Iago reveals his scheme to the audience, reveling in how he will use Desdemona's goodness as the very instrument of her destruction. He delights in the irony that his villainous advice appears wholesome on the surface.
Iago has just engineered Cassio's drunken brawl on watch in Cyprus, leading to Cassio's dismissal as Othello's lieutenant. Cassio has departed in shame, having been advised by Iago to seek Desdemona's intercession with Othello — advice that is itself the next stage of the trap. The stage clears and Iago is alone. This is the second of his soliloquies (the first ended Act 1) and the speech where his plot crystallises into its final shape. He will name the device he is about to use — Desdemona's good nature, working on her behalf for Cassio, will be twisted into evidence of an affair. Within fifty lines Roderigo will enter battered and complaining, Iago will dispatch him, and the engine of the tragedy will be running at full speed.
Iago wants the audience to admire him, but unlike Edmund he also wants to think clearly. The opening question ("And what's he then that says I play the villain?") is genuine — he is interrogating his own role, finding it intellectually satisfying. He needs the audience because there is no one in his world he can show his cleverness to without destroying his cover. Psychologically he is functioning at the high adrenal pleasure of an addict mid-binge. His advice to Cassio was technically good advice; the perversion is that he is going to weaponise its execution. The speech reveals how his mind works: by twisting virtue into the instrument of destruction. "So will I turn her virtue into pitch" is the structural principle of everything he does. He is enjoying himself enormously.
Iago needs the audience individually, not collectively. Pick people. Make eye contact. This is not internal monologue; it is conspiracy. The most common pitfall is playing him as already evil — the famous "motiveless malignity" reading — which produces a one-note performance. Iago thinks of himself as honest, clever, justified, and even helpful. Play the logic. The "Divinity of hell!" line is a comic peak; Iago has just heard himself argue that he is divine and is enjoying his own blasphemy. Mark the structural turn at "How am I then a villain / To counsel Cassio…?" — this is where he sells his case to us. The closing image of Desdemona's virtue as pitch ensnaring everyone is the moment he commits aesthetically to the plan; it should feel like the final brushstroke on a painting he has been composing. Tempo: alive, conversational, with sudden patches of relish on particular images. Don't whisper the whole thing; Iago in soliloquy is more public than people often play him — Olivier and McKellen both treated these speeches almost as music-hall confidences. The trochees ("Knavery's plain face is never seen, till us'd") are aphoristic; serve them as such.
Excellent and slightly less over-used than the Henry V speeches. Strong for MFA programs, classical theatre auditions, and any room that wants to see intelligence married to verse. It shows direct address technique, comic timing within tragedy, the ability to take an audience into your confidence, and a sustained logical argument that turns. Useful for actors who naturally read as charming or trustworthy — Iago casting often goes to actors whose surface contradicts the role. Less useful if you naturally read as menacing, because the speech will be one-dimensional. Generally cast for actors in their thirties or older. Pair with something vulnerable or hot-blooded for contrast — Iago is cold even when delighted, and a panel will want to see other temperatures. Cut the section from the opening question through "When devils will the blackest sins put on" for a strong twenty-line excerpt.
And what's he then that says I play the villain?
When this advice is free I give and honest,
Probal to thinking and indeed the course
To win the Moor again? For 'tis most easy
The inclining Desdemona to subdue
In any honest suit: she's framed as fruitful
As the free elements. And then for her
To win the Moor—were't to renounce his baptism,
All seals and symbols of redeemed sin,
His soul is so enfetter'd to her love,
That she may make, unmake, do what she list,
Even as her appetite shall play the god
With his weak function. How am I then a villain
To counsel Cassio to this parallel course,
Directly to his good? Divinity of hell!
When devils will the blackest sins put on,
They do suggest at first with heavenly shows,
As I do now: for whiles this honest fool
Plies Desdemona to repair his fortunes
And she for him pleads strongly to the Moor,
I'll pour this pestilence into his ear,
That she repeals him for her body's lust;
And by how much she strives to do him good,
She shall undo her credit with the Moor.
So will I turn her virtue into pitch,
And out of her own goodness make the net
That shall enmesh them all.