Like to the Pontic sea,
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne’er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on
To the Propontic and the Hellespont,
Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,
Shall ne’er look back, ne’er ebb to humble love,
Till that a capable and wide revenge
Swallow them up.
– William Shakespeare
Othello, Act 3, Scene 3. Othello lays his tortured soul bare as he sinks deeper into madness. In an epic or extended simile, he compares his violent urges and bloody thoughts to the relentlessness of the Pontic Sea, or Black Sea. He will not stop until he has his revenge. At this point Othello hates Desdemona and says that he will never look back on love. He is convinced that his wife has betrayed him.