The arden shakespeare co.., p.418
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works, page 418
gives your Hollander a vomit ere the next pottle can be
filled.
CASSIO To the health of our general!
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MONTANO I am for it, lieutenant, and I’ll do you justice.
IAGO O sweet England!
[Sings.]
King Stephen was and-a worthy peer,
His breeches cost him but a crown,
He held them sixpence all too dear,
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With that he called the tailor lown.
He was a wight of high renown
And thou art but of low degree,
’Tis pride that pulls the country down,
Then take thine auld cloak about thee.
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Some wine, ho!
CASSIO ’Fore God, this is a more exquisite song than
the other!
IAGO Will you hear’t again?
CASSIO No, for I hold him to be unworthy of his place
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that does … those things. Well, God’s above all, and
there be souls must be saved, and there be souls must
not be saved.
IAGO It’s true, good lieutenant.
CASSIO For mine own part, no offence to the general
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nor any man of quality, I hope to be saved.
IAGO And so do I too, lieutenant.
CASSIO Ay, but, by your leave, not before me. The
lieutenant is to be saved before the ancient. Let’s have
no more of this, let’s to our affairs. God forgive us our
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sins! Gentlemen, let’s look to our business. Do not
think, gentlemen, I am drunk: this is my ancient, this
is my right hand, and this is my left. I am not drunk
now: I can stand well enough, and I speak well enough.
GENTLEMAN Excellent well.
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CASSIO Why, very well then; you must not think then
that I am drunk. Exit.
MONTANO
To th’ platform, masters, come, let’s set the watch.
IAGO You see this fellow that is gone before,
He is a soldier fit to stand by Caesar
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And give direction. And do but see his vice,
’Tis to his virtue a just equinox,
The one as long as th’other. ’Tis pity of him:
I fear the trust Othello puts him in
On some odd time of his infirmity
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Will shake this island.
MONTANO But is he often thus?
IAGO ’Tis evermore the prologue to his sleep:
He’ll watch the horologe a double set
If drink rock not his cradle.
MONTANO It were well
The general were put in mind of it.
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Perhaps he sees it not, or his good nature
Prizes the virtue that appears in Cassio
And looks not on his evils: is not this true?
Enter RODERIGO.
IAGO [aside] How now, Roderigo?
I pray you, after the lieutenant, go! Exit Roderigo.
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MONTANO And ’tis great pity that the noble Moor
Should hazard such a place as his own second
With one of an ingraft infirmity.
It were an honest action to say so
To the Moor.
IAGO Not I, for this fair island.
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I do love Cassio well, and would do much
[A cry within: ‘Help! help!’]
To cure him of this evil. But hark, what noise?
Enter CASSIO pursuing RODERIGO.
CASSIO Zounds, you rogue! you rascal!
MONTANO What’s the matter, lieutenant?
CASSIO A knave teach me my duty? I’ll beat the knave
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into a twiggen bottle!
RODERIGO Beat me?
CASSIO Dost thou prate, rogue?
MONTANO Nay, good lieutenant! I pray you, sir, hold
your hand.
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CASSIO Let me go, sir, or I’ll knock you o’er the mazzard.
MONTANO Come, come, you’re drunk.
CASSIO Drunk? [They fight.]
IAGO [aside to Roderigo]
Away, I say, go out and cry a mutiny. Exit Roderigo.
Nay, good lieutenant! God’s will, gentlemen –
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Help ho! Lieutenant! sir – Montano – sir –
Help, masters, here’s a goodly watch indeed.
[A bell rings.]
Who’s that which rings the bell? Diablo, ho!
The town will rise, God’s will, lieutenant, hold,
You will be shamed for ever!
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Enter OTHELLO and attendants.
OTHELLO What is the matter here?
MONTANO Zounds, I bleed still;
I am hurt to th’ death: he dies! [Lunges at Cassio.]
OTHELLO Hold, for your lives!
IAGO
Hold, ho! Lieutenant! sir – Montano – gentlemen –
Have you forgot all sense of place and duty?
Hold, the general speaks to you: hold, for shame!
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OTHELLO
Why, how now, ho? From whence ariseth this?
Are we turned Turks? and to ourselves do that
Which heaven hath forbid the Ottomites?
For Christian shame, put by this barbarous brawl;
He that stirs next, to carve for his own rage,
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Holds his soul light: he dies upon his motion.
Silence that dreadful bell, it frights the isle
From her propriety. What is the matter, masters?
Honest Iago, that look’st dead with grieving,
Speak: who began this? on thy love I charge thee.
