.86-89) lago's words neatly transform what is an act of elopement into an imagined cuckoldry;...

...at once on the animal and on the diabolic prejudices in his attempts to madden Desdemona's father: 'Even now, very now, an old black ram / Is tupping your white ewe . . . the devil will make a grandsire of you . . . you'll have your daughter cover'd with a Barbary...

...it is lago's bounding zest which inflames Brabanzio against his daughter's secret match: Even now, now, very now, an old black ram Is tupping your white ewe. (Ii88) Roderigo lacks the furious excitement felt by lago when turning tenderness to grossness: 'you'll...

...BRABANTIO Why, wherefore ask you this ? IAGO Zounds, sir, you're robbed ; for shame, put on your gown; Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul. Even now, now, very now, an old black ram Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise, •*> Awake the snorting citizens...

...images intended to shock Brabantio and rouse hatred for Othello. lago tells Brabantio that "Even now, now, very now, an old black ram / Is tupping your white ewe." The repetition of the word now stresses the immediacy of the action which lago intends in order to...

...Elizabethan era. lago taunted Brabantio (Othello, I, i, lines 87-92, 110-13) with the thought that "Even now, now, very now, an old black ram / Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, Arise! / . . . the devil will make a grandsire of you. / . . . you'll / have your daughter covered...

...Brabantio Why, wherefore ask you this? lago Zounds, sir, you're robbed. For shame, put on your gown; 95 Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul. Even now, now, very now, an old black ram Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise, Awake the snoring citizens...

...1600 there were symptoms of change. Compare Polonius's speech in (6a) with lago's in (7): 7 Even now, now, very now, an old black ram Is tupping your white ewe (Othello li87-8) Brabantio into action by making him imagine - as vividly as if he were seeing it -...

...ihren Vater verlassen hat. Er schreckt dabei nicht vor einer drastischdiffamierenden Sprache zurück: „Even now, very now, an old black ram/ Is tupping your white ewe" (I, 1, 88-89; „Eben jetzt, jetzt, gerade jetzt, bespringt ein alter schwarzer Widder Euer weißes...

...also loves his daughter. Brabanzio's tormentors depict his loss in graphic sexual terms: 'Even now, now, very now, an old black ram | Is tupping your white ewe' (ii88-9); 'your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs' (11719). The animal...