That the magnifico is much beloved,215And hath in his effect a voice potentialAs double as the duke’s: he will divorce you;Or put upon you what restraint and grievanceThe law, with all his might to enforce it on,Will give him cable.220

Desdemona. Shall I deny you? no: farewell, my lord.

Desdemona. Do not doubt that; before Emilia hereI give thee warrant of thy place: assure thee,If I do vow a friendship, I’ll perform itTo the last article: my lord shall never rest;I’ll watch him tame and talk him out of patience;1650His bed shall seem a school, his board a shrift;I’ll intermingle every thing he doesWith Cassio’s suit: therefore be merry, Cassio;For thy solicitor shall rather dieThan give thy cause away.1655

Cassio. Masters, play here; I will content your pains;Something that’s brief; and bid ‘Good morrow, general.’

Wears out his time, much like his master’s ass,For nought but provender, and when he’s old, cashier’d:

. Is there not charmsBy which the property of youth and maidhoodMay be abused?

Are they married, think you?

Yet, for necessity of present life,I must show out a flag and sign of love,170

If she be in her chamber or your house,Let loose on me the justice of the state150For thus deluding you.

I took by the throat the circumcised dog,And smote him, thus.[Stabs himself]

When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak3710Of one that loved not wisely but too well;Of one not easily jealous, but being wroughtPerplex’d in the extreme; of one whose hand,

 I do believe it, and I ask your pardon.Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devilWhy he hath thus ensnared my soul and body?

 It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul,—Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!—It is the cause. Yet I’ll not shed her blood;Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,3305And smooth as monumental alabaster.Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men.Put out the light, and then put out the light:If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,

 O murderous slave! O villain![Stabs RODERIGO]

Minion, your dear lies dead,And your unblest fate hies: strumpet, I come.Forth of my heart those charms, thine eyes, are blotted;Thy bed, lust-stain’d, shall with lust’s blood be spotted

Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?Then let them use us well: else let them know,3130The ills we do, their ills instruct us so

Their wives have sense like them: they see and smellAnd have their palates both for sweet and sour,As husbands have.

 I will be hang’d, if some eternal villain,Some busy and insinuating rogue,Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office,Have not devised this slander; I’ll be hang’d else.

. I have none: do not talk to me, Emilia;I cannot weep; nor answer have I none,

[Striking her] Devil!

Iago. No, forbear;The lethargy must have his quiet course:If not, he foams at mouth and by and by2475Breaks 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.

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.2275

Othello. A liberal hand: the hearts of old gave hands;But our new heraldry is hands, not hearts.2225

 That is a fault.That handkerchiefDid an Egyptian to my mother give;She was a charmer, and could almost readThe thoughts of people: she told her, while2240she kept it,

 A horned man’s a monster and a beast.

Cassio. Dost thou prate, rogue?[Striking RODERIGO]

Iago. Well, happiness to their sheets! Come, lieutenant, I1160have a stoup of wine; and here without are a braceof Cyprus gallants that would fain have a measure tothe health of black Othello.

Iago. There’s none so foul and foolish thereunto,930But does foul pranks which fair and wise ones do.

I ran it through, even from my boyish days,To the very moment that he bade me tell it;Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,Of moving accidents by flood and field480Of hair-breadth scapes i’ the imminent deadly breach,Of being taken by the insolent foeAnd sold to slavery, of my redemption thenceAnd portance in my travels’ history:Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,485Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heavenIt was my hint to speak,—such was the process;And of the Cannibals that each other eat,

Brabantio. Ay, to me;

Is nought but bitterness

Who, trimm’d in forms and visages of duty,Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves,

Whether I in any just term am affinedTo love the Moor.40

That never set a squadron in the field,Nor the division of a battle knows

And she speaks for you stoutly: the Moor replies,1600That he you hurt is of great fame in Cyprus,And great affinity, and that in wholesome wisdomHe might not but refuse you; but he protests he loves you

Something from Cyprus

e Moor

Damn’d as thou art, thou hast enchanted her;For I’ll refer me to all things of sense,If she in chains of magic were not bound,285Whether a maid so tender, fair and happy,So opposite to marriage that she shunnedThe wealthy curled darlings of our nation,

 I have rubb’d this young quat almost to the sense,And he grows angry. Now, whether he kill Cassio,Or Cassio him, or each do kill the other,

. O villain!Cassio. Most heathenish and most gross!

‘Twill out, ’twill out: I peace!No, I will speak as liberal as the north:Let heaven and men and devils, let them all,All, all, cry shame against me, yet I’ll speak

hates the slime

Othello. Have you pray’d to-night, Desdemona?Desdemona. Ay, my lord.Othello. If you bethink yourself of any crime3330Unreconciled as yet to heaven and grace,

and Roderigo dead

From the possession of this heavenly sight!3635Blow me about in winds! roast me in sulphur!Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!O Desdemona! Desdemona! dead!Oh! Oh! Oh![Enter LODOVICO.

 She was false as water

 Nobody; I myself. FarewellCommend me to my kind lord: O, farewell![Dies]

But while I say one prayer!Othello. It is too late.[He stifles her]

Yes, presently:Therefore confess thee freely of thy sin;3365For to deny each article with oathCannot remove nor choke the strong conceptionThat I do groan withal. Thou art to die

That can thy light relume. When I have pluck’d the rose,I cannot give it vital growth again.3315It must needs wither: I’ll smell it on the tree.

