OTHELLO


       DRAMATIS PERSONAE


DUKE OF VENICE:

BRABANTIO       a senator.

       Other Senators.
       (Senator:)
       (First Senator:)
       (Second Senator:)

GRATIANO        brother to Brabantio.

LODOVICO        kinsman to Brabantio.

OTHELLO a noble Moor in the service of the Venetian state.

CASSIO  his lieutenant.

IAGO    his ancient.

RODERIGO        a Venetian gentleman.

MONTANO Othello's predecessor in the government of Cyprus.

       Clown, servant to Othello. (Clown:)

DESDEMONA       daughter to Brabantio and wife to Othello.

EMILIA  wife to Iago.

BIANCA  mistress to Cassio.

       Sailor, Messenger, Herald, Officers, Gentlemen,
       Musicians, and Attendants.
       (Sailor:)
       (First Officer:)
       (Messenger:)
       (Gentleman:)
       (First Gentleman:)
       (Second Gentleman:)
       (Third Gentleman:)
       (First Musician:)


SCENE   Venice: a Sea-port in Cyprus.




       OTHELLO


ACT I



SCENE I Venice. A street.


       [Enter RODERIGO and IAGO]

RODERIGO        Tush! never tell me; I take it much unkindly
       That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse
       As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.

IAGO    'Sblood, but you will not hear me:
       If ever I did dream of such a matter, Abhor me.

RODERIGO        Thou told'st me thou didst hold him in thy hate.

IAGO    Despise me, if I do not. Three great ones of the city,
       In personal suit to make me his lieutenant,
       Off-capp'd to him: and, by the faith of man,
       I know my price, I am worth no worse a place:
       But he; as loving his own pride and purposes,
       Evades them, with a bombast circumstance
       Horribly stuff'd with epithets of war;
       And, in conclusion,
       Nonsuits my mediators; for, 'Certes,' says he,
       'I have already chose my officer.'
       And what was he?
       Forsooth, a great arithmetician,
       One Michael Cassio, a Florentine,
       A fellow almost damn'd in a fair wife;
       That never set a squadron in the field,
       Nor the division of a battle knows
       More than a spinster; unless the bookish theoric,
       Wherein the toged consuls can propose
       As masterly as he: mere prattle, without practise,
       Is all his soldiership. But he, sir, had the election:
       And I, of whom his eyes had seen the proof
       At Rhodes, at Cyprus and on other grounds
       Christian and heathen, must be be-lee'd and calm'd
       By debitor and creditor: this counter-caster,
       He, in good time, must his lieutenant be,
       And I--God bless the mark!--his Moorship's ancient.

RODERIGO        By heaven, I rather would have been his hangman.

IAGO    Why, there's no remedy; 'tis the curse of service,
       Preferment goes by letter and affection,
       And not by old gradation, where each second
       Stood heir to the first. Now, sir, be judge yourself,
       Whether I in any just term am affined
       To love the Moor.

RODERIGO        I would not follow him then.

IAGO    O, sir, content you;
       I follow him to serve my turn upon him:
       We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
       Cannot be truly follow'd. You shall mark
       Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave,
       That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,
       Wears out his time, much like his master's ass,
       For nought but provender, and when he's old, cashier'd:
       Whip me such honest knaves. Others there are
       Who, trimm'd in forms and visages of duty,
       Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves,
       And, throwing but shows of service on their lords,
       Do well thrive by them and when they have lined
       their coats
       Do themselves homage: these fellows have some soul;
       And such a one do I profess myself. For, sir,
       It is as sure as you are Roderigo,
       Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago:
       In following him, I follow but myself;
       Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
       But seeming so, for my peculiar end:
       For when my outward action doth demonstrate
       The native act and figure of my heart
       In compliment extern, 'tis not long after
       But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
       For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.

RODERIGO        What a full fortune does the thicklips owe
       If he can carry't thus!

IAGO    Call up her father,
       Rouse him: make after him, poison his delight,
       Proclaim him in the streets; incense her kinsmen,
       And, though he in a fertile climate dwell,
       Plague him with flies: though that his joy be joy,
       Yet throw such changes of vexation on't,
       As it may lose some colour.

RODERIGO        Here is her father's house; I'll call aloud.

IAGO    Do, with like timorous accent and dire yell
       As when, by night and negligence, the fire
       Is spied in populous cities.

RODERIGO        What, ho, Brabantio! Signior Brabantio, ho!

IAGO    Awake! what, ho, Brabantio! thieves! thieves! thieves!
       Look to your house, your daughter and your bags!
       Thieves! thieves!

       [BRABANTIO appears above, at a window]

BRABANTIO       What is the reason of this terrible summons?
       What is the matter there?

RODERIGO        Signior, is all your family within?

IAGO    Are your doors lock'd?

BRABANTIO       Why, wherefore ask you this?

IAGO    'Zounds, sir, you're robb'd; for shame, put on
       your gown;
       Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul;
       Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
       Is topping your white ewe. Arise, arise;
       Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,
       Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you:
       Arise, I say.

BRABANTIO                         What, have you lost your wits?

RODERIGO        Most reverend signior, do you know my voice?

BRABANTIO       Not I   what are you?

RODERIGO        My name is Roderigo.

BRABANTIO       The worser welcome:
       I have charged thee not to haunt about my doors:
       In honest plainness thou hast heard me say
       My daughter is not for thee; and now, in madness,
       Being full of supper and distempering draughts,
       Upon malicious bravery, dost thou come
       To start my quiet.

RODERIGO        Sir, sir, sir,--

BRABANTIO                         But thou must needs be sure
       My spirit and my place have in them power
       To make this bitter to thee.

RODERIGO        Patience, good sir.

BRABANTIO       What tell'st thou me of robbing? this is Venice;
       My house is not a grange.

RODERIGO        Most grave Brabantio,
       In simple and pure soul I come to you.

IAGO    'Zounds, sir, you are one of those that will not
       serve God, if the devil bid you. Because we come to
       do you service and you think we are ruffians, you'll
       have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse;
       you'll have your nephews neigh to you; you'll have
       coursers for cousins and gennets for germans.

BRABANTIO       What profane wretch art thou?

IAGO    I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter
       and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.

BRABANTIO       Thou art a villain.

IAGO    You are--a senator.

BRABANTIO       This thou shalt answer; I know thee, Roderigo.

RODERIGO        Sir, I will answer any thing. But, I beseech you,
       If't be your pleasure and most wise consent,
       As partly I find it is, that your fair daughter,
       At this odd-even and dull watch o' the night,
       Transported, with no worse nor better guard
       But with a knave of common hire, a gondolier,
       To the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor--
       If this be known to you and your allowance,
       We then have done you bold and saucy wrongs;
       But if you know not this, my manners tell me
       We have your wrong rebuke. Do not believe
       That, from the sense of all civility,
       I thus would play and trifle with your reverence:
       Your daughter, if you have not given her leave,
       I say again, hath made a gross revolt;
       Tying her duty, beauty, wit and fortunes
       In an extravagant and wheeling stranger
       Of here and every where. Straight satisfy yourself:
       If she be in her chamber or your house,
       Let loose on me the justice of the state
       For thus deluding you.

BRABANTIO       Strike on the tinder, ho!
       Give me a taper! call up all my people!
       This accident is not unlike my dream:
       Belief of it oppresses me already.
       Light, I say! light!

       [Exit above]

IAGO    Farewell; for I must leave you:
       It seems not meet, nor wholesome to my place,
       To be produced--as, if I stay, I shall--
       Against the Moor: for, I do know, the state,
       However this may gall him with some cheque,
       Cannot with safety cast him, for he's embark'd
       With such loud reason to the Cyprus wars,
       Which even now stand in act, that, for their souls,
       Another of his fathom they have none,
       To lead their business: in which regard,
       Though I do hate him as I do hell-pains.
       Yet, for necessity of present life,
       I must show out a flag and sign of love,
       Which is indeed but sign. That you shall surely find him,
       Lead to the Sagittary the raised search;
       And there will I be with him. So, farewell.

       [Exit]

       [Enter, below, BRABANTIO, and Servants with torches]

BRABANTIO       It is too true an evil: gone she is;
       And what's to come of my despised time
       Is nought but bitterness. Now, Roderigo,
       Where didst thou see her? O unhappy girl!
       With the Moor, say'st thou? Who would be a father!
       How didst thou know 'twas she? O she deceives me
       Past thought! What said she to you? Get more tapers:
       Raise all my kindred. Are they married, think you?

RODERIGO        Truly, I think they are.

BRABANTIO       O heaven! How got she out? O treason of the blood!
       Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters' minds
       By what you see them act. Is there not charms
       By which the property of youth and maidhood
       May be abused? Have you not read, Roderigo,
       Of some such thing?

RODERIGO        Yes, sir, I have indeed.

BRABANTIO       Call up my brother. O, would you had had her!
       Some one way, some another. Do you know
       Where we may apprehend her and the Moor?

RODERIGO        I think I can discover him, if you please,
       To get good guard and go along with me.

BRABANTIO       Pray you, lead on. At every house I'll call;
       I may command at most. Get weapons, ho!
       And raise some special officers of night.
       On, good Roderigo: I'll deserve your pains.

       [Exeunt]




       OTHELLO


ACT I



SCENE II        Another street.


       [Enter OTHELLO, IAGO, and Attendants with torches]

IAGO    Though in the trade of war I have slain men,
       Yet do I hold it very stuff o' the conscience
       To do no contrived murder: I lack iniquity
       Sometimes to do me service: nine or ten times
       I had thought to have yerk'd him here under the ribs.

OTHELLO 'Tis better as it is.

IAGO    Nay, but he prated,

       And spoke such scurvy and provoking terms
       Against your honour
       That, with the little godliness I have,
       I did full hard forbear him. But, I pray you, sir,
       Are you fast married? Be assured of this,
       That the magnifico is much beloved,
       And hath in his effect a voice potential
       As double as the duke's: he will divorce you;
       Or put upon you what restraint and grievance
       The law, with all his might to enforce it on,
       Will give him cable.

OTHELLO Let him do his spite:
       My services which I have done the signiory
       Shall out-tongue his complaints. 'Tis yet to know,--
       Which, when I know that boasting is an honour,
       I shall promulgate--I fetch my life and being
       From men of royal siege, and my demerits
       May speak unbonneted to as proud a fortune
       As this that I have reach'd: for know, Iago,
       But that I love the gentle Desdemona,
       I would not my unhoused free condition
       Put into circumscription and confine
       For the sea's worth. But, look! what lights come yond?

IAGO    Those are the raised father and his friends:
       You were best go in.

OTHELLO Not I   I must be found:
       My parts, my title and my perfect soul
       Shall manifest me rightly. Is it they?

IAGO    By Janus, I think no.

       [Enter CASSIO, and certain Officers with torches]

OTHELLO The servants of the duke, and my lieutenant.
       The goodness of the night upon you, friends!
       What is the news?

CASSIO                    The duke does greet you, general,
       And he requires your haste-post-haste appearance,
       Even on the instant.

OTHELLO What is the matter, think you?

CASSIO  Something from Cyprus as I may divine:
       It is a business of some heat: the galleys
       Have sent a dozen sequent messengers
       This very night at one another's heels,
       And many of the consuls, raised and met,
       Are at the duke's already: you have been
       hotly call'd for;
       When, being not at your lodging to be found,
       The senate hath sent about three several guests
       To search you out.

OTHELLO 'Tis well I am found by you.
       I will but spend a word here in the house,
       And go with you.

       [Exit]

CASSIO                    Ancient, what makes he here?

IAGO    'Faith, he to-night hath boarded a land carack:
       If it prove lawful prize, he's made for ever.

CASSIO  I do not understand.

IAGO    He's married.

CASSIO  To who?

       [Re-enter OTHELLO]

IAGO    Marry, to--Come, captain, will you go?

OTHELLO Have with you.

CASSIO  Here comes another troop to seek for you.

