[RCL]

“Iago is the most honest character in the play.”
—W.H. Auden quoted by James Fenton, New York Review (2000)

Honest Iago’s Villanelle
After W. Shakespeare, Othello

Come on, come on; you are pictures out of doors,
Saints in injuries, devils when offended.
But then again, I think you are all whores.

It plucks out brains and all; but my muse labours
If you be fair and wise, fairness and witted.
And even so, you’re pictures out of doors.

Bells in your parlours, wild cats in kitchen chores
Or on your backs, your appetites are fed.
An honest man would call you honest whores.

You coyly hide from Venice rotten cores
And find a white that will your blackness wed,
So are proper as pictures out of doors.

Hussies you be to sell your sweetest stores,
Players in housewifery, and housewives ill-bred.
An honest man must call you honest whores.

Filth, thou liest—all villainous paramours!
You rise to play and go to work in bed.
Come on, come on; you’re mere pictures out of doors.
But then again, I know you are all whores.

S5 housewives: hussies, whores

All but a few of these words were spoken by Iago.