ACT II
ACT II, SCENE I. A Sea-port in Cyprus, near the quay.
[Enter MONTANO and two Gentlemen]
MONTANO:
- What from the cape can you discern at sea?
First Gentleman:
- Nothing at all: it is a highwrought flood;
- I cannot, 'twixt the heaven and the main,
- Descry a sail.
MONTANO:
- Methinks the wind hath spoke aloud at land;
- A fuller blast ne'er shook our battlements:
- If it hath ruffian'd so upon the sea,
- What ribs of oak, when mountains melt on them,
- Can hold the mortise? What shall we hear of this?
Second Gentleman:
- A segregation of the Turkish fleet:
- For do but stand upon the foaming shore,
- The chidden billow seems to pelt the clouds;
- The wind-shaked surge, with high and monstrous mane,
- seems to cast water on the burning bear,
- And quench the guards of the ever-fixed pole:
- I never did like molestation view
- On the enchafed flood.
Third Gentleman:
- News, lads! our wars are done.
- The desperate tempest hath so bang'd the Turks,
- That their designment halts: a noble ship of Venice
- Hath seen a grievous wreck and sufferance
- On most part of their fleet.
MONTANO:
- How! is this true?
Third Gentleman:
- The ship is here put in,
- A Veronesa; Michael Cassio,
- Lieutenant to the warlike Moor Othello,
- Is come on shore: the Moor himself at sea,
- And is in full commission here for Cyprus.
MONTANO:
- I am glad on't; 'tis a worthy governor.
Third Gentleman:
- But this same Cassio, though he speak of comfort
- Touching the Turkish loss, yet he looks sadly,
- And prays the Moor be safe; for they were parted
- With foul and violent tempest.
MONTANO:
- Pray heavens he be;
- For I have served him, and the man commands
- Like a full soldier. Let's to the seaside, ho!
- As well to see the vessel that's come in
- As to throw out our eyes for brave Othello,
- Even till we make the main and the aerial blue
- An indistinct regard.
Third Gentleman:
- Come, let's do so:
- For every minute is expectancy
- Of more arrivance.
-
[Enter CASSIO]
CASSIO:
- Thanks, you the valiant of this warlike isle,
- That so approve the Moor! O, let the heavens
- Give him defence against the elements,
- For I have lost us him on a dangerous sea.
MONTANO:
- Is he well shipp'd?
CASSIO:
- His bark is stoutly timber'd, his pilot
- Of very expert and approved allowance;
- Therefore my hopes, not surfeited to death,
- Stand in bold cure.
-
[A cry within 'A sail, a sail, a sail!']
-
[Enter a fourth Gentleman]
Fourth Gentleman:
- The town is empty; on the brow o' the sea
- Stand ranks of people, and they cry 'A sail!'
CASSIO:
- My hopes do shape him for the governor.
-
[Guns heard]
Second Gentlemen:
- They do discharge their shot of courtesy:
- Our friends at least.
CASSIO:
- I pray you, sir, go forth,
- And give us truth who 'tis that is arrived.
Second Gentleman:
- I shall.
-
[Exit]
MONTANO:
- But, good lieutenant, is your general wived?
Second Gentleman:
- 'Tis one Iago, ancient to the general.
CASSIO:
- Has had most favourable and happy speed:
- Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling winds,
- The gutter'd rocks and congregated sands--
- Traitors ensteep'd to clog the guiltless keel,--
- As having sense of beauty, do omit
- Their mortal natures, letting go safely by
- The divine Desdemona.
CASSIO:
- She that I spake of, our great captain's captain,
- Left in the conduct of the bold Iago,
- Whose footing here anticipates our thoughts
- A se'nnight's speed. Great Jove, Othello guard,
- And swell his sail with thine own powerful breath,
- That he may bless this bay with his tall ship,
- Make love's quick pants in Desdemona's arms,
- Give renew'd fire to our extincted spirits
- And bring all Cyprus comfort!
-
[Enter DESDEMONA, EMILIA, IAGO, RODERIGO, and Attendants]
- O, behold,
- The riches of the ship is come on shore!
- Ye men of Cyprus, let her have your knees.
- Hail to thee, lady! and the grace of heaven,
- Before, behind thee, and on every hand,
- Enwheel thee round!
DESDEMONA:
- I thank you, valiant Cassio.
- What tidings can you tell me of my lord?
CASSIO:
- He is not yet arrived: nor know I aught
- But that he's well and will be shortly here.
DESDEMONA:
- O, but I fear--How lost you company?
Second Gentleman:
- They give their greeting to the citadel;
- This likewise is a friend.
CASSIO:
- See for the news.
-
[Exit Gentleman]
- Good ancient, you are welcome.
-
[To EMILIA]
- Welcome, mistress.
- Let it not gall your patience, good Iago,
- That I extend my manners; 'tis my breeding
- That gives me this bold show of courtesy.
-
[Kissing her]
IAGO:
- Sir, would she give you so much of her lips
- As of her tongue she oft bestows on me,
- You'll have enough.
DESDEMONA:
- Alas, she has no speech.
IAGO:
- In faith, too much;
- I find it still, when I have list to sleep:
- Marry, before your ladyship, I grant,
- She puts her tongue a little in her heart,
- And chides with thinking.
EMILIA:
- You have little cause to say so.
IAGO:
- Come on, come on; you are pictures out of doors,
- Bells in your parlors, wild-cats in your kitchens,
- Saints m your injuries, devils being offended,
- Players in your housewifery, and housewives' in your beds.
DESDEMONA:
- O, fie upon thee, slanderer!
IAGO:
- Nay, it is true, or else I am a Turk:
- You rise to play and go to bed to work.
EMILIA:
- You shall not write my praise.
DESDEMONA:
- What wouldst thou write of me, if thou shouldst
- praise me?
IAGO:
- O gentle lady, do not put me to't;
- For I am nothing, if not critical.
DESDEMONA:
- Come on assay. There's one gone to the harbour?
DESDEMONA:
- I am not merry; but I do beguile
- The thing I am, by seeming otherwise.
- Come, how wouldst thou praise me?
IAGO:
- I am about it; but indeed my invention
- Comes from my pate as birdlime does from frize;
- It plucks out brains and all: but my Muse labours,
- And thus she is deliver'd.
- If she be fair and wise, fairness and wit,
- The one's for use, the other useth it.
DESDEMONA:
- Well praised! How if she be black and witty?
IAGO:
- If she be black, and thereto have a wit,
- She'll find a white that shall her blackness fit.
DESDEMONA:
- Worse and worse.
EMILIA:
- How if fair and foolish?
IAGO:
- She never yet was foolish that was fair;
- For even her folly help'd her to an heir.
DESDEMONA:
- These are old fond paradoxes to make fools laugh i'
- the alehouse. What miserable praise hast thou for
- her that's foul and foolish?
IAGO:
- There's none so foul and foolish thereunto,
- But does foul pranks which fair and wise ones do.
DESDEMONA:
- O heavy ignorance! thou praisest the worst best.
- But what praise couldst thou bestow on a deserving
- woman indeed, one that, in the authority of her
- merit, did justly put on the vouch of very malice itself?
IAGO:
- She that was ever fair and never proud,
- Had tongue at will and yet was never loud,
- Never lack'd gold and yet went never gay,
- Fled from her wish and yet said 'Now I may,'
- She that being anger'd, her revenge being nigh,
- Bade her wrong stay and her displeasure fly,
- She that in wisdom never was so frail
- To change the cod's head for the salmon's tail;
- She that could think and ne'er disclose her mind,
- See suitors following and not look behind,
- She was a wight, if ever such wight were,--
IAGO:
- To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.
DESDEMONA:
- O most lame and impotent conclusion! Do not learn
- of him, Emilia, though he be thy husband. How say
- you, Cassio? is he not a most profane and liberal
- counsellor?