IAGO    It is Brabantio. General, be advised;
       He comes to bad intent.

       [Enter BRABANTIO, RODERIGO, and Officers with
       torches and weapons]

OTHELLO Holla! stand there!

RODERIGO        Signior, it is the Moor.

BRABANTIO       Down with him, thief!

       [They draw on both sides]

IAGO    You, Roderigo! come, sir, I am for you.

OTHELLO Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.
       Good signior, you shall more command with years
       Than with your weapons.

BRABANTIO       O thou foul thief, where hast thou stow'd my daughter?
       Damn'd as thou art, thou hast enchanted her;
       For I'll refer me to all things of sense,
       If she in chains of magic were not bound,
       Whether a maid so tender, fair and happy,
       So opposite to marriage that she shunned
       The wealthy curled darlings of our nation,
       Would ever have, to incur a general mock,
       Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom
       Of such a thing as thou, to fear, not to delight.
       Judge me the world, if 'tis not gross in sense
       That thou hast practised on her with foul charms,
       Abused her delicate youth with drugs or minerals
       That weaken motion: I'll have't disputed on;
       'Tis probable and palpable to thinking.
       I therefore apprehend and do attach thee
       For an abuser of the world, a practiser
       Of arts inhibited and out of warrant.
       Lay hold upon him: if he do resist,
       Subdue him at his peril.

OTHELLO Hold your hands,
       Both you of my inclining, and the rest:
       Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it
       Without a prompter. Where will you that I go
       To answer this your charge?

BRABANTIO       To prison, till fit time
       Of law and course of direct session
       Call thee to answer.

OTHELLO What if I do obey?
       How may the duke be therewith satisfied,
       Whose messengers are here about my side,
       Upon some present business of the state
       To bring me to him?

First Officer   'Tis true, most worthy signior;
       The duke's in council and your noble self,
       I am sure, is sent for.

BRABANTIO       How! the duke in council!
       In this time of the night! Bring him away:
       Mine's not an idle cause: the duke himself,
       Or any of my brothers of the state,
       Cannot but feel this wrong as 'twere their own;
       For if such actions may have passage free,
       Bond-slaves and pagans shall our statesmen be.

       [Exeunt]




       OTHELLO


ACT I



SCENE III       A council-chamber.


       [The DUKE and Senators sitting at a table; Officers
       attending]

DUKE OF VENICE  There is no composition in these news
       That gives them credit.

First Senator   Indeed, they are disproportion'd;
       My letters say a hundred and seven galleys.

DUKE OF VENICE  And mine, a hundred and forty.

Second Senator  And mine, two hundred:
       But though they jump not on a just account,--
       As in these cases, where the aim reports,
       'Tis oft with difference--yet do they all confirm
       A Turkish fleet, and bearing up to Cyprus.

DUKE OF VENICE  Nay, it is possible enough to judgment:
       I do not so secure me in the error,
       But the main article I do approve
       In fearful sense.

Sailor  [Within]  What, ho! what, ho! what, ho!

First Officer   A messenger from the galleys.

       [Enter a Sailor]

DUKE OF VENICE  Now, what's the business?

Sailor  The Turkish preparation makes for Rhodes;
       So was I bid report here to the state
       By Signior Angelo.

DUKE OF VENICE  How say you by this change?

First Senator   This cannot be,
       By no assay of reason: 'tis a pageant,
       To keep us in false gaze. When we consider
       The importancy of Cyprus to the Turk,
       And let ourselves again but understand,
       That as it more concerns the Turk than Rhodes,
       So may he with more facile question bear it,
       For that it stands not in such warlike brace,
       But altogether lacks the abilities
       That Rhodes is dress'd in: if we make thought of this,
       We must not think the Turk is so unskilful
       To leave that latest which concerns him first,
       Neglecting an attempt of ease and gain,
       To wake and wage a danger profitless.

DUKE OF VENICE  Nay, in all confidence, he's not for Rhodes.

First Officer   Here is more news.

       [Enter a Messenger]

Messenger       The Ottomites, reverend and gracious,
       Steering with due course towards the isle of Rhodes,
       Have there injointed them with an after fleet.

First Senator   Ay, so I thought. How many, as you guess?

Messenger       Of thirty sail: and now they do restem
       Their backward course, bearing with frank appearance
       Their purposes toward Cyprus. Signior Montano,
       Your trusty and most valiant servitor,
       With his free duty recommends you thus,
       And prays you to believe him.

DUKE OF VENICE  'Tis certain, then, for Cyprus.
       Marcus Luccicos, is not he in town?

First Senator   He's now in Florence.

DUKE OF VENICE  Write from us to him; post-post-haste dispatch.

First Senator   Here comes Brabantio and the valiant Moor.

       [Enter BRABANTIO, OTHELLO, IAGO, RODERIGO, and Officers]

DUKE OF VENICE  Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you
       Against the general enemy Ottoman.

       [To BRABANTIO]

       I did not see you; welcome, gentle signior;
       We lack'd your counsel and your help tonight.

BRABANTIO       So did I yours. Good your grace, pardon me;
       Neither my place nor aught I heard of business
       Hath raised me from my bed, nor doth the general care
       Take hold on me, for my particular grief
       Is of so flood-gate and o'erbearing nature
       That it engluts and swallows other sorrows
       And it is still itself.

DUKE OF VENICE  Why, what's the matter?

BRABANTIO       My daughter! O, my daughter!


DUKE OF VENICE  |       Dead?
Senator |


BRABANTIO       Ay, to me;
       She is abused, stol'n from me, and corrupted
       By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks;
       For nature so preposterously to err,
       Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense,
       Sans witchcraft could not.

DUKE OF VENICE  Whoe'er he be that in this foul proceeding
       Hath thus beguiled your daughter of herself
       And you of her, the bloody book of law
       You shall yourself read in the bitter letter
       After your own sense, yea, though our proper son
       Stood in your action.

BRABANTIO       Humbly I thank your grace.
       Here is the man, this Moor, whom now, it seems,
       Your special mandate for the state-affairs
       Hath hither brought.


DUKE OF VENICE  |
       |                 We are very sorry for't.
Senator |


DUKE OF VENICE  [To OTHELLO]  What, in your own part, can you say to this?

BRABANTIO       Nothing, but this is so.

OTHELLO Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,
       My very noble and approved good masters,
       That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter,
       It is most true; true, I have married her:
       The very head and front of my offending
       Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,
       And little bless'd with the soft phrase of peace:
       For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith,
       Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used
       Their dearest action in the tented field,
       And little of this great world can I speak,
       More than pertains to feats of broil and battle,
       And therefore little shall I grace my cause
       In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,
       I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver
       Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms,
       What conjuration and what mighty magic,
       For such proceeding I am charged withal,
       I won his daughter.

BRABANTIO       A maiden never bold;
       Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion
       Blush'd at herself; and she, in spite of nature,
       Of years, of country, credit, every thing,
       To fall in love with what she fear'd to look on!
       It is a judgment maim'd and most imperfect
       That will confess perfection so could err
       Against all rules of nature, and must be driven
       To find out practises of cunning hell,
       Why this should be. I therefore vouch again
       That with some mixtures powerful o'er the blood,
       Or with some dram conjured to this effect,
       He wrought upon her.

DUKE OF VENICE  To vouch this, is no proof,
       Without more wider and more overt test
       Than these thin habits and poor likelihoods
       Of modern seeming do prefer against him.

First Senator   But, Othello, speak:
       Did you by indirect and forced courses
       Subdue and poison this young maid's affections?
       Or came it by request and such fair question
       As soul to soul affordeth?

OTHELLO I do beseech you,
       Send for the lady to the Sagittary,
       And let her speak of me before her father:
       If you do find me foul in her report,
       The trust, the office I do hold of you,
       Not only take away, but let your sentence
       Even fall upon my life.

DUKE OF VENICE  Fetch Desdemona hither.

OTHELLO Ancient, conduct them: you best know the place.

       [Exeunt IAGO and Attendants]

       And, till she come, as truly as to heaven
       I do confess the vices of my blood,
       So justly to your grave ears I'll present
       How I did thrive in this fair lady's love,
       And she in mine.

DUKE OF VENICE  Say it, Othello.

OTHELLO Her father loved me; oft invited me;
       Still question'd me the story of my life,
       From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,
       That I have passed.
       I ran it through, even from my boyish days,
       To the very moment that he bade me tell it;
       Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,
       Of moving accidents by flood and field
       Of hair-breadth scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,
       Of being taken by the insolent foe
       And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence
       And portance in my travels' history:
       Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,
       Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven
       It was my hint to speak,--such was the process;
       And of the Cannibals that each other eat,
       The Anthropophagi and men whose heads
       Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear
       Would Desdemona seriously incline:
       But still the house-affairs would draw her thence:
       Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,
       She'ld come again, and with a greedy ear
       Devour up my discourse: which I observing,
       Took once a pliant hour, and found good means
       To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart
       That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,
       Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
       But not intentively: I did consent,
       And often did beguile her of her tears,
       When I did speak of some distressful stroke
       That my youth suffer'd. My story being done,
       She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:
       She swore, in faith, twas strange, 'twas passing strange,
       'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:
       She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd
       That heaven had made her such a man: she thank'd me,
       And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,
       I should but teach him how to tell my story.
       And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:
       She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd,
       And I loved her that she did pity them.
       This only is the witchcraft I have used:
       Here comes the lady; let her witness it.

       [Enter DESDEMONA, IAGO, and Attendants]

DUKE OF VENICE  I think this tale would win my daughter too.
       Good Brabantio,
       Take up this mangled matter at the best:
       Men do their broken weapons rather use
       Than their bare hands.

BRABANTIO       I pray you, hear her speak:
       If she confess that she was half the wooer,
       Destruction on my head, if my bad blame
       Light on the man! Come hither, gentle mistress:
       Do you perceive in all this noble company
       Where most you owe obedience?

DESDEMONA       My noble father,
       I do perceive here a divided duty:
       To you I am bound for life and education;
       My life and education both do learn me
       How to respect you; you are the lord of duty;
       I am hitherto your daughter: but here's my husband,
       And so much duty as my mother show'd
       To you, preferring you before her father,
       So much I challenge that I may profess
       Due to the Moor my lord.

BRABANTIO       God be wi' you! I have done.
       Please it your grace, on to the state-affairs:
       I had rather to adopt a child than get it.
       Come hither, Moor:
       I here do give thee that with all my heart
       Which, but thou hast already, with all my heart
       I would keep from thee. For your sake, jewel,
       I am glad at soul I have no other child:
       For thy escape would teach me tyranny,
       To hang clogs on them. I have done, my lord.

DUKE OF VENICE  Let me speak like yourself, and lay a sentence,
       Which, as a grise or step, may help these lovers
       Into your favour.
       When remedies are past, the griefs are ended
       By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended.
       To mourn a mischief that is past and gone
       Is the next way to draw new mischief on.
       What cannot be preserved when fortune takes
       Patience her injury a mockery makes.
       The robb'd that smiles steals something from the thief;
       He robs himself that spends a bootless grief.

BRABANTIO       So let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile;
       We lose it not, so long as we can smile.
       He bears the sentence well that nothing bears
       But the free comfort which from thence he hears,
       But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow
       That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow.
       These sentences, to sugar, or to gall,
       Being strong on both sides, are equivocal:
       But words are words; I never yet did hear
       That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear.
       I humbly beseech you, proceed to the affairs of state.

DUKE OF VENICE  The Turk with a most mighty preparation makes for
       Cyprus. Othello, the fortitude of the place is best
       known to you; and though we have there a substitute
       of most allowed sufficiency, yet opinion, a
       sovereign mistress of effects, throws a more safer
       voice on you: you must therefore be content to
       slubber the gloss of your new fortunes with this
       more stubborn and boisterous expedition.

