Complete Plays, The (118 page)

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

A
CT
IV

S
CENE
I. C
YPRUS
. B
EFORE
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.