BEATRICE [unmasking]
I answer to that name. What is your will?
BENEDICK Do not you love me?
BEATRICE Why, no, no more than reason.
BENEDICK
Why then, your uncle, and the Prince, and Claudio
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Have been deceiv’d – they swore you did.
BEATRICE Do not you love me?
BENEDICK Troth, no, no more than reason.
BEATRICE Why then, my cousin, Margaret, and Ursula
Are much deceiv’d, for they did swear you did.
BENEDICK
They swore that you were almost sick for me.
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BEATRICE
They swore that you were well-nigh dead for me.
BENEDICK
’Tis no such matter. Then you do not love me?
BEATRICE No, truly, but in friendly recompense.
LEONATO
Come, cousin, I am sure you love the gentleman.
CLAUDIO And I’ll be sworn upon’t that he loves her,
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For here’s a paper written in his hand,
A halting sonnet of his own pure brain,
Fashion’d to Beatrice.
HERO And here’s another,
Writ in my cousin’s hand, stol’n from her pocket,
Containing her affection unto Benedick.
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BENEDICK A miracle! Here’s our own hands against our
hearts. Come, I will have thee, but by this light I take
thee for pity.
BEATRICE I would not deny you, but by this good day I
yield upon great persuasion, and partly to save your
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life, for I was told you were in a consumption.
BENEDICK Peace! I will stop your mouth. [Kisses her.]
DON PEDRO
How dost thou, ‘Benedick, the married man’?
BENEDICK I’ll tell thee what, Prince; a college of wit-
crackers cannot flout me out of my humour. Dost thou
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think I care for a satire or an epigram? No: if a man
will be beaten with brains, a shall wear nothing
handsome about him. In brief, since I do purpose to
marry, I will think nothing to any purpose that the
world can say against it; and therefore never flout at
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me for what I have said against it; for man is a giddy
thing, and this is my conclusion. For thy part,
CLAUDIO , I did think to have beaten thee, but in that
thou art like to be my kinsman, live unbruised, and
love my cousin.
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CLAUDIO I had well hoped thou wouldst have denied
BEATRICE , that I might have cudgelled thee out of thy
single life, to make thee a double-dealer; which out of
question thou wilt be, if my cousin do not look
exceeding narrowly to thee.
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BENEDICK Come, come, we are friends. Let’s have a
dance ere we are married, that we may lighten our own
hearts and our wives’ heels.
LEONATO We’ll have dancing afterward.
BENEDICK First, of my word! Therefore play, music.
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Prince, thou art sad; get thee a wife, get thee a wife!
There is no staff more reverend than one tipped with
horn.
Enter Messenger.
MESSENGER
My lord, your brother John is ta’en in flight,
And brought with armed men back to Messina.
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BENEDICK Think not on him till tomorrow; I’ll devise
thee brave punishments for him. Strike up, pipers!
Dance. Exeunt.
Othello
The traditional date for the composition of Othello is 1603-4, though the editor of the 1997 Arden 3 text would put it slightly earlier, in 1601-2, mainly on the basis of some echoes of Othello in the 1603 ‘bad’ quarto of Hamlet. It was performed in the Banqueting House at Whitehall before James I on 1 November 1604 and had presumably been performed earlier at the Globe. Two early texts of the play were both published after Shakespeare’s death, the Quarto in 1622 and the First Folio in 1623 (as the ninth of the tragedies). They differ from each other in many hundreds of readings - in single-word variants and in longer passages, in spelling, verse lineation and punctuation. The Folio text is about 160 lines longer than the Quarto; it alone contains Desdemona’s willow song (4.3), and it has a more extensive role for Emilia in the final scenes. Editors have generally assumed that both versions are ‘authorial’ and have chosen readings from both, blending them together as they saw fit; the 1997 Arden 3 editor argues that the Quarto broadly represents Shakespeare’s first thoughts and the Folio his second thoughts, but that some variants can be ascribed to textual corruption rather than to authorial revision.
