Jealousy and the suffering it inflicts on lovers is at the heart of Shakespeare's later romances, Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale. Few moments in Shakespeare's plays are as intense as that in which Posthumus comes to believe that Imogen has slept with Iachimo (Cymbeline, 2.4). Although they bring us to the brink of tragedy, Cymbeline and The Winter's Tale end with the defeat of jealousy, and so they are considered comedies. This is not the case with Shakespeare's best-known exploration of the "green-eyed monster" -- Othello, which ends with the murder of Desdemona and the moral destruction of our tragic hero. The theme of jealousy appears, to a lesser extent, in many other plays. Enjoy the following collection of quotations on jealousy and please click on the play to see explanatory notes and facts about each play. 

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You must not stay here longer, your dismission

Is come from Caesar; therefore hear it, Antony.

Where's Fulvia's process? Caesar's I would say? both?

Call in the messengers. As I am Egypt's queen, 

Thou blushest, Antony; and that blood of thine 

Is Caesar's homager: else so thy cheek pays shame 

When shrill-tongued Fulvia scolds. The messengers!

Antony and Cleopatra (1.1)

Is whispering nothing? 

Is leaning cheek to cheek? is meeting noses? 

Kissing with inside lip? stopping the career 

Of laughing with a sigh?--a note infallible 

Of breaking honesty--horsing foot on foot? 

Skulking in corners? wishing clocks more swift? 

Hours, minutes? noon, midnight? and all eyes 

Blind with the pin and web but theirs, theirs only, 

That would unseen be wicked? is this nothing? 

Why, then the world and all that's in't is nothing; 

The covering sky is nothing; Bohemia nothing; 

My wife is nothing; nor nothing have these nothings, 

If this be nothing. 

The Winter's Tale (1.2) 

Iachimo. If you seek 

For further satisfying, under her breast-- 

Worthy the pressing--lies a mole, right proud 

Of that most delicate lodging: by my life, 

I kiss'd it; and it gave me present hunger 

To feed again, though full. You do remember 

This stain upon her? 

Posthumus. Ay, and it doth confirm 

Another stain, as big as hell can hold, 

Were there no more but it. 

Iachimo. Will you hear more? 

Cymbeline (2.4) 

Though age from folly could not give me freedom,

It does from childishness: can Fulvia die?

Antony and Cleopatra (1.3)

How many fond fools serve mad jealousy?

The Comedy of Errors (2.1)

That hath made him mad.

I am sorry that with better heed and judgment

I had not quoted him: I fear'd he did but trifle,

And meant to wreck thee; but, beshrew my jealousy!

By heaven, it is as proper to our age 

To cast beyond ourselves in our opinions

As it is common for the younger sort

To lack discretion. 

Hamlet (2.1)

To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,

Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss: 

So full of artless jealousy is guilt,

It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

Hamlet (4.5)

O, how hast thou with 'jealousy infected

The sweetness of affiance! 

Henry V (2.2) 

As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embraced despair,

And shuddering fear, and green-eyed jealousy!

The Merchant of Venice (3.2)

For that I do suspect the lusty Moor

Hath leap'd into my seat; the thought whereof

Doth, like a poisonous mineral, gnaw my inwards;

And nothing can or shall content my soul

Till I am even'd with him, wife for wife,

Or failing so, yet that I put the Moor

At least into a jealousy so strong 

That judgment cannot cure.

Othello (2.1)

As, I confess, it is my nature's plague

To spy into abuses, and oft my jealousy

Shapes faults that are not.

Othello (3.3)

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;

It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock

The meat it feeds on; that cuckold lives in bliss

Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger.

Othello (3.3)

Trifles light as air 

Are to the jealous confirmations strong 

As proofs of holy writ.

Othello (3.3)

My foolish rival, that her father likes

Only for his possessions are so huge,

Is gone with her along, and I must after,

For love, thou know'st, is full of jealousy.

Two Gentlemen of Verona (2.4)

Why should I not, had I the heart to do it,

Like to the Egyptian thief at point of death,

Kill what I love?--a savage jealousy 

That sometimes savours nobly. 

Twelfth Night (5.1)

There may be in the cup 

A spider steep'd, and one may drink, depart, 

And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge 

Is not infected: but if one present 

The abhorr'd ingredient to his eye, make known 

How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge, his sides, 

With violent hefts. I have drunk, 

and seen the spider. 

The Winter's Tale (1.2)

Oberon. How canst thou thus, for shame, Titania,

Glance at my credit with Hippolyta,

Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?

Didst not thou lead him through the glimmering night

From Perigouna, whom he ravished?

And make him with fair Aegles break his faith,

With Ariadne and Antiopa? 

Titania. These are the forgeries of jealousy. 

A Midsummer Night's Dream (2.1)