CASSIO:
- He speaks home, madam: You may relish him more in
- the soldier than in the scholar.
IAGO:
-
[Aside]
- He takes her by the palm: ay, well said,
- whisper: with as little a web as this will I
- ensnare as great a fly as Cassio. Ay, smile upon
- her, do; I will gyve thee in thine own courtship.
- You say true; 'tis so, indeed: if such tricks as
- these strip you out of your lieutenantry, it had
- been better you had not kissed your three fingers so
- oft, which now again you are most apt to play the
- sir in. Very good; well kissed! an excellent
- courtesy! 'tis so, indeed. Yet again your fingers
- to your lips? would they were clyster-pipes for your sake!
-
[Trumpet within]
- The Moor! I know his trumpet.
DESDEMONA:
- Let's meet him and receive him.
OTHELLO:
- O my fair warrior!
DESDEMONA:
- My dear Othello!
OTHELLO:
- It gives me wonder great as my content
- To see you here before me. O my soul's joy!
- If after every tempest come such calms,
- May the winds blow till they have waken'd death!
- And let the labouring bark climb hills of seas
- Olympus-high and duck again as low
- As hell's from heaven! If it were now to die,
- 'Twere now to be most happy; for, I fear,
- My soul hath her content so absolute
- That not another comfort like to this
- Succeeds in unknown fate.
DESDEMONA:
- The heavens forbid
- But that our loves and comforts should increase,
- Even as our days do grow!
OTHELLO:
- Amen to that, sweet powers!
- I cannot speak enough of this content;
- It stops me here; it is too much of joy:
- And this, and this, the greatest discords be
-
[Kissing her]
- That e'er our hearts shall make!
IAGO:
-
[Aside]
- O, you are well tuned now!
- But I'll set down the pegs that make this music,
- As honest as I am.
IAGO:
- Do thou meet me presently at the harbour. Come
- hither. If thou be'st valiant,-- as, they say, base
- men being in love have then a nobility in their
- natures more than is native to them--list me. The
- lieutenant tonight watches on the court of
- guard:--first, I must tell thee this--Desdemona is
- directly in love with him.
RODERIGO:
- With him! why, 'tis not possible.
IAGO:
- Lay thy finger thus, and let thy soul be instructed.
- Mark me with what violence she first loved the Moor,
- but for bragging and telling her fantastical lies:
- and will she love him still for prating? let not
- thy discreet heart think it. Her eye must be fed;
- and what delight shall she have to look on the
- devil? When the blood is made dull with the act of
- sport, there should be, again to inflame it and to
- give satiety a fresh appetite, loveliness in favour,
- sympathy in years, manners and beauties; all which
- the Moor is defective in: now, for want of these
- required conveniences, her delicate tenderness will
- find itself abused, begin to heave the gorge,
- disrelish and abhor the Moor; very nature will
- instruct her in it and compel her to some second
- choice. Now, sir, this granted,--as it is a most
- pregnant and unforced position--who stands so
- eminent in the degree of this fortune as Cassio
- does? a knave very voluble; no further
- conscionable than in putting on the mere form of
- civil and humane seeming, for the better compassing
- of his salt and most hidden loose affection? why,
- none; why, none: a slipper and subtle knave, a
- finder of occasions, that has an eye can stamp and
- counterfeit advantages, though true advantage never
- present itself; a devilish knave. Besides, the
- knave is handsome, young, and hath all those
- requisites in him that folly and green minds look
- after: a pestilent complete knave; and the woman
- hath found him already.
RODERIGO:
- I cannot believe that in her; she's full of
- most blessed condition.
IAGO:
- Blessed fig's-end! the wine she drinks is made of
- grapes: if she had been blessed, she would never
- have loved the Moor. Blessed pudding! Didst thou
- not see her paddle with the palm of his hand? didst
- not mark that?
RODERIGO:
- Yes, that I did; but that was but courtesy.
IAGO:
- Lechery, by this hand; an index and obscure prologue
- to the history of lust and foul thoughts. They met
- so near with their lips that their breaths embraced
- together. Villanous thoughts, Roderigo! when these
- mutualities so marshal the way, hard at hand comes
- the master and main exercise, the incorporate
- conclusion, Pish! But, sir, be you ruled by me: I
- have brought you from Venice. Watch you to-night;
- for the command, I'll lay't upon you. Cassio knows
- you not. I'll not be far from you: do you find
- some occasion to anger Cassio, either by speaking
- too loud, or tainting his discipline; or from what
- other course you please, which the time shall more
- favourably minister.
IAGO:
- Sir, he is rash and very sudden in choler, and haply
- may strike at you: provoke him, that he may; for
- even out of that will I cause these of Cyprus to
- mutiny; whose qualification shall come into no true
- taste again but by the displanting of Cassio. So
- shall you have a shorter journey to your desires by
- the means I shall then have to prefer them; and the
- impediment most profitably removed, without the
- which there were no expectation of our prosperity.
RODERIGO:
- I will do this, if I can bring it to any
- opportunity.
IAGO:
- I warrant thee. Meet me by and by at the citadel:
- I must fetch his necessaries ashore. Farewell.
IAGO:
- That Cassio loves her, I do well believe it;
- That she loves him, 'tis apt and of great credit:
- The Moor, howbeit that I endure him not,
- Is of a constant, loving, noble nature,
- And I dare think he'll prove to Desdemona
- A most dear husband. Now, I do love her too;
- Not out of absolute lust, though peradventure
- I stand accountant for as great a sin,
- But partly led to diet my revenge,
- 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. Which thing to do,
- If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trash
- For his quick hunting, stand the putting on,
- I'll have our Michael Cassio on the hip,
- Abuse him to the Moor in the rank garb--
- For I fear Cassio with my night-cap too--
- Make the Moor thank me, love me and reward me.
- For making him egregiously an ass
- And practising upon his peace and quiet
- Even to madness. 'Tis here, but yet confused:
- Knavery's plain face is never seen tin used.
-
[Exit]
ACT II, SCENE II. A street.
[Enter a Herald with a proclamation; People following]
Herald:
- It is Othello's pleasure, our noble and valiant
- general, that, upon certain tidings now arrived,
- importing the mere perdition of the Turkish fleet,
- every man put himself into triumph; some to dance,
- some to make bonfires, each man to what sport and
- revels his addiction leads him: for, besides these
- beneficial news, it is the celebration of his
- nuptial. So much was his pleasure should be
- proclaimed. All offices are open, and there is full
- liberty of feasting from this present hour of five
- till the bell have told eleven. Heaven bless the
- isle of Cyprus and our noble general Othello!
-
[Exeunt]
ACT II, SCENE III. A hall in the castle.
[Enter OTHELLO, DESDEMONA, CASSIO, and Attendants]
OTHELLO:
- Good Michael, look you to the guard to-night:
- Let's teach ourselves that honourable stop,
- Not to outsport discretion.
CASSIO:
- Iago hath direction what to do;
- But, notwithstanding, with my personal eye
- Will I look to't.
CASSIO:
- Welcome, Iago; we must to the watch.
IAGO:
- Not this hour, lieutenant; 'tis not yet ten o' the
- clock. Our general cast us thus early for the love
- of his Desdemona; who let us not therefore blame:
- he hath not yet made wanton the night with her; and
- she is sport for Jove.
CASSIO:
- She's a most exquisite lady.
IAGO:
- And, I'll warrant her, fun of game.
CASSIO:
- Indeed, she's a most fresh and delicate creature.
IAGO:
- What an eye she has! methinks it sounds a parley of
- provocation.
CASSIO:
- An inviting eye; and yet methinks right modest.
IAGO:
- And when she speaks, is it not an alarum to love?
CASSIO:
- She is indeed perfection.
IAGO:
- Well, happiness to their sheets! Come, lieutenant, I
- have a stoup of wine; and here without are a brace
- of Cyprus gallants that would fain have a measure to
- the health of black Othello.