OTHELLO The tyrant custom, most grave senators,
       Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
       My thrice-driven bed of down: I do agnise
       A natural and prompt alacrity
       I find in hardness, and do undertake
       These present wars against the Ottomites.
       Most humbly therefore bending to your state,
       I crave fit disposition for my wife.
       Due reference of place and exhibition,
       With such accommodation and besort
       As levels with her breeding.

DUKE OF VENICE  If you please,
       Be't at her father's.

BRABANTIO       I'll not have it so.

OTHELLO Nor I.

DESDEMONA            Nor I; I would not there reside,
       To put my father in impatient thoughts
       By being in his eye. Most gracious duke,
       To my unfolding lend your prosperous ear;
       And let me find a charter in your voice,
       To assist my simpleness.

DUKE OF VENICE  What would You, Desdemona?

DESDEMONA       That I did love the Moor to live with him,
       My downright violence and storm of fortunes
       May trumpet to the world: my heart's subdued
       Even to the very quality of my lord:
       I saw Othello's visage in his mind,
       And to his honour and his valiant parts
       Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.
       So that, dear lords, if I be left behind,
       A moth of peace, and he go to the war,
       The rites for which I love him are bereft me,
       And I a heavy interim shall support
       By his dear absence. Let me go with him.

OTHELLO Let her have your voices.
       Vouch with me, heaven, I therefore beg it not,
       To please the palate of my appetite,
       Nor to comply with heat--the young affects
       In me defunct--and proper satisfaction.
       But to be free and bounteous to her mind:
       And heaven defend your good souls, that you think
       I will your serious and great business scant
       For she is with me: no, when light-wing'd toys
       Of feather'd Cupid seal with wanton dullness
       My speculative and officed instruments,
       That my disports corrupt and taint my business,
       Let housewives make a skillet of my helm,
       And all indign and base adversities
       Make head against my estimation!

DUKE OF VENICE  Be it as you shall privately determine,
       Either for her stay or going: the affair cries haste,
       And speed must answer it.

First Senator   You must away to-night.

OTHELLO With all my heart.

DUKE OF VENICE  At nine i' the morning here we'll meet again.
       Othello, leave some officer behind,
       And he shall our commission bring to you;
       With such things else of quality and respect
       As doth import you.

OTHELLO So please your grace, my ancient;
       A man he is of honest and trust:
       To his conveyance I assign my wife,
       With what else needful your good grace shall think
       To be sent after me.

DUKE OF VENICE  Let it be so.
       Good night to every one.

       [To BRABANTIO]

                  And, noble signior,
       If virtue no delighted beauty lack,
       Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.

First Senator   Adieu, brave Moor, use Desdemona well.

BRABANTIO       Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see:
       She has deceived her father, and may thee.

       [Exeunt DUKE OF VENICE, Senators, Officers, &c]

OTHELLO My life upon her faith! Honest Iago,
       My Desdemona must I leave to thee:
       I prithee, let thy wife attend on her:
       And bring them after in the best advantage.

       Come, Desdemona: I have but an hour
       Of love, of worldly matters and direction,
       To spend with thee: we must obey the time.

       [Exeunt OTHELLO and DESDEMONA]

RODERIGO        Iago,--

IAGO    What say'st thou, noble heart?

RODERIGO        What will I do, thinkest thou?

IAGO    Why, go to bed, and sleep.

RODERIGO        I will incontinently drown myself.

IAGO    If thou dost, I shall never love thee after. Why,
       thou silly gentleman!

RODERIGO        It is silliness to live when to live is torment; and
       then have we a prescription to die when death is our physician.

IAGO    O villainous! I have looked upon the world for four
       times seven years; and since I could distinguish
       betwixt a benefit and an injury, I never found man
       that knew how to love himself. Ere I would say, I
       would drown myself for the love of a guinea-hen, I
       would change my humanity with a baboon.

RODERIGO        What should I do? I confess it is my shame to be so
       fond; but it is not in my virtue to amend it.

IAGO    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.

RODERIGO        It cannot be.

IAGO    It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of
       the will. Come, be a man. Drown thyself! drown
       cats and blind puppies. I have professed me thy
       friend and I confess me knit to thy deserving with
       cables of perdurable toughness; I could never
       better stead thee than now. Put money in thy
       purse; follow thou the wars; defeat thy favour with
       an usurped beard; I say, put money in thy purse. It
       cannot be that Desdemona should long continue her
       love to the Moor,-- put money in thy purse,--nor he
       his to her: it was a violent commencement, and thou
       shalt see an answerable sequestration:--put but
       money in thy purse. These Moors are changeable in
       their wills: fill thy purse with money:--the food
       that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be
       to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida. She must
       change for youth: when she is sated with his body,
       she will find the error of her choice: she must
       have change, she must: therefore put money in thy
       purse. If thou wilt needs damn thyself, do it a
       more delicate way than drowning. Make all the money
       thou canst: if sanctimony and a frail vow betwixt
       an erring barbarian and a supersubtle Venetian not
       too hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell, thou
       shalt enjoy her; therefore make money. A pox of
       drowning thyself! it is clean out of the way: seek
       thou rather to be hanged in compassing thy joy than
       to be drowned and go without her.

RODERIGO        Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend on
       the issue?

IAGO    Thou art sure of me:--go, make money:--I have told
       thee often, and I re-tell thee again and again, I
       hate the Moor: my cause is hearted; thine hath no
       less reason. Let us be conjunctive in our revenge
       against him: if thou canst cuckold him, thou dost
       thyself a pleasure, me a sport. There are many
       events in the womb of time which will be delivered.
       Traverse! go, provide thy money. We will have more
       of this to-morrow. Adieu.

RODERIGO        Where shall we meet i' the morning?

IAGO    At my lodging.

RODERIGO        I'll be with thee betimes.

IAGO    Go to; farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo?

RODERIGO        What say you?

IAGO    No more of drowning, do you hear?

RODERIGO        I am changed: I'll go sell all my land.

       [Exit]

IAGO    Thus do I ever make my fool my purse:
       For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane,
       If I would time expend with such a snipe.
       But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor:
       And it is thought abroad, that 'twixt my sheets
       He has done my office: I know not if't be true;
       But I, for mere suspicion in that kind,
       Will do as if for surety. He holds me well;
       The better shall my purpose work on him.
       Cassio's a proper man: let me see now:
       To get his place and to plume up my will
       In double knavery--How, how? Let's see:--
       After some time, to abuse Othello's ear
       That he is too familiar with his wife.
       He hath a person and a smooth dispose
       To be suspected, framed to make women false.
       The Moor is of a free and open nature,
       That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
       And will as tenderly be led by the nose
       As asses are.
       I have't. It is engender'd. Hell and night
       Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.

       [Exit]




       OTHELLO


ACT II



SCENE I A Sea-port in Cyprus. An open place 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.

MONTANO If that the Turkish fleet
       Be not enshelter'd and embay'd, they are drown'd:
       It is impossible they bear it out.

       [Enter a third Gentleman]

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]

CASSIO  What noise?

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?

CASSIO  Most fortunately: he hath achieved a maid
       That paragons description and wild fame;
       One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens,
       And in the essential vesture of creation
       Does tire the ingener.

       [Re-enter second Gentleman]

       How now! who has put in?

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.

MONTANO What is she?

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?

CASSIO  The great contention of the sea and skies
       Parted our fellowship--But, hark! a sail.

       [Within 'A sail, a sail!' Guns heard]

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.

IAGO    No, let me not.

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?

IAGO    Ay, madam.

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,--

DESDEMONA       To do what?

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.

CASSIO  'Tis truly so.

DESDEMONA       Let's meet him and receive him.

CASSIO  Lo, where he comes!

       [Enter OTHELLO and Attendants]

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.

OTHELLO                   Come, let us to the castle.
       News, friends; our wars are done, the Turks
       are drown'd.
       How does my old acquaintance of this isle?
       Honey, you shall be well desired in Cyprus;
       I have found great love amongst them. O my sweet,
       I prattle out of fashion, and I dote
       In mine own comforts. I prithee, good Iago,
       Go to the bay and disembark my coffers:
       Bring thou the master to the citadel;
       He is a good one, and his worthiness
       Does challenge much respect. Come, Desdemona,
       Once more, well met at Cyprus.

       [Exeunt OTHELLO, DESDEMONA, and Attendants]

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.

RODERIGO        Well.

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.

RODERIGO        Adieu.

       [Exit]

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]




       OTHELLO


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]




       OTHELLO


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.

OTHELLO                   Iago is most honest.
       Michael, good night: to-morrow with your earliest
       Let me have speech with you.

       [To DESDEMONA]

                      Come, my dear love,
       The purchase made, the fruits are to ensue;
       That profit's yet to come 'tween me and you.
       Good night.

       [Exeunt OTHELLO, DESDEMONA, and Attendants]

       [Enter IAGO]

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.

CASSIO  Where are they?

IAGO    Here at the door; I pray you, call them in.

CASSIO  I'll do't; but it dislikes me.

       [Exit]

IAGO    If I can fasten but one cup upon him,
       With that which he hath drunk to-night already,
       He'll be as full of quarrel and offence
       As my young mistress' dog. Now, my sick fool Roderigo,
       Whom love hath turn'd almost the wrong side out,
       To Desdemona hath to-night caroused
       Potations pottle-deep; and he's to watch:
       Three lads of Cyprus, noble swelling spirits,
       That hold their honours in a wary distance,
       The very elements of this warlike isle,
       Have I to-night fluster'd with flowing cups,
       And they watch too. Now, 'mongst this flock of drunkards,
       Am I to put our Cassio in some action
       That may offend the isle.--But here they come:
       If consequence do but approve my dream,
       My boat sails freely, both with wind and stream.

       [Re-enter CASSIO; with him MONTANO and Gentlemen;
       servants following with wine]

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.

All     Excellent well.

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.

IAGO                      Not I, for this fair island:
       I do love Cassio well; and would do much
       To cure him of this evil--But, hark! what noise?

       [Cry within: 'Help! help!']

       [Re-enter CASSIO, driving in RODERIGO]

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.

RODERIGO        Beat me!

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]

IAGO    [Aside to RODERIGO]  Away, I say; go out, and cry a mutiny.

       [Exit RODERIGO]

       Nay, good lieutenant,--alas, gentlemen;--
       Help, ho!--Lieutenant,--sir,--Montano,--sir;
       Help, masters!--Here's a goodly watch indeed!

       [Bell rings]

       Who's that which rings the bell?--Diablo, ho!
       The town will rise: God's will, lieutenant, hold!
       You will be shamed for ever.

       [Re-enter OTHELLO and Attendants]

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.

OTHELLO I know, Iago,
       Thy honesty and love doth mince this matter,
       Making it light to Cassio. Cassio, I love thee
       But never more be officer of mine.

       [Re-enter DESDEMONA, attended]

       Look, if my gentle love be not raised up!
       I'll make thee an example.

DESDEMONA       What's the matter?

OTHELLO All's well now, sweeting; come away to bed.
       Sir, for your hurts, myself will be your surgeon:
       Lead him off.

       [To MONTANO, who is led off]

       Iago, look with care about the town,
       And silence those whom this vile brawl distracted.
       Come, Desdemona: 'tis the soldiers' life
       To have their balmy slumbers waked with strife.

       [Exeunt all but IAGO and CASSIO]

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 know not.

IAGO    Is't possible?

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]




       OTHELLO


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]




       OTHELLO


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]




       OTHELLO


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.

DESDEMONA       Emilia, come. Be as your fancies teach you;
       Whate'er you be, I am obedient.

       [Exeunt DESDEMONA and EMILIA]

OTHELLO Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul,
       But I do love thee! and when I love thee not,
       Chaos is come again.

IAGO    My noble lord--

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.

IAGO    Indeed!

OTHELLO Indeed! ay, indeed: discern'st thou aught in that?
       Is he not honest?

IAGO    Honest, my lord!

OTHELLO                   Honest! ay, honest.

IAGO    My lord, for aught I know.

OTHELLO What dost thou think?

IAGO    Think, my lord!

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.