Whatever the precise date, it is generally agreed that Othello is one of a sequence of tragedies Shakespeare wrote between 1599 and 1608, coming after Julius Caesar and Hamlet and before King Lear and Macbeth. The main narrative source is a short story in Giraldi Cinthio’s Hecatommithi (1565), a collection Shakespeare also drew on for the plot of Measure for Measure. For Othello he seems also to have used John Pory’s 1600 translation of John Leo’s A Geographical History of Africa, Philemon Holland’s 1601 translation of Pliny’s History of the World and Lewis Lewkenor’s 1599 The Commonwealth and Government of Venice, mainly translated from a Latin text by Cardinal Contarini. Despite its exotic setting and central character, it is more of a domestic tragedy than Hamlet, Lear or Macbeth, concentrating on the destruction of Othello’s marriage and his murder of his wife rather than on affairs of state and the deaths of kings. In the past this narrower focus has sometimes resulted in the relative devaluing of Othello, but modern critics have found a lot to say about its foregrounding of issues of race, gender and sexuality.
The play has been one of Shakespeare’s most popular tragedies on stage where, from the first performances by Richard Burbage until very recently, the title role has been played by a white actor in ‘black’ make-up; scholars have disagreed as to whether the ‘Moor of Venice’ should be a dark-skinned African or a light-skinned Arab. References in the play itself do not resolve the question, and while Shakespeare may have seen the light-skinned Moorish Ambassador to Elizabeth I in London in 1601-2, he was also familiar with the stage stereotype of the ‘coal-black’ Moor with ‘woolly hair’ and ‘thick lips’ which he drew on for Aaron in Titus Andronicus. The role of Iago is almost as important as that of Othello and some leading actors have preferred to play it; Iago has the soliloquies in this play and a good actor can steal the show from the hero. There has also been something of a stage tradition of two ‘stars’ alternating in the roles; this was most famously done by Henry Irving and Edwin Booth in 1881. The appalling speed with which the action unfolds (notoriously, there seems not literally to be time for Desdemona’s supposed adultery to have taken place) makes it an exciting - almost unbearable - play to watch.
The Arden text is based on the 1623 First Folio but adopts readings from the 1622 Quarto.
LIST OF ROLES
OTHELLO
the Moor, a general in the service of Venice
BRABANTIO
father to Desdemona, a Venetian senator
CASSIO
an honourable lieutenant, who serves under Othello
IAGO
a villain, Othello’s ancient or ensign
RODERIGO
a gulled gentleman, of Venice
DUKE
of Venice
SENATORS
of Venice
MONTANO
governor of Cyprus, replaced by Othello
GENTLEMEN
of Cyprus
two noble Venetians, Desdemona’s cousin and uncle
GRATIANO
SAILOR
CLOWN
DESDEMONA
wife to Othello, and Brabantio’s daughter
EMILIA
wife to Iago
BIANCA
a courtesan, and Cassio’s mistress
Messenger, Herald, Officers, Gentlemen, Musicians and Attendants
Othello
1.1 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’ll not hear me. If ever I did dream
Of such a matter, abhor me.
RODERIGO Thou told’st me
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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-capped to him, and by the faith of man
I know my price, I am worth no worse a place.
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But he, as loving his own pride and purposes,
Evades them, with a bombast circumstance
Horribly stuffed with epithets of war,
And in conclusion
Nonsuits my mediators. For ‘Certes,’ says he,
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‘I have already chose my officer.’
And what was he?
Forsooth, a great arithmetician,
One Michael Cassio, a Florentine,
A fellow almost damned in a fair wife
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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 practice
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Is all his soldiership – but he, sir, had th’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-leed and calmed
By debitor and creditor. This counter-caster
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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
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And not by old gradation, where each second
Stood heir to th’ 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!
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I follow him to serve my turn upon him.
We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
Cannot be truly followed. You shall mark
Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave
That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,
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Wears out his time much like his master’s ass
For nought but provender, and, when he’s old, cashiered.
Whip me such honest knaves! Others there are
Who, trimmed in forms and visages of duty,
Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves
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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,
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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
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The native act and figure of my heart
In complement 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
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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
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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
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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!
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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 locked?
BRABANTIO Why? Wherefore ask you this?
IAGO
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 412