CASSIO:
- Not to-night, good Iago: I have very poor and
- unhappy brains for drinking: I could well wish
- courtesy would invent some other custom of
- entertainment.
IAGO:
- O, they are our friends; but one cup: I'll drink for
- you.
CASSIO:
- I have drunk but one cup to-night, and that was
- craftily qualified too, and, behold, what innovation
- it makes here: I am unfortunate in the infirmity,
- and dare not task my weakness with any more.
IAGO:
- What, man! 'tis a night of revels: the gallants
- desire it.
IAGO:
- Here at the door; I pray you, call them in.
CASSIO:
- I'll do't; but it dislikes me.
-
[Exit]
CASSIO:
- 'Fore God, they have given me a rouse already.
MONTANO:
- Good faith, a little one; not past a pint, as I am
- a soldier.
IAGO:
- Some wine, ho!
-
[Sings]
- And let me the canakin clink, clink;
- And let me the canakin clink
- A soldier's a man;
- A life's but a span;
- Why, then, let a soldier drink.
- Some wine, boys!
CASSIO:
- 'Fore God, an excellent song.
IAGO:
- I learned it in England, where, indeed, they are
- most potent in potting: your Dane, your German, and
- your swag-bellied Hollander--Drink, ho!--are nothing
- to your English.
CASSIO:
- Is your Englishman so expert in his drinking?
IAGO:
- Why, he drinks you, with facility, your Dane dead
- drunk; he sweats not to overthrow your Almain; he
- gives your Hollander a vomit, ere the next pottle
- can be filled.
CASSIO:
- To the health of our general!
MONTANO:
- I am for it, lieutenant; and I'll do you justice.
IAGO:
- O sweet England!
- King Stephen was a worthy peer,
- His breeches cost him but a crown;
- He held them sixpence all too dear,
- With that he call'd the tailor lown.
- He was a wight of high renown,
- And thou art but of low degree:
- 'Tis pride that pulls the country down;
- Then take thine auld cloak about thee.
- Some wine, ho!
CASSIO:
- Why, this is a more exquisite song than the other.
IAGO:
- Will you hear't again?
CASSIO:
- No; for I hold him to be unworthy of his place that
- does those things. Well, God's above all; and there
- be souls must be saved, and there be souls must not be saved.
IAGO:
- It's true, good lieutenant.
CASSIO:
- For mine own part,--no offence to the general, nor
- any man of quality,--I hope to be saved.
IAGO:
- And so do I too, lieutenant.
CASSIO:
- Ay, but, by your leave, not before me; the
- lieutenant is to be saved before the ancient. Let's
- have no more of this; let's to our affairs.--Forgive
- us our sins!--Gentlemen, let's look to our business.
- Do not think, gentlemen. I am drunk: this is my
- ancient; this is my right hand, and this is my left:
- I am not drunk now; I can stand well enough, and
- speak well enough.
CASSIO:
- Why, very well then; you must not think then that I am drunk.
-
[Exit]
MONTANO:
- To the platform, masters; come, let's set the watch.
IAGO:
- You see this fellow that is gone before;
- He is a soldier fit to stand by Caesar
- And give direction: and do but see his vice;
- 'Tis to his virtue a just equinox,
- The one as long as the other: 'tis pity of him.
- I fear the trust Othello puts him in.
- On some odd time of his infirmity,
- Will shake this island.
MONTANO:
- But is he often thus?
IAGO:
- 'Tis evermore the prologue to his sleep:
- He'll watch the horologe a double set,
- If drink rock not his cradle.
MONTANO:
- It were well
- The general were put in mind of it.
- Perhaps he sees it not; or his good nature
- Prizes the virtue that appears in Cassio,
- And looks not on his evils: is not this true?
-
[Enter RODERIGO]
IAGO:
-
[Aside to him]
- How now, Roderigo!
- I pray you, after the lieutenant; go.
-
[Exit RODERIGO]
MONTANO:
- And 'tis great pity that the noble Moor
- Should hazard such a place as his own second
- With one of an ingraft infirmity:
- It were an honest action to say
- So to the Moor.
CASSIO:
- You rogue! you rascal!
MONTANO:
- What's the matter, lieutenant?
CASSIO:
- A knave teach me my duty!
- I'll beat the knave into a twiggen bottle.
CASSIO:
- Dost thou prate, rogue?
-
[Striking RODERIGO]
MONTANO:
- Nay, good lieutenant;
-
[Staying him]
- I pray you, sir, hold your hand.
CASSIO:
- Let me go, sir,
- Or I'll knock you o'er the mazzard.
MONTANO:
- Come, come,
- you're drunk.
CASSIO:
- Drunk!
-
[They fight]
OTHELLO:
- What is the matter here?
MONTANO:
- 'Zounds, I bleed still; I am hurt to the death.
- Faints
OTHELLO:
- Hold, for your lives!
IAGO:
- Hold, ho! Lieutenant,--sir--Montano,--gentlemen,--
- Have you forgot all sense of place and duty?
- Hold! the general speaks to you; hold, hold, for shame!
OTHELLO:
- Why, how now, ho! from whence ariseth this?
- Are we turn'd Turks, and to ourselves do that
- Which heaven hath forbid the Ottomites?
- For Christian shame, put by this barbarous brawl:
- He that stirs next to carve for his own rage
- Holds his soul light; he dies upon his motion.
- Silence that dreadful bell: it frights the isle
- From her propriety. What is the matter, masters?
- Honest Iago, that look'st dead with grieving,
- Speak, who began this? on thy love, I charge thee.
IAGO:
- I do not know: friends all but now, even now,
- In quarter, and in terms like bride and groom
- Devesting them for bed; and then, but now--
- As if some planet had unwitted men--
- Swords out, and tilting one at other's breast,
- In opposition bloody. I cannot speak
- Any beginning to this peevish odds;
- And would in action glorious I had lost
- Those legs that brought me to a part of it!
OTHELLO:
- How comes it, Michael, you are thus forgot?
CASSIO:
- I pray you, pardon me; I cannot speak.
OTHELLO:
- Worthy Montano, you were wont be civil;
- The gravity and stillness of your youth
- The world hath noted, and your name is great
- In mouths of wisest censure: what's the matter,
- That you unlace your reputation thus
- And spend your rich opinion for the name
- Of a night-brawler? give me answer to it.
MONTANO:
- Worthy Othello, I am hurt to danger:
- Your officer, Iago, can inform you,--
- While I spare speech, which something now
- offends me,--
- Of all that I do know: nor know I aught
- By me that's said or done amiss this night;
- Unless self-charity be sometimes a vice,
- And to defend ourselves it be a sin
- When violence assails us.
OTHELLO:
- Now, by heaven,
- My blood begins my safer guides to rule;
- And passion, having my best judgment collied,
- Assays to lead the way: if I once stir,
- Or do but lift this arm, the best of you
- Shall sink in my rebuke. Give me to know
- How this foul rout began, who set it on;
- And he that is approved in this offence,
- Though he had twinn'd with me, both at a birth,
- Shall lose me. What! in a town of war,
- Yet wild, the people's hearts brimful of fear,
- To manage private and domestic quarrel,
- In night, and on the court and guard of safety!
- 'Tis monstrous. Iago, who began't?
MONTANO:
- If partially affined, or leagued in office,
- Thou dost deliver more or less than truth,
- Thou art no soldier.
IAGO:
- Touch me not so near:
- I had rather have this tongue cut from my mouth
- Than it should do offence to Michael Cassio;
- Yet, I persuade myself, to speak the truth
- Shall nothing wrong him. Thus it is, general.
