The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works
Page 422
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!
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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 the hollow hell,
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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! [Othello kneels.]
IAGO Patience, I say, your mind perhaps may change.
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OTHELLO Never, Iago. Like to the Pontic sea
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne’er keeps retiring ebb but keeps due on
To the Propontic and the Hellespont:
Even so my bloody thoughts with violent pace
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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
In the due reverence of a sacred vow
I here engage my words.
IAGO Do not rise yet. [Iago kneels.]
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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 wronged Othello’s service. Let him command
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And to obey shall be in me remorse
What bloody business ever.
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
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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, damn her!
Come, go with me apart; I will withdraw
To furnish me with some swift means of death
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For the fair devil. Now art thou my lieutenant.
IAGO I am your own for ever. Exeunt.
3.4 Enter DESDEMONA, EMILIA and Clown.
DESDEMONA Do you know, sirrah, where lieutenant
CASSIO lies?
CLOWN I dare not say he lies anywhere.
DESDEMONA Why, man?
CLOWN He’s a soldier, and for me to say a soldier lies,
’tis stabbing.
5
DESDEMONA Go to, where lodges he?
CLOWN To tell you where he lodges is to tell you where
I lie.
DESDEMONA Can anything be made of this?
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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 enquire him out and be edified by
report?
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CLOWN I will catechize 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.
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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
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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
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Drew all such humours from him.
EMILIA Look where he comes.
Enter OTHELLO.
DESDEMONA I will not leave him now till Cassio
Be called to him. 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.
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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,
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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.
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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.
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OTHELLO I have a salt and sullen rheum offends me,
Lend me thy handkerchief.
DESDEMONA Here, my lord.
OTHELLO That which I gave you.
DESDEMONA I have it not about me.
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OTHELLO Not?
DESDEMONA No, faith, my lord.
OTHELLO That’s 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
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’Twould make her amiable and subdue my father
Entirely to her love; but if she lost it
Or made a gift of it, my father’s eye
Should hold her loathed and his spirits should hunt
After new fancies. She, dying, gave it me
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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?
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OTHELLO
’Tis true, there’s magic in the web of it.
A sibyl that had numbered in the world
The sun to course two hundred compasses,
In her prophetic fury sewed the work;
The worms were hallowed that did breed the silk,
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And it was dyed in mummy, which the skilful
Conserved of maidens’ hearts.
DESDEMONA I’faith, 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?
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DESDEMONA Why do you speak so startingly and rash?
OTHELLO Is’t lost? Is’t gone? Speak, is’t out o’the way?
DESDEMONA Heaven bless us!
OTHELLO Say you?
DESDEMONA It is not lost, but what an if
it were?
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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.
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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
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Hath founded his good fortunes on your love,
Shared dangers with you –
OTHELLO The handkerchief!
DESDEMONA I’faith, you are to blame.
OTHELLO Zounds! Exit.
EMILIA Is not this man jealous?
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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:
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They eat us hungerly, and when they are full
They belch us.
Enter IAGO and CASSIO.
Look you, Cassio and my husband.
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?
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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 delayed:
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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;
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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
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Were he in favour as in humour altered.
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:
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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
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When it hath blown his ranks into the air
And like the devil, from his very arm,
Puffed 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.
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DESDEMONA
I prithee do so. [Exit Iago.]
Something sure of state
Either from Venice, or some unhatched practice
Made demonstrable here in Cyprus to him,
Hath puddled his clear spirit, and in such cases
Men’s natures wrangle with inferior things
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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 observancy
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As fits 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 suborned the witness
And he’s indicted falsely.
EMILIA Pray heaven it be
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State matters, as you think, and no conception
Nor no jealous toy, concerning you.
DESDEMONA Alas the day, I never gave him cause.