OTHELLO I think so too.

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.

OTHELLO Ha!

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!

OTHELLO O misery!

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.

OTHELLO And so she did.

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.

OTHELLO I will not.

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]

OTHELLO This fellow's of exceeding honesty,
       And knows all qualities, with a learned spirit,
       Of human dealings. If I do prove her haggard,
       Though that her jesses were my dear heartstrings,
       I'ld whistle her off and let her down the wind,
       To pray at fortune. Haply, for I am black
       And have not those soft parts of conversation
       That chamberers have, or for I am declined
       Into the vale of years,--yet that's not much--
       She's gone. I am abused; and my relief
       Must be to loathe her. O curse of marriage,
       That we can call these delicate creatures ours,
       And not their appetites! I had rather be a toad,
       And live upon the vapour of a dungeon,
       Than keep a corner in the thing I love
       For others' uses. Yet, 'tis the plague of great ones;
       Prerogatived are they less than the base;
       'Tis destiny unshunnable, like death:
       Even then this forked plague is fated to us
       When we do quicken. Desdemona comes:

       [Re-enter DESDEMONA and EMILIA]

       If she be false, O, then heaven mocks itself!
       I'll not believe't.

DESDEMONA       How now, my dear Othello!
       Your dinner, and the generous islanders
       By you invited, do attend your presence.

OTHELLO I am to blame.

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.

OTHELLO                   Your napkin is too little:

       [He puts the handkerchief from him; and it drops]

       Let it alone. Come, I'll go in with you.

DESDEMONA       I am very sorry that you are not well.

       [Exeunt OTHELLO and DESDEMONA]

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--

EMILIA  Ha!

IAGO    To have a foolish wife.

EMILIA  O, is that all? What will you give me now
       For the same handkerchief?

IAGO    What 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.

IAGO    How now, my lord!

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!

IAGO    Is't come to this?

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!

IAGO    My noble lord,--

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.

OTHELLO If it be that--

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!

IAGO    Yet be content.

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]



       OTHELLO


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.

DESDEMONA       Why, man?

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.

OTHELLO Not?

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!

OTHELLO Ha! wherefore?

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!

OTHELLO Say you?

DESDEMONA       It is not lost; but what an if it were?

OTHELLO How!

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.

OTHELLO Away!

       [Exit]

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.

IAGO    Is my lord angry?

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!

EMILIA  Lady, amen.

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.

CASSIO  I humbly thank your ladyship.

       [Exeunt DESDEMONA and EMILIA]

       [Enter BIANCA]

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!

CASSIO                    Pardon me, Bianca:
       I have this while with leaden thoughts been press'd:
       But I shall, in a more continuate time,
       Strike off this score of absence. Sweet Bianca,

       [Giving her DESDEMONA's handkerchief]

       Take me this work out.

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.

BIANCA  Why, I pray you?

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]




       OTHELLO


ACT IV



SCENE I Cyprus. Before the castle.


       [Enter OTHELLO and IAGO]

IAGO    Will you think so?

OTHELLO                   Think so, Iago!

IAGO    What,
       To kiss in private?

OTHELLO An unauthorized kiss.

IAGO    Or to be naked with her friend in bed
       An hour or more, not meaning any harm?

OTHELLO Naked in bed, Iago, and not mean harm!
       It is hypocrisy against the devil:
       They that mean virtuously, and yet do so,
       The devil their virtue tempts, and they tempt heaven.

IAGO    So they do nothing, 'tis a venial slip:
       But if I give my wife a handkerchief,--

OTHELLO What then?

IAGO    Why, then, 'tis hers, my lord; and, being hers,
       She may, I think, bestow't on any man.

OTHELLO She is protectress of her honour too:
       May she give that?

IAGO    Her honour is an essence that's not seen;
       They have it very oft that have it not:
       But, for the handkerchief,--

OTHELLO By heaven, I would most gladly have forgot it.
       Thou said'st, it comes o'er my memory,
       As doth the raven o'er the infected house,
       Boding to all--he had my handkerchief.

IAGO    Ay, what of that?

OTHELLO                   That's not so good now.

IAGO    What,
       If I had said I had seen him do you wrong?
       Or heard him say,--as knaves be such abroad,
       Who having, by their own importunate suit,
       Or voluntary dotage of some mistress,
       Convinced or supplied them, cannot choose
       But they must blab--

OTHELLO Hath he said any thing?

IAGO    He hath, my lord; but be you well assured,
       No more than he'll unswear.

OTHELLO What hath he said?

IAGO    'Faith, that he did--I know not what he did.

OTHELLO What? what?

IAGO    Lie--

OTHELLO     With her?

IAGO    With her, on her; what you will.

OTHELLO Lie with her! lie on her! We say lie on her, when
       they belie her. Lie with her! that's fulsome.
       --Handkerchief--confessions--handkerchief!--To
       confess, and be hanged for his labour;--first, to be
       hanged, and then to confess.--I tremble at it.
       Nature would not invest herself in such shadowing
       passion without some instruction. It is not words
       that shake me thus. Pish! Noses, ears, and lips.
       --Is't possible?--Confess--handkerchief!--O devil!--

       [Falls in a trance]

IAGO    Work on,
       My medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught;
       And many worthy and chaste dames even thus,
       All guiltless, meet reproach. What, ho! my lord!
       My lord, I say! Othello!

       [Enter CASSIO]

                   How now, Cassio!

CASSIO  What's the matter?

IAGO    My lord is fall'n into an epilepsy:
       This is his second fit; he had one yesterday.

CASSIO  Rub him about the temples.

IAGO    No, forbear;
       The lethargy must have his quiet course:
       If not, he foams at mouth and by and by
       Breaks out to savage madness. Look he stirs:
       Do you withdraw yourself a little while,
       He will recover straight: when he is gone,
       I would on great occasion speak with you.

       [Exit CASSIO]

       How is it, general? have you not hurt your head?

OTHELLO Dost thou mock me?

IAGO                      I mock you! no, by heaven.
       Would you would bear your fortune like a man!

OTHELLO A horned man's a monster and a beast.

IAGO    There's many a beast then in a populous city,
       And many a civil monster.

OTHELLO Did he confess it?

IAGO                      Good sir, be a man;
       Think every bearded fellow that's but yoked
       May draw with you: there's millions now alive
       That nightly lie in those unproper beds
       Which they dare swear peculiar: your case is better.
       O, 'tis the spite of hell, the fiend's arch-mock,
       To lip a wanton in a secure couch,
       And to suppose her chaste! No, let me know;
       And knowing what I am, I know what she shall be.

OTHELLO O, thou art wise; 'tis certain.

IAGO    Stand you awhile apart;
       Confine yourself but in a patient list.
       Whilst you were here o'erwhelmed with your grief--
       A passion most unsuiting such a man--
       Cassio came hither: I shifted him away,
       And laid good 'scuse upon your ecstasy,
       Bade him anon return and here speak with me;
       The which he promised. Do but encave yourself,
       And mark the fleers, the gibes, and notable scorns,
       That dwell in every region of his face;
       For I will make him tell the tale anew,
       Where, how, how oft, how long ago, and when
       He hath, and is again to cope your wife:
       I say, but mark his gesture. Marry, patience;
       Or I shall say you are all in all in spleen,
       And nothing of a man.

OTHELLO Dost thou hear, Iago?
       I will be found most cunning in my patience;
       But--dost thou hear?--most bloody.

IAGO    That's not amiss;
       But yet keep time in all. Will you withdraw?

       [OTHELLO retires]

       Now will I question Cassio of Bianca,
       A housewife that by selling her desires
       Buys herself bread and clothes: it is a creature
       That dotes on Cassio; as 'tis the strumpet's plague
       To beguile many and be beguiled by one:
       He, when he hears of her, cannot refrain
       From the excess of laughter. Here he comes:

       [Re-enter CASSIO]

       As he shall smile, Othello shall go mad;
       And his unbookish jealousy must construe
       Poor Cassio's smiles, gestures and light behavior,
       Quite in the wrong. How do you now, lieutenant?

CASSIO  The worser that you give me the addition
       Whose want even kills me.

IAGO    Ply Desdemona well, and you are sure on't.

       [Speaking lower]

       Now, if this suit lay in Bianco's power,
       How quickly should you speed!

CASSIO  Alas, poor caitiff!

OTHELLO Look, how he laughs already!

IAGO    I never knew woman love man so.

CASSIO  Alas, poor rogue! I think, i' faith, she loves me.

OTHELLO Now he denies it faintly, and laughs it out.

IAGO    Do you hear, Cassio?

OTHELLO Now he importunes him
       To tell it o'er: go to; well said, well said.

IAGO    She gives it out that you shall marry hey:
       Do you intend it?

CASSIO  Ha, ha, ha!

OTHELLO Do you triumph, Roman? do you triumph?

CASSIO  I marry her! what? a customer! Prithee, bear some
       charity to my wit: do not think it so unwholesome.
       Ha, ha, ha!

OTHELLO So, so, so, so: they laugh that win.

IAGO    'Faith, the cry goes that you shall marry her.

CASSIO  Prithee, say true.

IAGO    I am a very villain else.

OTHELLO Have you scored me? Well.

CASSIO  This is the monkey's own giving out: she is
       persuaded I will marry her, out of her own love and
       flattery, not out of my promise.

OTHELLO Iago beckons me; now he begins the story.

CASSIO  She was here even now; she haunts me in every place.
       I was the other day talking on the sea-bank with
       certain Venetians; and thither comes the bauble,
       and, by this hand, she falls me thus about my neck--

OTHELLO Crying 'O dear Cassio!' as it were: his gesture
       imports it.

CASSIO  So hangs, and lolls, and weeps upon me; so hales,
       and pulls me: ha, ha, ha!

OTHELLO Now he tells how she plucked him to my chamber. O,
       I see that nose of yours, but not that dog I shall
       throw it to.

CASSIO  Well, I must leave her company.

IAGO    Before me! look, where she comes.

CASSIO  'Tis such another fitchew! marry a perfumed one.

       [Enter BIANCA]

       What do you mean by this haunting of me?

BIANCA  Let the devil and his dam haunt you! What did you
       mean by that same handkerchief you gave me even now?
       I was a fine fool to take it. I must take out the
       work?--A likely piece of work, that you should find
       it in your chamber, and not know who left it there!
       This is some minx's token, and I must take out the
       work? There; give it your hobby-horse: wheresoever
       you had it, I'll take out no work on't.

CASSIO  How now, my sweet Bianca! how now! how now!

OTHELLO By heaven, that should be my handkerchief!

BIANCA  An you'll come to supper to-night, you may; an you
       will not, come when you are next prepared for.

       [Exit]

IAGO    After her, after her.

CASSIO  'Faith, I must; she'll rail in the street else.

IAGO    Will you sup there?

CASSIO  'Faith, I intend so.

IAGO    Well, I may chance to see you; for I would very fain
       speak with you.

CASSIO  Prithee, come; will you?

IAGO    Go to; say no more.

       [Exit CASSIO]

OTHELLO [Advancing]  How shall I murder him, Iago?

IAGO    Did you perceive how he laughed at his vice?

OTHELLO O Iago!

IAGO    And did you see the handkerchief?

OTHELLO Was that mine?

IAGO    Yours by this hand: and to see how he prizes the
       foolish woman your wife! she gave it him, and he
       hath given it his whore.

OTHELLO I would have him nine years a-killing.
       A fine woman! a fair woman! a sweet woman!

IAGO    Nay, you must forget that.

OTHELLO Ay, let her rot, and perish, and be damned to-night;
       for she shall not live: no, my heart is turned to
       stone; I strike it, and it hurts my hand. O, the
       world hath not a sweeter creature: she might lie by
       an emperor's side and command him tasks.

IAGO    Nay, that's not your way.

OTHELLO Hang her! I do but say what she is: so delicate
       with her needle: an admirable musician: O! she
       will sing the savageness out of a bear: of so high
       and plenteous wit and invention:--

IAGO    She's the worse for all this.