- Montano and myself being in speech,
- There comes a fellow crying out for help:
- And Cassio following him with determined sword,
- To execute upon him. Sir, this gentleman
- Steps in to Cassio, and entreats his pause:
- Myself the crying fellow did pursue,
- Lest by his clamour--as it so fell out--
- The town might fall in fright: he, swift of foot,
- Outran my purpose; and I return'd the rather
- For that I heard the clink and fall of swords,
- And Cassio high in oath; which till to-night
- I ne'er might say before. When I came back--
- For this was brief--I found them close together,
- At blow and thrust; even as again they were
- When you yourself did part them.
- More of this matter cannot I report:
- But men are men; the best sometimes forget:
- Though Cassio did some little wrong to him,
- As men in rage strike those that wish them best,
- Yet surely Cassio, I believe, received
- From him that fled some strange indignity,
- Which patience could not pass.
DESDEMONA:
- What's the matter?
IAGO:
- What, are you hurt, lieutenant?
CASSIO:
- Ay, past all surgery.
IAGO:
- Marry, heaven forbid!
CASSIO:
- Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost
- my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of
- myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation,
- Iago, my reputation!
IAGO:
- As I am an honest man, I thought you had received
- some bodily wound; there is more sense in that than
- in reputation. Reputation is an idle and most false
- imposition: oft got without merit, and lost without
- deserving: you have lost no reputation at all,
- unless you repute yourself such a loser. What, man!
- there are ways to recover the general again: you
- are but now cast in his mood, a punishment more in
- policy than in malice, even so as one would beat his
- offenceless dog to affright an imperious lion: sue
- to him again, and he's yours.
CASSIO:
- I will rather sue to be despised than to deceive so
- good a commander with so slight, so drunken, and so
- indiscreet an officer. Drunk? and speak parrot?
- and squabble? swagger? swear? and discourse
- fustian with one's own shadow? O thou invisible
- spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by,
- let us call thee devil!
IAGO:
- What was he that you followed with your sword? What
- had he done to you?
CASSIO:
- I remember a mass of things, but nothing distinctly;
- a quarrel, but nothing wherefore. O God, that men
- should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away
- their brains! that we should, with joy, pleasance
- revel and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!
IAGO:
- Why, but you are now well enough: how came you thus
- recovered?
CASSIO:
- It hath pleased the devil drunkenness to give place
- to the devil wrath; one unperfectness shows me
- another, to make me frankly despise myself.
IAGO:
- Come, you are too severe a moraler: as the time,
- the place, and the condition of this country
- stands, I could heartily wish this had not befallen;
- but, since it is as it is, mend it for your own good.
CASSIO:
- I will ask him for my place again; he shall tell me
- I am a drunkard! Had I as many mouths as Hydra,
- such an answer would stop them all. To be now a
- sensible man, by and by a fool, and presently a
- beast! O strange! Every inordinate cup is
- unblessed and the ingredient is a devil.
IAGO:
- Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature,
- if it be well used: exclaim no more against it.
- And, good lieutenant, I think you think I love you.
CASSIO:
- I have well approved it, sir. I drunk!
IAGO:
- You or any man living may be drunk! at a time, man.
- I'll tell you what you shall do. Our general's wife
- is now the general: may say so in this respect, for
- that he hath devoted and given up himself to the
- contemplation, mark, and denotement of her parts and
- graces: confess yourself freely to her; importune
- her help to put you in your place again: she is of
- so free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition,
- she holds it a vice in her goodness not to do more
- than she is requested: this broken joint between
- you and her husband entreat her to splinter; and, my
- fortunes against any lay worth naming, this
- crack of your love shall grow stronger than it was before.
CASSIO:
- You advise me well.
IAGO:
- I protest, in the sincerity of love and honest kindness.
CASSIO:
- I think it freely; and betimes in the morning I will
- beseech the virtuous Desdemona to undertake for me:
- I am desperate of my fortunes if they cheque me here.
IAGO:
- You are in the right. Good night, lieutenant; I
- must to the watch.
- CASSIO: Good night, honest Iago.
-
[Exit]
IAGO:
- 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.
-
[Re-enter RODERIGO]
- How now, Roderigo!
RODERIGO:
- I do follow here in the chase, not like a hound that
- hunts, but one that fills up the cry. My money is
- almost spent; I have been to-night exceedingly well
- cudgelled; and I think the issue will be, I shall
- have so much experience for my pains, and so, with
- no money at all and a little more wit, return again to Venice.
IAGO:
- How poor are they that have not patience!
- What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
- Thou know'st we work by wit, and not by witchcraft;
- And wit depends on dilatory time.
- Does't not go well? Cassio hath beaten thee.
- And thou, by that small hurt, hast cashier'd Cassio:
- Though other things grow fair against the sun,
- Yet fruits that blossom first will first be ripe:
- Content thyself awhile. By the mass, 'tis morning;
- Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.
- Retire thee; go where thou art billeted:
- Away, I say; thou shalt know more hereafter:
- Nay, get thee gone.
-
[Exit RODERIGO]
- Two things are to be done:
- My wife must move for Cassio to her mistress;
- I'll set her on;
- Myself the while to draw the Moor apart,
- And bring him jump when he may Cassio find
- Soliciting his wife: ay, that's the way
- Dull not device by coldness and delay.
-
[Exit]
ACT III
ACT III, SCENE I. Before the castle.
[Enter CASSIO and some Musicians]
CASSIO:
- Masters, play here; I will content your pains;
- Something that's brief; and bid 'Good morrow, general.'
-
[Music]
-
[Enter Clown]
CLOWN:
- Why masters, have your instruments been in Naples,
- that they speak i' the nose thus?
First Musician:
- How, sir, how!
CLOWN:
- Are these, I pray you, wind-instruments?
First Musician:
- Ay, marry, are they, sir.
CLOWN:
- O, thereby hangs a tail.
First Musician:
- Whereby hangs a tale, sir?
CLOWN:
- Marry. sir, by many a wind-instrument that I know.
- But, masters, here's money for you: and the general
- so likes your music, that he desires you, for love's
- sake, to make no more noise with it.
First Musician:
- Well, sir, we will not.
CLOWN:
- If you have any music that may not be heard, to't
- again: but, as they say to hear music the general
- does not greatly care.
First Musician:
- We have none such, sir.
CLOWN:
- Then put up your pipes in your bag, for I'll away:
- go; vanish into air; away!
-
[Exeunt Musicians]
CASSIO:
- Dost thou hear, my honest friend?
CLOWN:
- No, I hear not your honest friend; I hear you.
CASSIO:
- Prithee, keep up thy quillets. There's a poor piece
- of gold for thee: if the gentlewoman that attends
- the general's wife be stirring, tell her there's
- one Cassio entreats her a little favour of speech:
- wilt thou do this?
CLOWN:
- She is stirring, sir: if she will stir hither, I
- shall seem to notify unto her.
CASSIO:
- Do, good my friend.
-
[Exit Clown]
-
[Enter IAGO]
- In happy time, Iago.
IAGO:
- You have not been a-bed, then?
CASSIO:
- Why, no; the day had broke
- Before we parted. I have made bold, Iago,
- To send in to your wife: my suit to her
- Is, that she will to virtuous Desdemona
- Procure me some access.
IAGO:
- I'll send her to you presently;
- And I'll devise a mean to draw the Moor
- Out of the way, that your converse and business
- May be more free.
CASSIO:
- I humbly thank you for't.
-
[Exit IAGO]
- I never knew
- A Florentine more kind and honest.
-
[Enter EMILIA]
EMILIA:
- Good morrow, good Lieutenant: I am sorry
- For your displeasure; but all will sure be well.
- The general and his wife are talking of it;
- And she speaks for you stoutly: the Moor replies,
- That he you hurt is of great fame in Cyprus,
- And great affinity, and that in wholesome wisdom
- He might not but refuse you; but he protests he loves you
- And needs no other suitor but his likings
- To take the safest occasion by the front
- To bring you in again.
CASSIO:
- Yet, I beseech you,
- If you think fit, or that it may be done,
- Give me advantage of some brief discourse
- With Desdemona alone.
