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The forked plague refers to cuckoldry, this is referring to Othello having lost his wife, Desdemona, as in she cheated on him. A cuckold is a man who has an unfaithful wife. Cuckold was linked to horns, that's why he calls it a forked plague. Plague is an illness, also here's some historical context, at the time Othello was written (1603) a deadly plague was going on in England, the Bubonic Plague/black death. Shakespeare linked the cheating to the feeling of being infected by the plague, it was unavoidable and the people who got it were destined to die.

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12y ago

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