OTHELLO O, a thousand thousand times: and then, of so
       gentle a condition!

IAGO    Ay, too gentle.

OTHELLO Nay, that's certain: but yet the pity of it, Iago!
       O Iago, the pity of it, Iago!

IAGO    If you are so fond over her iniquity, give her
       patent to offend; for, if it touch not you, it comes
       near nobody.

OTHELLO I will chop her into messes: cuckold me!

IAGO    O, 'tis foul in her.

OTHELLO With mine officer!

IAGO    That's fouler.

OTHELLO Get me some poison, Iago; this night: I'll not
       expostulate with her, lest her body and beauty
       unprovide my mind again: this night, Iago.

IAGO    Do it not with poison, strangle her in her bed, even
       the bed she hath contaminated.

OTHELLO Good, good: the justice of it pleases: very good.

IAGO    And for Cassio, let me be his undertaker: you
       shall hear more by midnight.

OTHELLO Excellent good.

       [A trumpet within]

       What trumpet is that same?

IAGO    Something from Venice, sure. 'Tis Lodovico
       Come from the duke: and, see, your wife is with him.

       [Enter LODOVICO, DESDEMONA, and Attendants]

LODOVICO        Save you, worthy general!

OTHELLO With all my heart, sir.

LODOVICO        The duke and senators of Venice greet you.

       [Gives him a letter]

OTHELLO I kiss the instrument of their pleasures.

       [Opens the letter, and reads]

DESDEMONA       And what's the news, good cousin Lodovico?

IAGO    I am very glad to see you, signior
       Welcome to Cyprus.

LODOVICO        I thank you. How does Lieutenant Cassio?

IAGO    Lives, sir.

DESDEMONA       Cousin, there's fall'n between him and my lord
       An unkind breach: but you shall make all well.

OTHELLO Are you sure of that?

DESDEMONA       My lord?

OTHELLO [Reads]  'This fail you not to do, as you will--'

LODOVICO        He did not call; he's busy in the paper.
       Is there division 'twixt my lord and Cassio?

DESDEMONA       A most unhappy one: I would do much
       To atone them, for the love I bear to Cassio.

OTHELLO Fire and brimstone!

DESDEMONA       My lord?

OTHELLO        Are you wise?

DESDEMONA       What, is he angry?

LODOVICO                          May be the letter moved him;
       For, as I think, they do command him home,
       Deputing Cassio in his government.

DESDEMONA       Trust me, I am glad on't.

OTHELLO Indeed!

DESDEMONA       My lord?

OTHELLO I am glad to see you mad.

DESDEMONA       Why, sweet Othello,--

OTHELLO [Striking her]  Devil!

DESDEMONA       I have not deserved this.

LODOVICO        My lord, this would not be believed in Venice,
       Though I should swear I saw't: 'tis very much:
       Make her amends; she weeps.

OTHELLO O devil, devil!
       If that the earth could teem with woman's tears,
       Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.
       Out of my sight!

DESDEMONA       I will not stay to offend you.

       [Going]

LODOVICO        Truly, an obedient lady:
       I do beseech your lordship, call her back.

OTHELLO Mistress!

DESDEMONA               My lord?

OTHELLO What would you with her, sir?

LODOVICO        Who, I, my lord?

OTHELLO Ay; you did wish that I would make her turn:
       Sir, she can turn, and turn, and yet go on,
       And turn again; and she can weep, sir, weep;
       And she's obedient, as you say, obedient,
       Very obedient. Proceed you in your tears.
       Concerning this, sir,--O  well-painted passion!--
       I am commanded home. Get you away;
       I'll send for you anon. Sir, I obey the mandate,
       And will return to Venice. Hence, avaunt!

       [Exit DESDEMONA]

       Cassio shall have my place. And, sir, tonight,
       I do entreat that we may sup together:
       You are welcome, sir, to Cyprus.--Goats and monkeys!

       [Exit]

LODOVICO        Is this the noble Moor whom our full senate
       Call all in all sufficient? Is this the nature
       Whom passion could not shake? whose solid virtue
       The shot of accident, nor dart of chance,
       Could neither graze nor pierce?

IAGO    He is much changed.

LODOVICO        Are his wits safe? is he not light of brain?

IAGO    He's that he is: I may not breathe my censure
       What he might be: if what he might he is not,
       I would to heaven he were!

LODOVICO        What, strike his wife!

IAGO    'Faith, that was not so well; yet would I knew
       That stroke would prove the worst!

LODOVICO        Is it his use?
       Or did the letters work upon his blood,
       And new-create this fault?

IAGO    Alas, alas!
       It is not honesty in me to speak
       What I have seen and known. You shall observe him,
       And his own courses will denote him so
       That I may save my speech: do but go after,
       And mark how he continues.

LODOVICO        I am sorry that I am deceived in him.

       [Exeunt]




       OTHELLO


ACT IV


SCENE II        A room in the castle.


       [Enter OTHELLO and EMILIA]

OTHELLO You have seen nothing then?

EMILIA  Nor ever heard, nor ever did suspect.

OTHELLO Yes, you have seen Cassio and she together.

EMILIA  But then I saw no harm, and then I heard
       Each syllable that breath made up between them.

OTHELLO What, did they never whisper?

EMILIA  Never, my lord.

OTHELLO Nor send you out o' the way?

EMILIA  Never.

OTHELLO To fetch her fan, her gloves, her mask, nor nothing?

EMILIA  Never, my lord.

OTHELLO That's strange.

EMILIA  I durst, my lord, to wager she is honest,
       Lay down my soul at stake: if you think other,
       Remove your thought; it doth abuse your bosom.
       If any wretch have put this in your head,
       Let heaven requite it with the serpent's curse!
       For, if she be not honest, chaste, and true,
       There's no man happy; the purest of their wives
       Is foul as slander.

OTHELLO Bid her come hither: go.

       [Exit EMILIA]

       She says enough; yet she's a simple bawd
       That cannot say as much. This is a subtle whore,
       A closet lock and key of villanous secrets
       And yet she'll kneel and pray; I have seen her do't.

       [Enter DESDEMONA with EMILIA]

DESDEMONA       My lord, what is your will?

OTHELLO Pray, chuck, come hither.

DESDEMONA       What is your pleasure?

OTHELLO Let me see your eyes;
       Look in my face.

DESDEMONA                         What horrible fancy's this?

OTHELLO [To EMILIA]  Some of your function, mistress;
       Leave procreants alone and shut the door;
       Cough, or cry 'hem,' if any body come:
       Your mystery, your mystery: nay, dispatch.

       [Exit EMILIA]

DESDEMONA       Upon my knees, what doth your speech import?
       I understand a fury in your words.
       But not the words.

OTHELLO Why, what art thou?

DESDEMONA       Your wife, my lord; your true
       And loyal wife.

OTHELLO                   Come, swear it, damn thyself
       Lest, being like one of heaven, the devils themselves
       Should fear to seize thee: therefore be double damn'd:
       Swear thou art honest.

DESDEMONA       Heaven doth truly know it.

OTHELLO Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell.

DESDEMONA       To whom, my lord? with whom? how am I false?

OTHELLO O Desdemona! away! away! away!

DESDEMONA       Alas the heavy day! Why do you weep?
       Am I the motive of these tears, my lord?
       If haply you my father do suspect
       An instrument of this your calling back,
       Lay not your blame on me: If you have lost him,
       Why, I have lost him too.

OTHELLO Had it pleased heaven
       To try me with affliction; had they rain'd
       All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head.
       Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips,
       Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes,
       I should have found in some place of my soul
       A drop of patience: but, alas, to make me
       A fixed figure for the time of scorn
       To point his slow unmoving finger at!
       Yet could I bear that too; well, very well:
       But there, where I have garner'd up my heart,
       Where either I must live, or bear no life;
       The fountain from the which my current runs,
       Or else dries up; to be discarded thence!
       Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads
       To knot and gender in! Turn thy complexion there,
       Patience, thou young and rose-lipp'd cherubin,--
       Ay, there, look grim as hell!

DESDEMONA       I hope my noble lord esteems me honest.

OTHELLO O, ay; as summer flies are in the shambles,
       That quicken even with blowing. O thou weed,
       Who art so lovely fair and smell'st so sweet
       That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst
       ne'er been born!

DESDEMONA       Alas, what ignorant sin have I committed?

OTHELLO Was this fair paper, this most goodly book,
       Made to write 'whore' upon? What committed!
       Committed! O thou public commoner!
       I should make very forges of my cheeks,
       That would to cinders burn up modesty,
       Did I but speak thy deeds. What committed!
       Heaven stops the nose at it and the moon winks,
       The bawdy wind that kisses all it meets
       Is hush'd within the hollow mine of earth,
       And will not hear it. What committed!
       Impudent strumpet!

DESDEMONA                         By heaven, you do me wrong.

OTHELLO Are you not a strumpet?

DESDEMONA       No, as I am a Christian:
       If to preserve this vessel for my lord
       From any other foul unlawful touch
       Be not to be a strumpet, I am none.

OTHELLO What, not a whore?

DESDEMONA                         No, as I shall be saved.

OTHELLO Is't possible?

DESDEMONA                         O, heaven forgive us!

OTHELLO I cry you mercy, then:
       I took you for that cunning whore of Venice
       That married with Othello.

       [Raising his voice]

                    You, mistress,
       That have the office opposite to Saint Peter,
       And keep the gate of hell!

       [Re-enter EMILIA]

                    You, you, ay, you!
       We have done our course; there's money for your pains:
       I pray you, turn the key and keep our counsel.

       [Exit]

EMILIA  Alas, what does this gentleman conceive?
       How do you, madam? how do you, my good lady?

DESDEMONA       'Faith, half asleep.

EMILIA  Good madam, what's the matter with my lord?

DESDEMONA       With who?

EMILIA  Why, with my lord, madam.

DESDEMONA       Who is thy lord?

EMILIA                    He that is yours, sweet lady.

DESDEMONA       I have none: do not talk to me, Emilia;
       I cannot weep; nor answer have I none,
       But what should go by water. Prithee, tonight
       Lay on my bed my wedding sheets: remember;
       And call thy husband hither.

EMILIA  Here's a change indeed!

       [Exit]

DESDEMONA       'Tis meet I should be used so, very meet.
       How have I been behaved, that he might stick
       The small'st opinion on my least misuse?

       [Re-enter EMILIA with IAGO]

IAGO    What is your pleasure, madam?
       How is't with you?

DESDEMONA       I cannot tell. Those that do teach young babes
       Do it with gentle means and easy tasks:
       He might have chid me so; for, in good faith,
       I am a child to chiding.

IAGO    What's the matter, lady?

EMILIA  Alas, Iago, my lord hath so bewhored her.
       Thrown such despite and heavy terms upon her,
       As true hearts cannot bear.

DESDEMONA       Am I that name, Iago?

IAGO    What name, fair lady?

DESDEMONA       Such as she says my lord did say I was.

EMILIA  He call'd her whore: a beggar in his drink
       Could not have laid such terms upon his callat.

IAGO    Why did he so?

DESDEMONA       I do not know; I am sure I am none such.

IAGO    Do not weep, do not weep. Alas the day!

EMILIA  Hath she forsook so many noble matches,
       Her father and her country and her friends,
       To be call'd whore? would it not make one weep?

DESDEMONA       It is my wretched fortune.

IAGO    Beshrew him for't!
       How comes this trick upon him?

DESDEMONA       Nay, heaven doth know.

EMILIA  I will be hang'd, if some eternal villain,
       Some busy and insinuating rogue,
       Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office,
       Have not devised this slander; I'll be hang'd else.

IAGO    Fie, there is no such man; it is impossible.

DESDEMONA       If any such there be, heaven pardon him!