EMILIA:
- Pray you, come in;
- I will bestow you where you shall have time
- To speak your bosom freely.
CASSIO:
- I am much bound to you.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT III, SCENE II. A room in the castle.
[Enter OTHELLO, IAGO, and Gentlemen]
OTHELLO:
- These letters give, Iago, to the pilot;
- And by him do my duties to the senate:
- That done, I will be walking on the works;
- Repair there to me.
IAGO:
- Well, my good lord, I'll do't.
OTHELLO:
- This fortification, gentlemen, shall we see't?
Gentleman:
- We'll wait upon your lordship.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT III, SCENE III. The garden of the castle.
[Enter DESDEMONA, CASSIO, and EMILIA]
DESDEMONA:
- Be thou assured, good Cassio, I will do
- All my abilities in thy behalf.
EMILIA:
- Good madam, do: I warrant it grieves my husband,
- As if the case were his.
DESDEMONA:
- O, that's an honest fellow. Do not doubt, Cassio,
- But I will have my lord and you again
- As friendly as you were.
CASSIO:
- Bounteous madam,
- Whatever shall become of Michael Cassio,
- He's never any thing but your true servant.
DESDEMONA:
- I know't; I thank you. You do love my lord:
- You have known him long; and be you well assured
- He shall in strangeness stand no further off
- Than in a polite distance.
CASSIO:
- Ay, but, lady,
- That policy may either last so long,
- Or feed upon such nice and waterish diet,
- Or breed itself so out of circumstance,
- That, I being absent and my place supplied,
- My general will forget my love and service.
DESDEMONA:
- Do not doubt that; before Emilia here
- I give thee warrant of thy place: assure thee,
- If I do vow a friendship, I'll perform it
- To the last article: my lord shall never rest;
- I'll watch him tame and talk him out of patience;
- His bed shall seem a school, his board a shrift;
- I'll intermingle every thing he does
- With Cassio's suit: therefore be merry, Cassio;
- For thy solicitor shall rather die
- Than give thy cause away.
EMILIA:
- Madam, here comes my lord.
CASSIO:
- Madam, I'll take my leave.
DESDEMONA:
- Why, stay, and hear me speak.
CASSIO:
- Madam, not now: I am very ill at ease,
- Unfit for mine own purposes.
DESDEMONA:
- Well, do your discretion.
-
[Exit CASSIO]
-
[Enter OTHELLO and IAGO]
IAGO:
- Ha! I like not that.
OTHELLO:
- What dost thou say?
IAGO:
- Nothing, my lord: or if--I know not what.
OTHELLO:
- Was not that Cassio parted from my wife?
IAGO:
- Cassio, my lord! No, sure, I cannot think it,
- That he would steal away so guilty-like,
- Seeing you coming.
OTHELLO:
- I do believe 'twas he.
DESDEMONA:
- How now, my lord!
- I have been talking with a suitor here,
- A man that languishes in your displeasure.
OTHELLO:
- Who is't you mean?
DESDEMONA:
- Why, your lieutenant, Cassio. Good my lord,
- If I have any grace or power to move you,
- His present reconciliation take;
- For if he be not one that truly loves you,
- That errs in ignorance and not in cunning,
- I have no judgment in an honest face:
- I prithee, call him back.
OTHELLO:
- Went he hence now?
DESDEMONA:
- Ay, sooth; so humbled
- That he hath left part of his grief with me,
- To suffer with him. Good love, call him back.
OTHELLO:
- Not now, sweet Desdemona; some other time.
DESDEMONA:
- But shall't be shortly?
OTHELLO:
- The sooner, sweet, for you.
DESDEMONA:
- Shall't be to-night at supper?
OTHELLO:
- No, not to-night.
DESDEMONA:
- To-morrow dinner, then?
OTHELLO:
- I shall not dine at home;
- I meet the captains at the citadel.
DESDEMONA:
- Why, then, to-morrow night; or Tuesday morn;
- On Tuesday noon, or night; on Wednesday morn:
- I prithee, name the time, but let it not
- Exceed three days: in faith, he's penitent;
- And yet his trespass, in our common reason--
- Save that, they say, the wars must make examples
- Out of their best--is not almost a fault
- To incur a private cheque. When shall he come?
- Tell me, Othello: I wonder in my soul,
- What you would ask me, that I should deny,
- Or stand so mammering on. What! Michael Cassio,
- That came a-wooing with you, and so many a time,
- When I have spoke of you dispraisingly,
- Hath ta'en your part; to have so much to do
- To bring him in! Trust me, I could do much,--
OTHELLO:
- Prithee, no more: let him come when he will;
- I will deny thee nothing.
DESDEMONA:
- Why, this is not a boon;
- 'Tis as I should entreat you wear your gloves,
- Or feed on nourishing dishes, or keep you warm,
- Or sue to you to do a peculiar profit
- To your own person: nay, when I have a suit
- Wherein I mean to touch your love indeed,
- It shall be full of poise and difficult weight
- And fearful to be granted.
OTHELLO:
- I will deny thee nothing:
- Whereon, I do beseech thee, grant me this,
- To leave me but a little to myself.
DESDEMONA:
- Shall I deny you? no: farewell, my lord.
OTHELLO:
- Farewell, my Desdemona: I'll come to thee straight.
OTHELLO:
- Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul,
- But I do love thee! and when I love thee not,
- Chaos is come again.
OTHELLO:
- What dost thou say, Iago?
IAGO:
- Did Michael Cassio, when you woo'd my lady,
- Know of your love?
OTHELLO:
- He did, from first to last: why dost thou ask?
IAGO:
- But for a satisfaction of my thought;
- No further harm.
OTHELLO:
- Why of thy thought, Iago?
IAGO:
- I did not think he had been acquainted with her.
OTHELLO:
- O, yes; and went between us very oft.
OTHELLO:
- Indeed! ay, indeed: discern'st thou aught in that?
- Is he not honest?
OTHELLO:
- Honest! ay, honest.
IAGO:
- My lord, for aught I know.
OTHELLO:
- What dost thou think?
OTHELLO:
- Think, my lord!
- By heaven, he echoes me,
- As if there were some monster in his thought
- Too hideous to be shown. Thou dost mean something:
- I heard thee say even now, thou likedst not that,
- When Cassio left my wife: what didst not like?
- And when I told thee he was of my counsel
- In my whole course of wooing, thou criedst 'Indeed!'
- And didst contract and purse thy brow together,
- As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain
- Some horrible conceit: if thou dost love me,
- Show me thy thought.
IAGO:
- My lord, you know I love you.
OTHELLO:
- I think thou dost;
- And, for I know thou'rt full of love and honesty,
- And weigh'st thy words before thou givest them breath,
- Therefore these stops of thine fright me the more:
- For such things in a false disloyal knave
- Are tricks of custom, but in a man that's just
- They are close delations, working from the heart
- That passion cannot rule.
IAGO:
- For Michael Cassio,
- I dare be sworn I think that he is honest.
IAGO:
- Men should be what they seem;
- Or those that be not, would they might seem none!
OTHELLO:
- Certain, men should be what they seem.
IAGO:
- Why, then, I think Cassio's an honest man.
OTHELLO:
- Nay, yet there's more in this:
- I prithee, speak to me as to thy thinkings,
- As thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughts
- The worst of words.
IAGO:
- Good my lord, pardon me:
- Though I am bound to every act of duty,
- I am not bound to that all slaves are free to.
- Utter my thoughts? Why, say they are vile and false;
- As where's that palace whereinto foul things
- Sometimes intrude not? who has a breast so pure,
- But some uncleanly apprehensions
- Keep leets and law-days and in session sit
- With meditations lawful?
OTHELLO:
- Thou dost conspire against thy friend, Iago,
- If thou but think'st him wrong'd and makest his ear
- A stranger to thy thoughts.
