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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 *** 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 *** are. I have't. It is engender'd. Hell and night
Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.
Exit