Be thou my good

In Shakespeare's Othello, Iago says:

Virtue! a fig! 'tis in ourselves that we are thus
or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which
our wills are gardeners: so that if we will plant
nettles, or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up
thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs, or
distract it with many, either to have it sterile
with idleness, or manured with industry, why, the
power and corrigible authority of this lies in our
wills. If the balance of our lives had not one
scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the
blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us
to most preposterous conclusions: but we have
reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal
stings, our unbitted lusts, whereof I take this that
you call love to be a sect or scion.

At another point he says:

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.

Both of these statements seem very similar to statements made by Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost:

So farwel Hope, and with Hope farwel Fear,
Farwel Remorse: all Good to me is lost;
Evil be thou my Good; by thee at least
Divided Empire with Heav'ns King I hold
By thee, and more then half perhaps will reigne;
As Man ere long, and this new World shall know.

All of these statements reveal a significant aspect of man's nature. Man spends more time excusing his faults, and defending his defects, and avoiding his guilt than he does anything else. Rare is the man that accepts his shortcomings. Rare is the man that acknowledges his faults. Rare is the man willing to stand guilty before all. We convince ourselves of our goodness. We convince ourselves that our vice is virtue. We declare our innocence, not to others, but to ourselves. We are not designed (dare I imply design?) to live with sin (dare I call anything sin?). No one wants to be guilty. No one wants to be evil. The easy path for us to take is to convince ourselves that we are good, that what we do is good. It is easy for us to look on Iago, one of the most wretched, nefarious characters in all of literature, and condemn him for his conniving, his malfeasance. It is so easy for us to judge others of their sin. Who does not do this? Those who speak of moral relativity cast judgment on those who cast judgment on others. How easy is it for us to declare the whole world guilty. And how difficult and uneasy is it for us to declare ourselves guilty before the whole world. That is not the way to proceed. Much better that we manipulate our thoughts so that all we do is good. "Evil, be thou my good," says Satan. "My evil is good," says us.