IAGO:
- I do beseech you--
- Though I perchance am vicious in my guess,
- As, I confess, it is my nature's plague
- To spy into abuses, and oft my jealousy
- Shapes faults that are not--that your wisdom yet,
- From one that so imperfectly conceits,
- Would take no notice, nor build yourself a trouble
- Out of his scattering and unsure observance.
- It were not for your quiet nor your good,
- Nor for my manhood, honesty, or wisdom,
- To let you know my thoughts.
OTHELLO:
- What dost thou mean?
IAGO:
- Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
- Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
- Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
- 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands:
- But he that filches from me my good name
- Robs me of that which not enriches him
- And makes me poor indeed.
OTHELLO:
- By heaven, I'll know thy thoughts.
IAGO:
- You cannot, if my heart were in your hand;
- Nor shall not, whilst 'tis in my custody.
IAGO:
- 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;
- But, O, what damned minutes tells he o'er
- Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!
IAGO:
- Poor and content is rich and rich enough,
- But riches fineless is as poor as winter
- To him that ever fears he shall be poor.
- Good heaven, the souls of all my tribe defend
- From jealousy!
OTHELLO:
- Why, why is this?
- Think'st thou I'ld make a lie of jealousy,
- To follow still the changes of the moon
- With fresh suspicions? No; to be once in doubt
- Is once to be resolved: exchange me for a goat,
- When I shall turn the business of my soul
- To such exsufflicate and blown surmises,
- Matching thy inference. 'Tis not to make me jealous
- To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company,
- Is free of speech, sings, plays and dances well;
- Where virtue is, these are more virtuous:
- Nor from mine own weak merits will I draw
- The smallest fear or doubt of her revolt;
- For she had eyes, and chose me. No, Iago;
- I'll see before I doubt; when I doubt, prove;
- And on the proof, there is no more but this,--
- Away at once with love or jealousy!
IAGO:
- I am glad of it; for now I shall have reason
- To show the love and duty that I bear you
- With franker spirit: therefore, as I am bound,
- Receive it from me. I speak not yet of proof.
- Look to your wife; observe her well with Cassio;
- Wear your eye thus, not jealous nor secure:
- I would not have your free and noble nature,
- Out of self-bounty, be abused; look to't:
- I know our country disposition well;
- In Venice they do let heaven see the pranks
- They dare not show their husbands; their best conscience
- Is not to leave't undone, but keep't unknown.
OTHELLO:
- Dost thou say so?
IAGO:
- She did deceive her father, marrying you;
- And when she seem'd to shake and fear your looks,
- She loved them most.
IAGO:
- Why, go to then;
- She that, so young, could give out such a seeming,
- To seal her father's eyes up close as oak-
- He thought 'twas witchcraft--but I am much to blame;
- I humbly do beseech you of your pardon
- For too much loving you.
OTHELLO:
- I am bound to thee for ever.
IAGO:
- I see this hath a little dash'd your spirits.
OTHELLO:
- Not a jot, not a jot.
IAGO:
- I' faith, I fear it has.
- I hope you will consider what is spoke
- Comes from my love. But I do see you're moved:
- I am to pray you not to strain my speech
- To grosser issues nor to larger reach
- Than to suspicion.
IAGO:
- Should you do so, my lord,
- My speech should fall into such vile success
- As my thoughts aim not at. Cassio's my worthy friend--
- My lord, I see you're moved.
OTHELLO:
- No, not much moved:
- I do not think but Desdemona's honest.
IAGO:
- Long live she so! and long live you to think so!
OTHELLO:
- And yet, how nature erring from itself,--
IAGO:
- Ay, there's the point: as--to be bold with you--
- Not to affect many proposed matches
- Of her own clime, complexion, and degree,
- Whereto we see in all things nature tends--
- Foh! one may smell in such a will most rank,
- Foul disproportion thoughts unnatural.
- But pardon me; I do not in position
- Distinctly speak of her; though I may fear
- Her will, recoiling to her better judgment,
- May fall to match you with her country forms
- And happily repent.
OTHELLO:
- Farewell, farewell:
- If more thou dost perceive, let me know more;
- Set on thy wife to observe: leave me, Iago:
IAGO:
-
[Going]
- My lord, I take my leave.
OTHELLO:
- Why did I marry? This honest creature doubtless
- Sees and knows more, much more, than he unfolds.
IAGO:
-
[Returning]
- My lord, I would I might entreat
- your honour
- To scan this thing no further; leave it to time:
- Though it be fit that Cassio have his place,
- For sure, he fills it up with great ability,
- Yet, if you please to hold him off awhile,
- You shall by that perceive him and his means:
- Note, if your lady strain his entertainment
- With any strong or vehement importunity;
- Much will be seen in that. In the mean time,
- Let me be thought too busy in my fears--
- As worthy cause I have to fear I am--
- And hold her free, I do beseech your honour.
OTHELLO:
- Fear not my government.
IAGO:
- I once more take my leave.
-
[Exit]
DESDEMONA:
- How now, my dear Othello!
- Your dinner, and the generous islanders
- By you invited, do attend your presence.
DESDEMONA:
- Why do you speak so faintly?
- Are you not well?
OTHELLO:
- I have a pain upon my forehead here.
DESDEMONA:
- 'Faith, that's with watching; 'twill away again:
- Let me but bind it hard, within this hour
- It will be well.
EMILIA:
- I am glad I have found this napkin:
- This was her first remembrance from the Moor:
- My wayward husband hath a hundred times
- Woo'd me to steal it; but she so loves the token,
- For he conjured her she should ever keep it,
- That she reserves it evermore about her
- To kiss and talk to. I'll have the work ta'en out,
- And give't Iago: what he will do with it
- Heaven knows, not I;
- I nothing but to please his fantasy.
-
[Re-enter Iago]
IAGO:
- How now! what do you here alone?
EMILIA:
- Do not you chide; I have a thing for you.
IAGO:
- A thing for me? it is a common thing--
IAGO:
- To have a foolish wife.
EMILIA:
- O, is that all? What will you give me now
- For the same handkerchief?
EMILIA:
- What handkerchief?
- Why, that the Moor first gave to Desdemona;
- That which so often you did bid me steal.
IAGO:
- Hast stol'n it from her?
EMILIA:
- No, 'faith; she let it drop by negligence.
- And, to the advantage, I, being here, took't up.
- Look, here it is.
IAGO:
- A good wench; give it me.
EMILIA:
- What will you do with 't, that you have been
- so earnest
- To have me filch it?
IAGO:
-
[Snatching it]
- Why, what's that to you?
EMILIA:
- If it be not for some purpose of import,
- Give't me again: poor lady, she'll run mad
- When she shall lack it.
IAGO:
- Be not acknown on 't; I have use for it.
- Go, leave me.
-
[Exit EMILIA]
- I will in Cassio's lodging lose this napkin,
- And let him find it. Trifles light as air
- Are to the jealous confirmations strong
- As proofs of holy writ: this may do something.
- The Moor already changes with my poison:
- Dangerous conceits are, in their natures, poisons.
- Which at the first are scarce found to distaste,
- But with a little act upon the blood.
- Burn like the mines of Sulphur. I did say so:
- Look, where he comes!
-
[Re-enter OTHELLO]
- Not poppy, nor mandragora,
- Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
- Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
- Which thou owedst yesterday.
OTHELLO:
- Ha! ha! false to me?
IAGO:
- Why, how now, general! no more of that.
OTHELLO:
- Avaunt! be gone! thou hast set me on the rack:
- I swear 'tis better to be much abused
- Than but to know't a little.
OTHELLO:
- What sense had I of her stol'n hours of lust?
- I saw't not, thought it not, it harm'd not me:
- I slept the next night well, was free and merry;
- I found not Cassio's kisses on her lips:
- He that is robb'd, not wanting what is stol'n,
- Let him not know't, and he's not robb'd at all.
