The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works

Home > Fiction > The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works > Page 415
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 415

by William Shakespeare


  I here do give thee that with all my heart

  Which, but thou hast already, with all my heart

  195

  I would keep from thee. For your sake, jewel,

  I am glad at soul I have no other child,

  For thy escape would teach me tyranny

  To hang clogs on them. I have done, my lord.

  DUKE Let me speak like yourself, and lay a sentence

  200

  Which as a grise or step may help these lovers

  Into your favour.

  When remedies are past the griefs are ended

  By seeing the worst which late on hopes depended.

  To mourn a mischief that is past and gone

  205

  Is the next way to draw new mischief on.

  What cannot be preserved when fortune takes,

  Patience her injury a mockery makes.

  The robbed that smiles steals something from the thief,

  He robs himself that spends a bootless grief.

  210

  BRABANTIO So let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile,

  We lose it not so long as we can smile;

  He bears the sentence well that nothing bears

  But the free comfort which from thence he hears.

  But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow

  215

  That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow.

  These sentences to sugar or to gall,

  Being strong on both sides, are equivocal.

  But words are words: I never yet did hear

  That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear.

  220

  I humbly beseech you, proceed to th’affairs of state.

  DUKE The Turk with a most mighty preparation makes

  for Cyprus. Othello, the fortitude of the place is best

  known to you, and, though we have there a substitute

  of most allowed sufficiency, yet opinion, a sovereign

  225

  mistress of effects, throws a more safer voice on you.

  You must therefore be content to slubber the gloss of

  your new fortunes with this more stubborn and

  boisterous expedition.

  OTHELLO The tyrant custom, most grave senators,

  230

  Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war

  My thrice-driven bed of down. I do agnize

  A natural and prompt alacrity

  I find in hardness, and do undertake

  This present war against the Ottomites.

  235

  Most humbly therefore, bending to your state,

  I crave fit disposition for my wife,

  Due reverence of place, and exhibition,

  With such accommodation and besort

  As levels with her breeding.

  240

  DUKE Why, at her father’s.

  BRABANTIO I’ll not have it so.

  OTHELLO Nor I.

  DESDEMONA Nor would I there reside

  To put my father in impatient thoughts

  By being in his eye. Most gracious duke,

  245

  To my unfolding lend your prosperous ear

  And let me find a charter in your voice

  T’assist my simpleness.

  DUKE What would you, Desdemona?

  DESDEMONA That I did love the Moor to live with him

  250

  My downright violence and scorn of fortunes

  May trumpet to the world. My heart’s subdued

  Even to the very quality of my lord:

  I saw Othello’s visage in his mind,

  And to his honours and his valiant parts

  255

  Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate,

  So that, dear lords, if I be left behind,

  A moth of peace, and he go to the war,

  The rites for which I love him are bereft me,

  And I a heavy interim shall support

  260

  By his dear absence. Let me go with him.

  OTHELLO Let her have your voice.

  Vouch with me, heaven, I therefore beg it not

  To please the palate of my appetite,

  Nor to comply with heat, the young affects

  265

  In me defunct, and proper satisfaction,

  But to be free and bounteous to her mind.

  And heaven defend your good souls that you think

  I will your serious and great business scant

  When she is with me. No, when light-winged toys

  270

  Of feathered Cupid seel with wanton dullness

  My speculative and officed instrument,

  That my disports corrupt and taint my business,

  Let housewives make a skillet of my helm

  And all indign and base adversities

  275

  Make head against my estimation.

  DUKE Be it as you shall privately determine,

  Either for her stay or going: th’affair cries haste

  And speed must answer it.

  1 SENATOR You must away tonight.

  DESDEMONA Tonight, my lord?

  DUKE This night.

  OTHELLO With all my heart.

  280

  DUKE At nine i’th’ morning here we’ll meet again.

  Othello, leave some officer behind

  And he shall our commission bring to you,

  And such things else of quality and respect

  As doth import you.

  OTHELLO So please your grace, my ancient:

  285

  A man he is of honesty and trust.

  To his conveyance I assign my wife,

  With what else needful your good grace shall think

  To be sent after me.

  DUKE Let it be so.

  Good-night to everyone. And, noble signior,

  290

  If virtue no delighted beauty lack

  Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.

  1 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.

  295

  Exeunt Duke, Brabantio, Senators, officers.

  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

  300

  Of love, of worldly matter and direction

  To spend with thee. We must obey the time.

  Exeunt Othello and Desdemona.

  RODERIGO Iago!

  IAGO What sayst thou, noble heart?

  RODERIGO What will I do, think’st thou?

  305

  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;

  310

  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 a man

  315

  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.

  320

  IAGO Virtue? a fig! ’tis in ourselves that we are thus, or

  thus. Our bodies are gardens, to the which our wills

  are gardeners. So that if we will plant nettles or sow

  lettuce, set h
yssop and weed up thyme, supply it with

  one gender of herbs or distract it with many, either to

  325

  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

  330

  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.

  335

  IAGO It is merely a lust 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

  340

  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

  345

  commencement in her, 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 acerb as

  350

  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 –

  355

  make all the money thou canst. If sanctimony, and a

  frail vow betwixt an erring Barbarian and a super-

  subtle Venetian, be 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

  360

  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

  365

  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

  370

  time, which will be delivered. Traverse, go, provide thy

  money: we will have more of this tomorrow. Adieu!

  RODERIGO Where shall we meet i’th’ morning?

  IAGO At my lodging.

  RODERIGO I’ll be with thee betimes.

  375

  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 sell all my land. Exit.

  IAGO Go to, farewell, put money enough in your purse.

  380

  Thus do I ever make my fool my purse:

  For I mine own gained 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

  385

  He’s 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,

  390

  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

  395

  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 th’ nose

  As asses are.

  400

  I have’t, it is engendered! Hell and night

  Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light.

  Exit.

  2.1 Enter MONTANO and two Gentlemen.

  MONTANO What from the cape can you discern at sea?

 

‹ Prev