EMILIA  A halter pardon him! and hell gnaw his bones!
       Why should he call her whore? who keeps her company?
       What place? what time? what form? what likelihood?
       The Moor's abused by some most villanous knave,
       Some base notorious knave, some scurvy fellow.
       O heaven, that such companions thou'ldst unfold,
       And put in every honest hand a whip
       To lash the rascals naked through the world
       Even from the east to the west!

IAGO    Speak within door.

EMILIA  O, fie upon them! Some such squire he was
       That turn'd your wit the seamy side without,
       And made you to suspect me with the Moor.

IAGO    You are a fool; go to.

DESDEMONA       O good Iago,
       What shall I do to win my lord again?
       Good friend, go to him; for, by this light of heaven,
       I know not how I lost him. Here I kneel:
       If e'er my will did trespass 'gainst his love,
       Either in discourse of thought or actual deed,
       Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense,
       Delighted them in any other form;
       Or that I do not yet, and ever did.
       And ever will--though he do shake me off
       To beggarly divorcement--love him dearly,
       Comfort forswear me! Unkindness may do much;
       And his unkindness may defeat my life,
       But never taint my love. I cannot say 'whore:'
       It does abhor me now I speak the word;
       To do the act that might the addition earn
       Not the world's mass of vanity could make me.

IAGO    I pray you, be content; 'tis but his humour:
       The business of the state does him offence,
       And he does chide with you.

DESDEMONA       If 'twere no other--

IAGO    'Tis but so, I warrant.

       [Trumpets within]

       Hark, how these instruments summon to supper!
       The messengers of Venice stay the meat;
       Go in, and weep not; all things shall be well.

       [Exeunt DESDEMONA and EMILIA]

       [Enter RODERIGO]

       How now, Roderigo!

RODERIGO        I do not find that thou dealest justly with me.

IAGO    What in the contrary?

RODERIGO        Every day thou daffest me with some device, Iago;
       and rather, as it seems to me now, keepest from me
       all conveniency than suppliest me with the least
       advantage of hope. I will indeed no longer endure
       it, nor am I yet persuaded to put up in peace what
       already I have foolishly suffered.

IAGO    Will you hear me, Roderigo?

RODERIGO        'Faith, I have heard too much, for your words and
       performances are no kin together.

IAGO    You charge me most unjustly.

RODERIGO        With nought but truth. I have wasted myself out of
       my means. The jewels you have had from me to
       deliver to Desdemona would half have corrupted a
       votarist: you have told me she hath received them
       and returned me expectations and comforts of sudden
       respect and acquaintance, but I find none.

IAGO    Well; go to; very well.

RODERIGO        Very well! go to! I cannot go to, man; nor 'tis
       not very well: nay, I think it is scurvy, and begin
       to find myself fobbed in it.

IAGO    Very well.

RODERIGO        I tell you 'tis not very well. I will make myself
       known to Desdemona: if she will return me my
       jewels, I will give over my suit and repent my
       unlawful solicitation; if not, assure yourself I
       will seek satisfaction of you.

IAGO    You have said now.

RODERIGO        Ay, and said nothing but what I protest intendment of doing.

IAGO    Why, now I see there's mettle in thee, and even from
       this instant to build on thee a better opinion than
       ever before. Give me thy hand, Roderigo: thou hast
       taken against me a most just exception; but yet, I
       protest, I have dealt most directly in thy affair.

RODERIGO        It hath not appeared.

IAGO    I grant indeed it hath not appeared, and your
       suspicion is not without wit and judgment. But,
       Roderigo, if thou hast that in thee indeed, which I
       have greater reason to believe now than ever, I mean
       purpose, courage and valour, this night show it: if
       thou the next night following enjoy not Desdemona,
       take me from this world with treachery and devise
       engines for my life.

RODERIGO        Well, what is it? is it within reason and compass?

IAGO    Sir, there is especial commission come from Venice
       to depute Cassio in Othello's place.

RODERIGO        Is that true? why, then Othello and Desdemona
       return again to Venice.

IAGO    O, no; he goes into Mauritania and takes away with
       him the fair Desdemona, unless his abode be
       lingered here by some accident: wherein none can be
       so determinate as the removing of Cassio.

RODERIGO        How do you mean, removing of him?

IAGO    Why, by making him uncapable of Othello's place;
       knocking out his brains.

RODERIGO        And that you would have me to do?

IAGO    Ay, if you dare do yourself a profit and a right.
       He sups to-night with a harlotry, and thither will I
       go to him: he knows not yet of his horrorable
       fortune. If you will watch his going thence, which
       I will fashion to fall out between twelve and one,
       you may take him at your pleasure: I will be near
       to second your attempt, and he shall fall between
       us. Come, stand not amazed at it, but go along with
       me; I will show you such a necessity in his death
       that you shall think yourself bound to put it on
       him. It is now high suppertime, and the night grows
       to waste: about it.

RODERIGO        I will hear further reason for this.

IAGO    And you shall be satisfied.

       [Exeunt]




       OTHELLO


ACT IV



SCENE III       Another room In the castle.


       [Enter OTHELLO, LODOVICO, DESDEMONA, EMILIA and
       Attendants]

LODOVICO        I do beseech you, sir, trouble yourself no further.

OTHELLO O, pardon me: 'twill do me good to walk.

LODOVICO        Madam, good night; I humbly thank your ladyship.

DESDEMONA       Your honour is most welcome.

OTHELLO Will you walk, sir?
       O,--Desdemona,--

DESDEMONA       My lord?

OTHELLO Get you to bed on the instant; I will be returned
       forthwith: dismiss your attendant there: look it be done.

DESDEMONA       I will, my lord.

       [Exeunt OTHELLO, LODOVICO, and Attendants]

EMILIA  How goes it now? he looks gentler than he did.

DESDEMONA       He says he will return incontinent:
       He hath commanded me to go to bed,
       And bade me to dismiss you.

EMILIA  Dismiss me!

DESDEMONA       It was his bidding: therefore, good Emilia,.
       Give me my nightly wearing, and adieu:
       We must not now displease him.

EMILIA  I would you had never seen him!

DESDEMONA       So would not I  my love doth so approve him,
       That even his stubbornness, his cheques, his frowns--
       Prithee, unpin me,--have grace and favour in them.

EMILIA  I have laid those sheets you bade me on the bed.

DESDEMONA       All's one. Good faith, how foolish are our minds!
       If I do die before thee prithee, shroud me
       In one of those same sheets.

EMILIA  Come, come you talk.

DESDEMONA       My mother had a maid call'd Barbara:
       She was in love, and he she loved proved mad
       And did forsake her: she had a song of 'willow;'
       An old thing 'twas, but it express'd her fortune,
       And she died singing it: that song to-night
       Will not go from my mind; I have much to do,
       But to go hang my head all at one side,
       And sing it like poor Barbara. Prithee, dispatch.

EMILIA  Shall I go fetch your night-gown?

DESDEMONA       No, unpin me here.
       This Lodovico is a proper man.

EMILIA  A very handsome man.

DESDEMONA       He speaks well.

EMILIA  I know a lady in Venice would have walked barefoot
       to Palestine for a touch of his nether lip.

DESDEMONA       [Singing]  The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,
       Sing all a green willow:
       Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,
       Sing willow, willow, willow:
       The fresh streams ran by her, and murmur'd her moans;
       Sing willow, willow, willow;
       Her salt tears fell from her, and soften'd the stones;
       Lay by these:--

       [Singing]

       Sing willow, willow, willow;
       Prithee, hie thee; he'll come anon:--

       [Singing]

       Sing all a green willow must be my garland.
       Let nobody blame him; his scorn I approve,-
       Nay, that's not next.--Hark! who is't that knocks?

EMILIA  It's the wind.

DESDEMONA       [Singing]  I call'd my love false love; but what
       said he then?
       Sing willow, willow, willow:
       If I court moe women, you'll couch with moe men!
       So, get thee gone; good night Ate eyes do itch;
       Doth that bode weeping?

EMILIA  'Tis neither here nor there.

DESDEMONA       I have heard it said so. O, these men, these men!
       Dost thou in conscience think,--tell me, Emilia,--
       That there be women do abuse their husbands
       In such gross kind?

EMILIA  There be some such, no question.

DESDEMONA       Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?

EMILIA  Why, would not you?

DESDEMONA       No, by this heavenly light!

EMILIA  Nor I neither by this heavenly light;
       I might do't as well i' the dark.

DESDEMONA       Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?

EMILIA  The world's a huge thing: it is a great price.
       For a small vice.

DESDEMONA       In troth, I think thou wouldst not.

EMILIA  In troth, I think I should; and undo't when I had
       done. Marry, I would not do such a thing for a
       joint-ring, nor for measures of lawn, nor for
       gowns, petticoats, nor caps, nor any petty
       exhibition; but for the whole world,--why, who would
       not make her husband a cuckold to make him a
       monarch? I should venture purgatory for't.

DESDEMONA       Beshrew me, if I would do such a wrong
       For the whole world.

EMILIA  Why the wrong is but a wrong i' the world: and
       having the world for your labour, tis a wrong in your
       own world, and you might quickly make it right.

DESDEMONA       I do not think there is any such woman.

EMILIA  Yes, a dozen; and as many to the vantage as would
       store the world they played for.
       But I do think it is their husbands' faults
       If wives do fall: say that they slack their duties,
       And pour our treasures into foreign laps,
       Or else break out in peevish jealousies,
       Throwing restraint upon us; or say they strike us,
       Or scant our former having in despite;
       Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace,
       Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know
       Their wives have sense like them: they see and smell
       And have their palates both for sweet and sour,
       As husbands have. What is it that they do
       When they change us for others? Is it sport?
       I think it is: and doth affection breed it?
       I think it doth: is't frailty that thus errs?
       It is so too: and have not we affections,
       Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?
       Then let them use us well: else let them know,
       The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.

DESDEMONA       Good night, good night: heaven me such uses send,
       Not to pick bad from bad, but by bad mend!

       [Exeunt]




       OTHELLO


ACT V



SCENE I Cyprus. A street.


       [Enter IAGO and RODERIGO]

IAGO    Here, stand behind this bulk; straight will he come:
       Wear thy good rapier bare, and put it home:
       Quick, quick; fear nothing; I'll be at thy elbow:
       It makes us, or it mars us; think on that,
       And fix most firm thy resolution.

RODERIGO        Be near at hand; I may miscarry in't.

IAGO    Here, at thy hand: be bold, and take thy stand.

       [Retires]

RODERIGO        I have no great devotion to the deed;
       And yet he hath given me satisfying reasons:
       'Tis but a man gone. Forth, my sword: he dies.

IAGO    I have rubb'd this young quat almost to the sense,
       And he grows angry. Now, whether he kill Cassio,
       Or Cassio him, or each do kill the other,
       Every way makes my gain: live Roderigo,
       He calls me to a restitution large
       Of gold and jewels that I bobb'd from him,
       As gifts to Desdemona;
       It must not be: if Cassio do remain,
       He hath a daily beauty in his life
       That makes me ugly; and, besides, the Moor
       May unfold me to him; there stand I in much peril:
       No, he must die. But so: I hear him coming.

       [Enter CASSIO]

RODERIGO        I know his gait, 'tis he.--Villain, thou diest!

       [Makes a pass at CASSIO]

CASSIO  That thrust had been mine enemy indeed,
       But that my coat is better than thou know'st
       I will make proof of thine.

       [Draws, and wounds RODERIGO]

RODERIGO        O, I am slain!

       [IAGO from behind wounds CASSIO in the leg, and exit]

CASSIO  I am maim'd for ever. Help, ho! murder! murder!

       [Falls]

       [Enter OTHELLO]

OTHELLO The voice of Cassio: Iago keeps his word.

RODERIGO        O, villain that I am!

OTHELLO It is even so.

CASSIO  O, help, ho! light! a surgeon!

OTHELLO 'Tis he:--O brave Iago, honest and just,
       That hast such noble sense of thy friend's wrong!
       Thou teachest me. Minion, your dear lies dead,
       And your unblest fate hies: strumpet, I come.
       Forth of my heart those charms, thine eyes, are blotted;
       Thy bed, lust-stain'd, shall with lust's blood be spotted.