IAGO:
- I am sorry to hear this.
OTHELLO:
- I had been happy, if the general camp,
- Pioners and all, had tasted her sweet body,
- So I had nothing known. O, now, for ever
- Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!
- Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars,
- That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!
- Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,
- The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
- The royal banner, and all quality,
- Pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war!
- And, O you mortal engines, whose rude throats
- The immortal Jove's dead clamours counterfeit,
- Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!
IAGO:
- Is't possible, my lord?
OTHELLO:
- Villain, be sure thou prove my love a whore,
- Be sure of it; give me the ocular proof:
- Or by the worth of man's eternal soul,
- Thou hadst been better have been born a dog
- Than answer my waked wrath!
OTHELLO:
- Make me to see't; or, at the least, so prove it,
- That the probation bear no hinge nor loop
- To hang a doubt on; or woe upon thy life!
OTHELLO:
- If thou dost slander her and torture me,
- Never pray more; abandon all remorse;
- On horror's head horrors accumulate;
- Do deeds to make heaven weep, all earth amazed;
- For nothing canst thou to damnation add
- Greater than that.
IAGO:
- O grace! O heaven forgive me!
- Are you a man? have you a soul or sense?
- God be wi' you; take mine office. O wretched fool.
- That livest to make thine honesty a vice!
- O monstrous world! Take note, take note, O world,
- To be direct and honest is not safe.
- I thank you for this profit; and from hence
- I'll love no friend, sith love breeds such offence.
OTHELLO:
- Nay, stay: thou shouldst be honest.
IAGO:
- I should be wise, for honesty's a fool
- And loses that it works for.
OTHELLO:
- By the world,
- I think my wife be honest and think she is not;
- I think that thou art just and think thou art not.
- I'll have some proof. Her name, that was as fresh
- As Dian's visage, is now begrimed and black
- As mine own face. If there be cords, or knives,
- Poison, or fire, or suffocating streams,
- I'll not endure it. Would I were satisfied!
IAGO:
- I see, sir, you are eaten up with passion:
- I do repent me that I put it to you.
- You would be satisfied?
OTHELLO:
- Would! nay, I will.
IAGO:
- And may: but, how? how satisfied, my lord?
- Would you, the supervisor, grossly gape on--
- Behold her topp'd?
OTHELLO:
- Death and damnation! O!
IAGO:
- It were a tedious difficulty, I think,
- To bring them to that prospect: damn them then,
- If ever mortal eyes do see them bolster
- More than their own! What then? how then?
- What shall I say? Where's satisfaction?
- It is impossible you should see this,
- Were they as prime as goats, as hot as monkeys,
- As salt as wolves in pride, and fools as gross
- As ignorance made drunk. But yet, I say,
- If imputation and strong circumstances,
- Which lead directly to the door of truth,
- Will give you satisfaction, you may have't.
OTHELLO:
- Give me a living reason she's disloyal.
IAGO:
- I do not like the office:
- But, sith I am enter'd in this cause so far,
- Prick'd to't by foolish honesty and love,
- I will go on. I lay with Cassio lately;
- And, being troubled with a raging tooth,
- I could not sleep.
- There are a kind of men so loose of soul,
- That in their sleeps will mutter their affairs:
- One of this kind is Cassio:
- In sleep I heard him say 'Sweet Desdemona,
- Let us be wary, let us hide our loves;'
- And then, sir, would he gripe and wring my hand,
- Cry 'O sweet creature!' and then kiss me hard,
- As if he pluck'd up kisses by the roots
- That grew upon my lips: then laid his leg
- Over my thigh, and sigh'd, and kiss'd; and then
- Cried 'Cursed fate that gave thee to the Moor!'
OTHELLO:
- O monstrous! monstrous!
IAGO:
- Nay, this was but his dream.
OTHELLO:
- But this denoted a foregone conclusion:
- 'Tis a shrewd doubt, though it be but a dream.
IAGO:
- And this may help to thicken other proofs
- That do demonstrate thinly.
OTHELLO:
- I'll tear her all to pieces.
IAGO:
- Nay, but be wise: yet we see nothing done;
- She may be honest yet. Tell me but this,
- Have you not sometimes seen a handkerchief
- Spotted with strawberries in your wife's hand?
OTHELLO:
- I gave her such a one; 'twas my first gift.
IAGO:
- I know not that; but such a handkerchief--
- I am sure it was your wife's--did I to-day
- See Cassio wipe his beard with.
IAGO:
- If it be that, or any that was hers,
- It speaks against her with the other proofs.
OTHELLO:
- O, that the slave had forty thousand lives!
- One is too poor, too weak for my revenge.
- Now do I see 'tis true. Look here, Iago;
- All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven.
- 'Tis gone.
- Arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow cell!
- Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearted throne
- To tyrannous hate! Swell, bosom, with thy fraught,
- For 'tis of aspics' tongues!
OTHELLO:
- O, blood, blood, blood!
IAGO:
- Patience, I say; your mind perhaps may change.
OTHELLO:
- Never, Iago: 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. Now, by yond marble heaven,
-
[Kneels]
- In the due reverence of a sacred vow
- I here engage my words.
IAGO:
- Do not rise yet.
-
[Kneels]
- Witness, you ever-burning lights above,
- You elements that clip us round about,
- Witness that here Iago doth give up
- The execution of his wit, hands, heart,
- To wrong'd Othello's service! Let him command,
- And to obey shall be in me remorse,
- What bloody business ever.
-
[They rise]
OTHELLO:
- I greet thy love,
- Not with vain thanks, but with acceptance bounteous,
- And will upon the instant put thee to't:
- Within these three days let me hear thee say
- That Cassio's not alive.
IAGO:
- My friend is dead; 'tis done at your request:
- But let her live.
OTHELLO:
- Damn her, lewd minx! O, damn her!
- Come, go with me apart; I will withdraw,
- To furnish me with some swift means of death
- For the fair devil. Now art thou my lieutenant.
IAGO:
- I am your own for ever.
-
[Exeunt]
ACT III, SCENE IV. Before the castle.
[Enter DESDEMONA, EMILIA, and Clown]
DESDEMONA:
- Do you know, sirrah, where Lieutenant Cassio lies?
CLOWN:
- I dare not say he lies any where.
CLOWN:
- He's a soldier, and for one to say a soldier lies,
- is stabbing.
DESDEMONA:
- Go to: where lodges he?
CLOWN:
- To tell you where he lodges, is to tell you where I lie.
DESDEMONA:
- Can any thing be made of this?
CLOWN:
- I know not where he lodges, and for me to devise a
- lodging and say he lies here or he lies there, were
- to lie in mine own throat.
DESDEMONA:
- Can you inquire him out, and be edified by report?
CLOWN:
- I will catechise the world for him; that is, make
- questions, and by them answer.
DESDEMONA:
- Seek him, bid him come hither: tell him I have
- moved my lord on his behalf, and hope all will be well.
CLOWN:
- To do this is within the compass of man's wit: and
- therefore I will attempt the doing it.
-
[Exit]
DESDEMONA:
- Where should I lose that handkerchief, Emilia?
EMILIA:
- I know not, madam.
DESDEMONA:
- Believe me, I had rather have lost my purse
- Full of crusadoes: and, but my noble Moor
- Is true of mind and made of no such baseness
- As jealous creatures are, it were enough
- To put him to ill thinking.
EMILIA:
- Is he not jealous?
DESDEMONA:
- Who, he? I think the sun where he was born
- Drew all such humours from him.
EMILIA:
- Look, where he comes.
DESDEMONA:
- I will not leave him now till Cassio
- Be call'd to him.
-
[Enter OTHELLO]
- How is't with you, my lord
OTHELLO:
- Well, my good lady.
-
[Aside]
- O, hardness to dissemble!--
- How do you, Desdemona?
DESDEMONA:
- Well, my good lord.
