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 overwhelmed 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 s
trumpet'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 given me the addition
Whose want even kills me.
IAGO. Ply Desdemona well, and you are sure on't.
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 a 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 her.
Do you intend it?
CASSIO. Ha, ha, ha!
OTHELLO. Do you
triumph, Roman? Do you
triumph?
CASSIO. I marry her! What? A customer! I 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
t
hither conies 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 hobbyhorse. 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 tonight, 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 i' 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 murther 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 skilling. 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 tonight, 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
admirablemusician. 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, a 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. God save the
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 breech; 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. By my troth, I am glad on't.
OTHELLO. Indeed!
DESDEMONA. My lord?
OTHELLO. I am glad to see you mad.
DESDEMONA. Why, sweet Othello?
OTHELLO. Devil! Strikes her.
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. [Going.] I will not stay to
offend you.
LODOVICO. Truly, an
obedient lady.