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IAGO
I do not know, friends all, but now, even now,
In quarter and in terms like bride and groom
Divesting them for bed; and then, but now,
As if some planet had unwitted men,
Swords out, and tilting one at other’s breasts
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In opposition bloody. I cannot speak
Any beginning to this peevish odds,
And would in action glorious I had lost
Those legs that brought me to a part of it.
OTHELLO How comes it, Michael, you are thus forgot?
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CASSIO I pray you pardon me, I cannot speak.
OTHELLO Worthy Montano, you were wont to be civil:
The gravity and stillness of your youth
The world hath noted, and your name is great
In mouths of wisest censure. What’s the matter
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That you unlace your reputation thus
And spend your rich opinion for the name
Of a night-brawler? Give me answer to it.
MONTANO Worthy Othello, I am hurt to danger:
Your officer Iago can inform you,
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While I spare speech, which something now offends
me,
Of all that I do know; nor know I aught
By me that’s said or done amiss this night
Unless self-charity be sometimes a vice,
And to defend ourselves it be a sin
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When violence assails us.
OTHELLO Now, by heaven,
My blood begins my safer guides to rule
And passion, having my best judgement collied,
Assays to lead the way. Zounds, if I once stir,
Or do but lift this arm, the best of you
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Shall sink in my rebuke. Give me to know
How this foul rout began, who set it on,
And he that is approved in this offence,
Though he had twinned with me, both at a birth,
Shall lose me. What, in a town of war
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Yet wild, the people’s hearts brimful of fear,
To manage private and domestic quarrel?
In night, and on the court and guard of safety?
’Tis monstrous. Iago, who began’t?
MONTANO If partially affined or leagued in office
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Thou dost deliver more or less than truth
Thou art no soldier.
IAGO Touch me not so near.
I had rather have this tongue cut from my mouth
Than it should do offence to Michael Cassio,
Yet I persuade myself to speak the truth
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Shall nothing wrong him. Thus it is, general:
Montano and myself being in speech,
There comes a fellow crying out for help
And Cassio following him with determined sword
To execute upon him. Sir, this gentleman
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Steps in to Cassio and entreats his pause,
Myself the crying fellow did pursue
Lest by his clamour, as it so fell out,
The town might fall in fright. He, swift of foot,
Outran my purpose, and I returned the rather
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For that I heard the clink and fall of swords
And Cassio high in oath, which till tonight
I ne’er might say before. When I came back,
For this was brief, I found them close together
At blow and thrust, even as again they were
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When you yourself did part them.
More of this matter cannot I report.
But men are men, the best sometimes forget;
Though Cassio did some little wrong to him,
As men in rage strike those that wish them best,
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Yet surely Cassio, I believe, received
From him that fled some strange indignity
Which patience could not pass.
OTHELLO I know, Iago,
Thy honesty and love doth mince this matter,
Making it light to Cassio. Cassio, I love thee,
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Enter DESDEMONA, attended.
But never more be officer of mine.
Look if my gentle love be not raised up!
I’ll make thee an example.
DESDEMONA What is the matter, dear?
OTHELLO All’s well now, sweeting,
Come away to bed. – Sir, for your hurts
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Myself will be your surgeon. Lead him off.
Montano is led off.
IAGO, look with care about the town
And silence those whom this vile brawl distracted.
Come, Desdemona: ’tis the soldier’s life
To have their balmy slumbers waked with strife.
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Exeunt all but Iago and Cassio.
IAGO What, are you hurt, lieutenant?
CASSIO Ay, past all surgery.
IAGO Marry, God forbid!
CASSIO Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have
lost my reputation, I have lost the immortal part of
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myself – and what remains is bestial. My reputation,
Iago, my reputation!
IAGO As I am an honest man I thought you had received
some bodily wound; there is more of sense in that than
in reputation. Reputation is an idle and most false
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imposition, oft got without merit and lost without
deserving. You have lost no reputation at all, unless you
repute yourself such a loser. What, man, there are ways
to recover the general again. You are but now cast in his
mood, a punishment more in policy than in malice,
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even so as one would beat his offenceless dog to affright
an imperious lion. Sue to him again, and he’s yours.
CASSIO I will rather sue to be despised, than to deceive
so good a commander with so slight, so drunken, and
so indiscreet an officer. Drunk? and speak parrot? and
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squabble? swagger? swear? and discourse fustian with
one’s own shadow? O thou invisible spirit of wine, if
thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee
devil!
IAGO What was he that you followed with your sword?
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What had he done to you?
CASSIO I know not.
IAGO Is’t possible?
CASSIO I remember a mass of things, but nothing
distinctly; a quarrel, but nothing wherefore. O God,
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that men should put an enemy in their mouths, to steal