OTHELLO:
- Give me your hand: this hand is moist, my lady.
DESDEMONA:
- It yet hath felt no age nor known no sorrow.
OTHELLO:
- This argues fruitfulness and liberal heart:
- Hot, hot, and moist: this hand of yours requires
- A sequester from liberty, fasting and prayer,
- Much castigation, exercise devout;
- For here's a young and sweating devil here,
- That commonly rebels. 'Tis a good hand,
- A frank one.
DESDEMONA:
- You may, indeed, say so;
- For 'twas that hand that gave away my heart.
OTHELLO:
- A liberal hand: the hearts of old gave hands;
- But our new heraldry is hands, not hearts.
DESDEMONA:
- I cannot speak of this. Come now, your promise.
OTHELLO:
- What promise, chuck?
DESDEMONA:
- I have sent to bid Cassio come speak with you.
OTHELLO:
- I have a salt and sorry rheum offends me;
- Lend me thy handkerchief.
DESDEMONA:
- Here, my lord.
OTHELLO:
- That which I gave you.
DESDEMONA:
- I have it not about me.
DESDEMONA:
- No, indeed, my lord.
OTHELLO:
- That is a fault.
- That handkerchief
- Did an Egyptian to my mother give;
- She was a charmer, and could almost read
- The thoughts of people: she told her, while
- she kept it,
- 'Twould make her amiable and subdue my father
- Entirely to her love, but if she lost it
- Or made gift of it, my father's eye
- Should hold her loathed and his spirits should hunt
- After new fancies: she, dying, gave it me;
- And bid me, when my fate would have me wive,
- To give it her. I did so: and take heed on't;
- Make it a darling like your precious eye;
- To lose't or give't away were such perdition
- As nothing else could match.
DESDEMONA:
- Is't possible?
OTHELLO:
- 'Tis true: there's magic in the web of it:
- A sibyl, that had number'd in the world
- The sun to course two hundred compasses,
- In her prophetic fury sew'd the work;
- The worms were hallow'd that did breed the silk;
- And it was dyed in mummy which the skilful
- Conserved of maidens' hearts.
DESDEMONA:
- Indeed! is't true?
OTHELLO:
- Most veritable; therefore look to't well.
DESDEMONA:
- Then would to God that I had never seen't!
DESDEMONA:
- Why do you speak so startingly and rash?
OTHELLO:
- Is't lost? is't gone? speak, is it out
- o' the way?
DESDEMONA:
- Heaven bless us!
DESDEMONA:
- It is not lost; but what an if it were?
DESDEMONA:
- I say, it is not lost.
OTHELLO:
- Fetch't, let me see't.
DESDEMONA:
- Why, so I can, sir, but I will not now.
- This is a trick to put me from my suit:
- Pray you, let Cassio be received again.
OTHELLO:
- Fetch me the handkerchief: my mind misgives.
DESDEMONA:
- Come, come;
- You'll never meet a more sufficient man.
OTHELLO:
- The handkerchief!
DESDEMONA:
- I pray, talk me of Cassio.
OTHELLO:
- The handkerchief!
DESDEMONA:
- A man that all his time
- Hath founded his good fortunes on your love,
- Shared dangers with you,--
OTHELLO:
- The handkerchief!
DESDEMONA:
- In sooth, you are to blame.
EMILIA:
- Is not this man jealous?
DESDEMONA:
- I ne'er saw this before.
- Sure, there's some wonder in this handkerchief:
- I am most unhappy in the loss of it.
EMILIA:
- 'Tis not a year or two shows us a man:
- They are all but stomachs, and we all but food;
- To eat us hungerly, and when they are full,
- They belch us. Look you, Cassio and my husband!
-
[Enter CASSIO and IAGO]
IAGO:
- There is no other way; 'tis she must do't:
- And, lo, the happiness! go, and importune her.
DESDEMONA:
- How now, good Cassio! what's the news with you?
CASSIO:
- Madam, my former suit: I do beseech you
- That by your virtuous means I may again
- Exist, and be a member of his love
- Whom I with all the office of my heart
- Entirely honour: I would not be delay'd.
- If my offence be of such mortal kind
- That nor my service past, nor present sorrows,
- Nor purposed merit in futurity,
- Can ransom me into his love again,
- But to know so must be my benefit;
- So shall I clothe me in a forced content,
- And shut myself up in some other course,
- To fortune's alms.
DESDEMONA:
- Alas, thrice-gentle Cassio!
- My advocation is not now in tune;
- My lord is not my lord; nor should I know him,
- Were he in favour as in humour alter'd.
- So help me every spirit sanctified,
- As I have spoken for you all my best
- And stood within the blank of his displeasure
- For my free speech! you must awhile be patient:
- What I can do I will; and more I will
- Than for myself I dare: let that suffice you.
EMILIA:
- He went hence but now,
- And certainly in strange unquietness.
IAGO:
- Can he be angry? I have seen the cannon,
- When it hath blown his ranks into the air,
- And, like the devil, from his very arm
- Puff'd his own brother:--and can he be angry?
- Something of moment then: I will go meet him:
- There's matter in't indeed, if he be angry.
DESDEMONA:
- I prithee, do so.
-
[Exit IAGO]
- Something, sure, of state,
- Either from Venice, or some unhatch'd practise
- Made demonstrable here in Cyprus to him,
- Hath puddled his clear spirit: and in such cases
- Men's natures wrangle with inferior things,
- Though great ones are their object. 'Tis even so;
- For let our finger ache, and it indues
- Our other healthful members even to that sense
- Of pain: nay, we must think men are not gods,
- Nor of them look for such observances
- As fit the bridal. Beshrew me much, Emilia,
- I was, unhandsome warrior as I am,
- Arraigning his unkindness with my soul;
- But now I find I had suborn'd the witness,
- And he's indicted falsely.
EMILIA:
- Pray heaven it be state-matters, as you think,
- And no conception nor no jealous toy
- Concerning you.
DESDEMONA:
- Alas the day! I never gave him cause.
EMILIA:
- But jealous souls will not be answer'd so;
- They are not ever jealous for the cause,
- But jealous for they are jealous: 'tis a monster
- Begot upon itself, born on itself.
DESDEMONA:
- Heaven keep that monster from Othello's mind!
DESDEMONA:
- I will go seek him. Cassio, walk hereabout:
- If I do find him fit, I'll move your suit
- And seek to effect it to my uttermost.
BIANCA:
- Save you, friend Cassio!
CASSIO:
- What make you from home?
- How is it with you, my most fair Bianca?
- I' faith, sweet love, I was coming to your house.
BIANCA:
- And I was going to your lodging, Cassio.
- What, keep a week away? seven days and nights?
- Eight score eight hours? and lovers' absent hours,
- More tedious than the dial eight score times?
- O weary reckoning!
BIANCA:
- O Cassio, whence came this?
- This is some token from a newer friend:
- To the felt absence now I feel a cause:
- Is't come to this? Well, well.
CASSIO:
- Go to, woman!
- Throw your vile guesses in the devil's teeth,
- From whence you have them. You are jealous now
- That this is from some mistress, some remembrance:
- No, in good troth, Bianca.
BIANCA:
- Why, whose is it?
CASSIO:
- I know not, sweet: I found it in my chamber.
- I like the work well: ere it be demanded--
- As like enough it will--I'ld have it copied:
- Take it, and do't; and leave me for this time.
BIANCA:
- Leave you! wherefore?
CASSIO:
- I do attend here on the general;
- And think it no addition, nor my wish,
- To have him see me woman'd.
CASSIO:
- Not that I love you not.
BIANCA:
- But that you do not love me.
- I pray you, bring me on the way a little,
- And say if I shall see you soon at night.
CASSIO:
- 'Tis but a little way that I can bring you;
- For I attend here: but I'll see you soon.
BIANCA:
- 'Tis very good; I must be circumstanced.
-
[Exeunt]