       [Exit]

       [Enter LODOVICO and GRATIANO]

CASSIO  What, ho! no watch? no passage? murder! murder!

GRATIANO        'Tis some mischance; the cry is very direful.

CASSIO  O, help!

LODOVICO        Hark!

RODERIGO        O wretched villain!

LODOVICO        Two or three groan: it is a heavy night:
       These may be counterfeits: let's think't unsafe
       To come in to the cry without more help.

RODERIGO        Nobody come? then shall I bleed to death.

LODOVICO        Hark!

       [Re-enter IAGO, with a light]

GRATIANO        Here's one comes in his shirt, with light and weapons.

IAGO    Who's there? whose noise is this that ones on murder?

LODOVICO        We do not know.

IAGO                      Did not you hear a cry?

CASSIO  Here, here! for heaven's sake, help me!

IAGO    What's the matter?

GRATIANO        This is Othello's ancient, as I take it.

LODOVICO        The same indeed; a very valiant fellow.

IAGO    What are you here that cry so grievously?

CASSIO  Iago? O, I am spoil'd, undone by villains!
       Give me some help.

IAGO    O me, lieutenant! what villains have done this?

CASSIO  I think that one of them is hereabout,
       And cannot make away.

IAGO    O treacherous villains!
       What are you there? come in, and give some help.

       [To LODOVICO and GRATIANO]

RODERIGO        O, help me here!

CASSIO  That's one of them.

IAGO    O murderous slave! O villain!

       [Stabs RODERIGO]

RODERIGO        O damn'd Iago! O inhuman dog!

IAGO    Kill men i' the dark!--Where be these bloody thieves?--
       How silent is this town!--Ho! murder! murder!--
       What may you be? are you of good or evil?

LODOVICO        As you shall prove us, praise us.

IAGO    Signior Lodovico?

LODOVICO        He, sir.

IAGO    I cry you mercy. Here's Cassio hurt by villains.

GRATIANO        Cassio!

IAGO    How is't, brother!

CASSIO  My leg is cut in two.

IAGO    Marry, heaven forbid!
       Light, gentlemen; I'll bind it with my shirt.

       [Enter BIANCA]

BIANCA  What is the matter, ho? who is't that cried?

IAGO    Who is't that cried!

BIANCA  O my dear Cassio! my sweet Cassio! O Cassio,
       Cassio, Cassio!

IAGO    O notable strumpet! Cassio, may you suspect
       Who they should be that have thus many led you?

CASSIO  No.

GRATIANO        I am to find you thus: I have been to seek you.

IAGO    Lend me a garter. So. O, for a chair,
       To bear him easily hence!

BIANCA  Alas, he faints! O Cassio, Cassio, Cassio!

IAGO    Gentlemen all, I do suspect this trash
       To be a party in this injury.
       Patience awhile, good Cassio. Come, come;
       Lend me a light. Know we this face or no?
       Alas my friend and my dear countryman
       Roderigo! no:--yes, sure: O heaven! Roderigo.

GRATIANO        What, of Venice?

IAGO    Even he, sir; did you know him?

GRATIANO        Know him! ay.

IAGO    Signior Gratiano? I cry you gentle pardon;
       These bloody accidents must excuse my manners,
       That so neglected you.

GRATIANO        I am glad to see you.

IAGO    How do you, Cassio? O, a chair, a chair!

GRATIANO        Roderigo!

IAGO    He, he 'tis he.

       [A chair brought in]

       O, that's well said; the chair!

GRATIANO        Some good man bear him carefully from hence;
       I'll fetch the general's surgeon.

       [To BIANCA]

                                 For you, mistress,
       Save you your labour. He that lies slain
       here, Cassio,
       Was my dear friend: what malice was between you?

CASSIO  None in the world; nor do I know the man.

IAGO    [To BIANCA]  What, look you pale? O, bear him out
       o' the air.

       [CASSIO and RODERIGO are borne off]

       Stay you, good gentlemen. Look you pale, mistress?
       Do you perceive the gastness of her eye?
       Nay, if you stare, we shall hear more anon.
       Behold her well; I pray you, look upon her:
       Do you see, gentlemen? nay, guiltiness will speak,
       Though tongues were out of use.

       [Enter EMILIA]

EMILIA  'Las, what's the matter? what's the matter, husband?

IAGO    Cassio hath here been set on in the dark
       By Roderigo and fellows that are scaped:
       He's almost slain, and Roderigo dead.

EMILIA  Alas, good gentleman! alas, good Cassio!

IAGO    This is the fruit of whoring. Prithee, Emilia,
       Go know of Cassio where he supp'd to-night.

       [To BIANCA]

       What, do you shake at that?

BIANCA  He supp'd at my house; but I therefore shake not.

IAGO    O, did he so? I charge you, go with me.

EMILIA  Fie, fie upon thee, strumpet!

BIANCA  I am no strumpet; but of life as honest
       As you that thus abuse me.

EMILIA  As I! foh! fie upon thee!

IAGO    Kind gentlemen, let's go see poor Cassio dress'd.
       Come, mistress, you must tell's another tale.
       Emilia run you to the citadel,
       And tell my lord and lady what hath happ'd.
       Will you go on? I pray.

       [Aside]

                  This is the night
       That either makes me or fordoes me quite.

       [Exeunt]




       OTHELLO


ACT V



SCENE II        A bedchamber in the castle: DESDEMONA in bed asleep;
       a light burning.


       [Enter OTHELLO]

OTHELLO It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul,--
       Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!--
       It is the cause. Yet I'll not shed her blood;
       Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
       And smooth as monumental alabaster.
       Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men.
       Put out the light, and then put out the light:
       If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
       I can again thy former light restore,
       Should I repent me: but once put out thy light,
       Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature,
       I know not where is that Promethean heat
       That can thy light relume. When I have pluck'd the rose,
       I cannot give it vital growth again.
       It must needs wither: I'll smell it on the tree.

       [Kissing her]

       Ah balmy breath, that dost almost persuade
       Justice to break her sword! One more, one more.
       Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee,
       And love thee after. One more, and this the last:
       So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep,
       But they are cruel tears: this sorrow's heavenly;
       It strikes where it doth love. She wakes.

DESDEMONA       Who's there? Othello?

OTHELLO Ay. Desdemona.

DESDEMONA       Will you come to bed, my lord?

OTHELLO Have you pray'd to-night, Desdemona?

DESDEMONA       Ay, my lord.

OTHELLO If you bethink yourself of any crime
       Unreconciled as yet to heaven and grace,
       Solicit for it straight.

DESDEMONA       Alas, my lord, what do you mean by that?

OTHELLO Well, do it, and be brief; I will walk by:
       I would not kill thy unprepared spirit;
       No; heaven forfend! I would not kill thy soul.

DESDEMONA       Talk you of killing?

OTHELLO Ay, I do.

DESDEMONA       Then heaven
       Have mercy on me!

OTHELLO                   Amen, with all my heart!

DESDEMONA       If you say so, I hope you will not kill me.

OTHELLO Hum!

DESDEMONA       And yet I fear you; for you are fatal then
       When your eyes roll so: why I should fear I know not,
       Since guiltiness I know not; but yet I feel I fear.

OTHELLO Think on thy sins.

DESDEMONA                         They are loves I bear to you.

OTHELLO Ay, and for that thou diest.

DESDEMONA       That death's unnatural that kills for loving.
       Alas, why gnaw you so your nether lip?
       Some bloody passion shakes your very frame:
       These are portents; but yet I hope, I hope,
       They do not point on me.

OTHELLO Peace, and be still!

DESDEMONA       I will so. What's the matter?

OTHELLO That handkerchief which I so loved and gave thee
       Thou gavest to Cassio.

DESDEMONA       No, by my life and soul!
       Send for the man, and ask him.

OTHELLO Sweet soul, take heed,
       Take heed of perjury; thou art on thy deathbed.

DESDEMONA       Ay, but not yet to die.

OTHELLO Yes, presently:
       Therefore confess thee freely of thy sin;
       For to deny each article with oath
       Cannot remove nor choke the strong conception
       That I do groan withal. Thou art to die.

DESDEMONA       Then Lord have mercy on me!

OTHELLO I say, amen.

DESDEMONA       And have you mercy too! I never did
       Offend you in my life; never loved Cassio
       But with such general warranty of heaven
       As I might love: I never gave him token.

OTHELLO By heaven, I saw my handkerchief in's hand.
       O perjured woman! thou dost stone my heart,
       And makest me call what I intend to do
       A murder, which I thought a sacrifice:
       I saw the handkerchief.

DESDEMONA       He found it then;
       I never gave it him: send for him hither;
       Let him confess a truth.

OTHELLO He hath confess'd.

DESDEMONA       What, my lord?

OTHELLO That he hath used thee.

DESDEMONA       How? unlawfully?

OTHELLO Ay.

DESDEMONA       He will not say so.

OTHELLO No, his mouth is stopp'd;
       Honest Iago hath ta'en order for't.

DESDEMONA       O! my fear interprets: what, is he dead?

OTHELLO Had all his hairs been lives, my great revenge
       Had stomach for them all.

DESDEMONA       Alas! he is betray'd and I undone.

OTHELLO Out, strumpet! weep'st thou for him to my face?

DESDEMONA       O, banish me, my lord, but kill me not!

OTHELLO Down, strumpet!

DESDEMONA       Kill me to-morrow: let me live to-night!

OTHELLO Nay, if you strive--

DESDEMONA       But half an hour!

OTHELLO                   Being done, there is no pause.

DESDEMONA       But while I say one prayer!

OTHELLO It is too late.

       [He stifles her]

EMILIA  [Within]  My lord, my lord! what, ho! my lord, my lord!

OTHELLO What noise is this? Not dead? not yet quite dead?
       I that am cruel am yet merciful;
       I would not have thee linger in thy pain: So, so.

EMILIA  [Within]  What, ho! my lord, my lord!

OTHELLO Who's there?

EMILIA  [Within]  O, good my lord, I would speak a word with you!

OTHELLO Yes: 'tis Emilia. By and by. She's dead.
       'Tis like she comes to speak of Cassio's death.--
       The noise was here. Ha! no more moving?
       Still as the grave. Shall she come in? were't good?--
       I think she stirs again:--no. What's best to do?
       If she come in, she'll sure speak to my wife:
       My wife! my wife! what wife? I have no wife.
       O insupportable! O heavy hour!
       Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse
       Of sun and moon, and that the affrighted globe
       Should yawn at alteration.

EMILIA  [Within]  I do beseech you
       That I may speak with you, O, good my lord!

OTHELLO I had forgot thee: O, come in, Emilia;
       Soft; by and by. Let me the curtains draw.
       Where art thou?

       [Unlocks the door]

       [Enter EMILIA]

       What's the matter with thee now?

EMILIA  O, my good lord, yonder's foul murders done!

OTHELLO What, now?

EMILIA  But now, my lord.

OTHELLO It is the very error of the moon;
       She comes more nearer earth than she was wont,
       And makes men mad.

EMILIA  Cassio, my lord, hath kill'd a young Venetian
       Call'd Roderigo.

OTHELLO                   Roderigo kill'd!
       And Cassio kill'd!

EMILIA  No, Cassio is not kill'd.

OTHELLO Not Cassio kill'd! then murder's out of tune,
       And sweet revenge grows harsh.

DESDEMONA       O, falsely, falsely murder'd!

EMILIA  Alas, what cry is that?

OTHELLO That! what?

EMILIA  Out, and alas! that was my lady's voice.
       Help! help, ho! help! O lady, speak again!
       Sweet Desdemona! O sweet mistress, speak!

DESDEMONA       A guiltless death I die.

EMILIA  O, who hath done this deed?

DESDEMONA       Nobody; I myself. Farewell
       Commend me to my kind lord: O, farewell!

       [Dies]

OTHELLO Why, how should she be murder'd?