O notable strumpet!

 O treacherous villains!

That thrust had been mine enemy indeed,But that my coat is better than thou know’st

It must not be: if Cassio do remain,He hath a daily beauty in his life3155That makes me ugly; and, besides, the Moor

 No, by this heavenly light!Emilia. Nor I neither by this heavenly light;I might do’t as well i’ the dark.Desdemona. Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?3095Emilia. The world’s a huge thing: it is a great price.

Dost thou in conscience think,—tell me, Emilia,—That there be women do abuse their husbandsIn such gross kind?Emilia. There be some such, no question.Desdemona. Wouldst thou do such a d

 Get you to bed on the instant; I will be returnedforthwith: dismiss your attendant there: look it be done

That have the office opposite to Saint Peter,

ou are a fool

 Fie, there is no such man; it is impossible.

Do not weep, do not weep. Alas the day!

Your mystery, your mystery: nay, dispatch.[Exit EMILIA]Desdemona. Upon my knees, what doth your speech import?2775I understand a fury in your words.But not the words.

A closet lock and key of villanous secretsAnd yet she’ll kneel and pray; I have seen her do’t.

bawd

 I would have him nine years a-killing.A fine woman! a fair woman! a sweet woman!

This is his second fit; he had one yesterday.Cassio. Rub him about the temples.Iago. No, forbear;

Toconfess, and be hanged for his labour;—first, to be2455hanged, and then to confess.—I tremble at it.

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

Well, my good lord, I’ll do’t.

Othello. The handkerchief!

My wife must move for Cassio to her mistress;I’ll set her on;Myself the while to draw the Moor apart,1540And bring him jump when he may Cassio findSoliciting his wife: ay, that’s the wayDull not device by coldness and delay.

Iago. Touch me not so near:I had rather have this tongue cut from my mouth1370Than it should do offence to Michael Cassio;

 Now, by heaven,My blood begins my safer guides to rule;And passion, having my best judgment collied,Assays to lead the way: if I once stir,1355Or do but lift this arm, the best of youShall sink in my rebuke. Give me to knowHow this foul rout began, who set it on;And he that is approved in this offence,

 Iago is most honest.

 It is Othello’s pleasure, our noble and valiantgeneral, that, upon certain tidings now arrived,importing the mere perdition of the Turkish fleet,every man put himself into triumph; some to dance,some to make bonfires, each man to what sport and1120revels his addiction leads him: for, besides thesebeneficial news, it is the celebration of hisnuptial.

Most fortunately: he hath achieved a maid835That paragons description and wild fame;One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens,And in the essential vesture of creationDoes tire the ingener.

The very head and front of my offending420Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,And little bless’d with the soft phrase of peace:For since these arms of mine had seven years’ pith,Till now some nine moons wasted, they have usedTheir dearest action in the tented field,425And little of this great world can I speak,More than pertains to feats of broil and battle,And therefore little shall I grace my causeIn speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,

Of such a thing as thou, to fear, not to delight.

For if such actions may have passage free,Bond-slaves and pagans shall our statesmen be.[Exeunt]

Mine’s not an idle cause: the duke himself,320Or any of my brothers of the state,Cannot but feel this wrong as ’twere their own;

Without a prompter. Where will you that I go305To answer this your charge?

Subdue him at his peril.

[Enter BRABANTIO, RODERIGO, and Officers with torches and weapons]

Brabantio. Down with him, thief![They draw on both sides]

 Ancient,

The senate hath sent about three several guests255To search you out.

But that I love the gentle Desdemona,I would not my unhoused free condition230Put into circumscription and confine

My services which I have done the signioryShall out-tongue his complaints. ‘Tis yet to know,—Which, when I know that boasting is an honour,I shall promulgate—I fetch my life and being225From men of royal siege, and my demerits

[Enter OTHELLO, IAGO, and Attendants with torches]

Yet do I hold it very stuff o’ the conscienceTo do no contrived murder:

And spoke such scurvy and provoking terms210Against your honourThat, with the little godliness I have,

I had thought to have yerk’d him here under the ribs.

I may command at most. Get weapons, ho!And raise some special officers of night.

Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters’ minds

lascivious

As partly I find it is, that your fair daughter,At this odd-even and dull watch o’ the night,

You are—a senator.

have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse;

‘Zounds, sir, you are one of those that will notserve God, if the devil bid you

Brabantio. But thou must needs be sureMy spirit and my place have in them powerTo make this bitter to thee.

Even now, now, very now, an old black ramIs topping your white ewe

Do, with like timorous accent and dire yellAs when, by night and negligence, the fireIs spied in populous cities.80

Rouse him: make after him, poison his delight,Proclaim him in the streets; incense her kinsmen,

father’s house

her

In following him, I follow but myself;60

Preferment goes by letter and affection,

Christian and heathen, must be be-lee’d and calm’d [30]

By debitor and creditor: this counter-caster,

At Rhodes, at Cyprus and on other grounds

More than a spinster; unless the bookish theoric,Wherein the toged consuls can propose [25]As masterly as he: mere prattle, without practise,

That thou, Iago, who hast had my purseAs if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.

his Moorship’s ancient.

Three great ones

 Thou told’st me thou didst hold him in thy hate.