EMILIA  Alas, who knows?

OTHELLO You heard her say herself, it was not I.

EMILIA  She said so: I must needs report the truth.

OTHELLO She's, like a liar, gone to burning hell:
       'Twas I that kill'd her.

EMILIA  O, the more angel she,
       And you the blacker devil!

OTHELLO She turn'd to folly, and she was a whore.

EMILIA  Thou dost belie her, and thou art a devil.

OTHELLO She was false as water.

EMILIA  Thou art rash as fire, to say
       That she was false: O, she was heavenly true!

OTHELLO Cassio did top her; ask thy husband else.
       O, I were damn'd beneath all depth in hell,
       But that I did proceed upon just grounds
       To this extremity. Thy husband knew it all.

EMILIA  My husband!

OTHELLO Thy husband.

EMILIA  That she was false to wedlock?

OTHELLO Ay, with Cassio. Nay, had she been true,
       If heaven would make me such another world
       Of one entire and Perfect chrysolite,
       I'ld not have sold her for it.

EMILIA  My husband!

OTHELLO           Ay, 'twas he that told me first:
       An honest man he is, and hates the slime
       That sticks on filthy deeds.

EMILIA  My husband!

OTHELLO What needs this iteration, woman? I say thy husband.

EMILIA  O mistress, villany hath made mocks with love,
       My husband say that she was false!

OTHELLO He, woman;
       I say thy husband: dost understand the word?
       My friend, thy husband, honest, honest Iago.

EMILIA  If he say so, may his pernicious soul
       Rot half a grain a day! he lies to the heart:
       She was too fond of her most filthy bargain.

OTHELLO Ha!

EMILIA  Do thy worst:
       This deed of thine is no more worthy heaven
       Than thou wast worthy her.

OTHELLO Peace, you were best.

EMILIA  Thou hast not half that power to do me harm
       As I have to be hurt. O gull! O dolt!
       As ignorant as dirt! thou hast done a deed--
       I care not for thy sword; I'll make thee known,
       Though I lost twenty lives.--Help! help, ho! help!
       The Moor hath kill'd my mistress! Murder! murder!

       [Enter MONTANO, GRATIANO, IAGO, and others]

MONTANO What is the matter? How now, general!

EMILIA  O, are you come, Iago? you have done well,
       That men must lay their murders on your neck.

GRATIANO        What is the matter?

EMILIA  Disprove this villain, if thou be'st a man:
       He says thou told'st him that his wife was false:
       I know thou didst not, thou'rt not such a villain:
       Speak, for my heart is full.

IAGO    I told him what I thought, and told no more
       Than what he found himself was apt and true.

EMILIA  But did you ever tell him she was false?

IAGO    I did.

EMILIA  You told a lie, an odious, damned lie;
       Upon my soul, a lie, a wicked lie.
       She false with Cassio!--did you say with Cassio?

IAGO    With Cassio, mistress. Go to, charm your tongue.

EMILIA  I will not charm my tongue; I am bound to speak:
       My mistress here lies murder'd in her bed,--

All     O heavens forfend!

EMILIA  And your reports have set the murder on.

OTHELLO Nay, stare not, masters: it is true, indeed.

GRATIANO        'Tis a strange truth.

MONTANO O monstrous act!

EMILIA                    Villany, villany, villany!
       I think upon't, I think: I smell't: O villany!--
       I thought so then:--I'll kill myself for grief:--
       O villany, villany!

IAGO    What, are you mad? I charge you, get you home.

EMILIA  Good gentlemen, let me have leave to speak:

       'Tis proper I obey him, but not now.
       Perchance, Iago, I will ne'er go home.

OTHELLO O! O! O!

       [He falls on the bed]

EMILIA         Nay, lay thee down and roar;
       For thou hast kill'd the sweetest innocent
       That e'er did lift up eye.

OTHELLO [Rising]  O, she was foul!
       I scarce did know you, uncle: there lies your niece,
       Whose breath, indeed, these hands have newly stopp'd:
       I know this act shows horrible and grim.

GRATIANO        Poor Desdemona! I am glad thy father's dead:
       Thy match was mortal to him, and pure grief
       Shore his old thread in twain: did he live now,
       This sight would make him do a desperate turn,
       Yea, curse his better angel from his side,
       And fall to reprobation.

OTHELLO 'Tis pitiful; but yet Iago knows
       That she with Cassio hath the act of shame
       A thousand times committed; Cassio confess'd it:
       And she did gratify his amorous works
       With that recognizance and pledge of love
       Which I first gave her; I saw it in his hand:
       It was a handkerchief, an antique token
       My father gave my mother.

EMILIA  O heaven! O heavenly powers!

IAGO    Come, hold your peace.

EMILIA  'Twill out, 'twill out: I peace!
       No, I will speak as liberal as the north:
       Let heaven and men and devils, let them all,
       All, all, cry shame against me, yet I'll speak.

IAGO    Be wise, and get you home.

EMILIA  I will not.

       [IAGO offers to stab EMILIA]

GRATIANO        Fie!
       Your sword upon a woman?

EMILIA  O thou dull Moor! that handkerchief thou speak'st of
       I found by fortune and did give my husband;
       For often, with a solemn earnestness,
       More than indeed belong'd to such a trifle,
       He begg'd of me to steal it.

IAGO    Villanous whore!

EMILIA  She give it Cassio! no, alas! I found it,
       And I did give't my husband.

IAGO    Filth, thou liest!

EMILIA  By heaven, I do not, I do not, gentlemen.
       O murderous coxcomb! what should such a fool
       Do with so good a woman?

OTHELLO Are there no stones in heaven
       But what serve for the thunder?--Precious villain!

       [He runs at IAGO  IAGO, from behind, stabs EMILIA, and exit]

GRATIANO        The woman falls; sure, he hath kill'd his wife.

EMILIA  Ay, ay: O, lay me by my mistress' side.

GRATIANO        He's gone, but his wife's kill'd.

MONTANO 'Tis a notorious villain. Take you this weapon,
       Which I have here recover'd from the Moor:
       Come, guard the door without; let him not pass,
       But kill him rather. I'll after that same villain,
       For 'tis a damned slave.

       [Exeunt MONTANO and GRATIANO]

OTHELLO I am not valiant neither,
       But ever puny whipster gets my sword:
       But why should honour outlive honesty?
       Let it go all.

EMILIA  What did thy song bode, lady?
       Hark, canst thou hear me? I will play the swan.
       And die in music.

       [Singing]

       Willow, willow, willow,--
       Moor, she was chaste; she loved thee, cruel Moor;
       So come my soul to bliss, as I speak true;
       So speaking as I think, I die, I die.

       [Dies]

OTHELLO I have another weapon in this chamber;
       It is a sword of Spain, the ice-brook's temper:--
       O, here it is. Uncle, I must come forth.

GRATIANO        [Within]  If thou attempt it, it will cost thee dear:
       Thou hast no weapon, and perforce must suffer.

OTHELLO Look in upon me then and speak with me,
       Or, naked as I am, I will assault thee.

       [Re-enter GRATIANO]

GRATIANO        What is the matter?

OTHELLO Behold, I have a weapon;
       A better never did itself sustain
       Upon a soldier's thigh: I have seen the day,
       That, with this little arm and this good sword,
       I have made my way through more impediments
       Than twenty times your stop: but, O vain boast!
       Who can control his fate? 'tis not so now.
       Be not afraid, though you do see me weapon'd;
       Here is my journey's end, here is my butt,
       And very sea-mark of my utmost sail.
       Do you go back dismay'd? 'tis a lost fear;
       Man but a rush against Othello's breast,
       And he retires. Where should Othello go?
       Now, how dost thou look now? O ill-starr'd wench!
       Pale as thy smock! when we shall meet at compt,
       This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven,
       And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my girl!
       Even like thy chastity. O cursed slave!
       Whip me, ye devils,
       From the possession of this heavenly sight!
       Blow me about in winds! roast me in sulphur!
       Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!
       O Desdemona! Desdemona! dead!
       Oh! Oh! Oh!

       [Enter LODOVICO. MONTANO, CASSIO carried in a chair,
       and Officers with IAGO, prisoner]

LODOVICO        Where is this rash and most unfortunate man?

OTHELLO That's he that was Othello: here I am.

LODOVICO        Where is that viper? bring the villain forth.

OTHELLO I look down towards his feet; but that's a fable.
       If that thou best a devil, I cannot kill thee.

       [Wounds IAGO]

LODOVICO        Wrench his sword from him.

IAGO    I bleed, sir; but not kill'd.

OTHELLO I am not sorry neither: I'ld have thee live;
       For, in my sense, 'tis happiness to die.

LODOVICO        O thou Othello, thou wert once so good,
       Fall'n in the practise of a damned slave,
       What shall be said to thee?

OTHELLO Why, any thing:
       An honourable murderer, if you will;
       For nought I did in hate, but all in honour.

LODOVICO        This wretch hath part confess'd his villany:
       Did you and he consent in Cassio's death?

OTHELLO Ay.

CASSIO  Dear general, I never gave you cause.

OTHELLO I do believe it, and I ask your pardon.
       Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil
       Why he hath thus ensnared my soul and body?

IAGO    Demand me nothing: what you know, you know:
       From this time forth I never will speak word.

LODOVICO        What, not to pray?

GRATIANO                          Torments will ope your lips.

OTHELLO Well, thou dost best.

LODOVICO        Sir, you shall understand what hath befall'n,
       Which, as I think, you know not. Here is a letter
       Found in the pocket of the slain Roderigo;
       And here another: the one of them imports
       The death of Cassio to be undertook
       By Roderigo.

OTHELLO O villain!

CASSIO  Most heathenish and most gross!

LODOVICO        Now here's another discontented paper,
       Found in his pocket too; and this, it seems,
       Roderigo meant to have sent this damned villain;
       But that belike Iago in the interim
       Came in and satisfied him.

OTHELLO O the pernicious caitiff!
       How came you, Cassio, by that handkerchief
       That was my wife's?

CASSIO  I found it in my chamber:
       And he himself confess'd but even now
       That there he dropp'd it for a special purpose
       Which wrought to his desire.

OTHELLO O fool! fool! fool!

CASSIO  There is besides in Roderigo's letter,
       How he upbraids Iago, that he made him
       Brave me upon the watch; whereon it came
       That I was cast: and even but now he spake,
       After long seeming dead, Iago hurt him,
       Iago set him on.

LODOVICO        You must forsake this room, and go with us:
       Your power and your command is taken off,
       And Cassio rules in Cyprus. For this slave,
       If there be any cunning cruelty
       That can torment him much and hold him long,
       It shall be his. You shall close prisoner rest,
       Till that the nature of your fault be known
       To the Venetian state. Come, bring him away.

OTHELLO Soft you; a word or two before you go.
       I have done the state some service, and they know't.
       No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
       When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
       Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
       Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak
       Of one that loved not wisely but too well;
       Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought
       Perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand,
       Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
       Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,
       Albeit unused to the melting mood,
       Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
       Their medicinal gum. Set you down this;
       And say besides, that in Aleppo once,
       Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk
       Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,
       I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
       And smote him, thus.

       [Stabs himself]

LODOVICO        O bloody period!

GRATIANO                          All that's spoke is marr'd.

OTHELLO I kiss'd thee ere I kill'd thee: no way but this;
       Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.

       [Falls on the bed, and dies]

CASSIO  This did I fear, but thought he had no weapon;
       For he was great of heart.

LODOVICO        [To IAGO]  O Spartan dog,
       More fell than anguish, hunger, or the sea!
       Look on the tragic loading of this bed;
       This is thy work: the object poisons sight;
       Let it be hid. Gratiano, keep the house,
       And seize upon the fortunes of the Moor,
       For they succeed on you. To you, lord governor,
       Remains the censure of this hellish villain;
       The time, the place, the torture: O, enforce it!
       Myself will straight aboard: and to the state
       This heavy act with heavy heart relate.

       [Exeunt]