The arden shakespeare co.., p.423
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works, page 423
EMILIA But jealous souls will not be answered so:
They are not ever jealous for the cause,
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But jealous for they’re jealous. It is a monster
Begot upon itself, born on itself.
DESDEMONA
Heaven keep that monster from Othello’s mind!
EMILIA Lady, amen.
DESDEMONA
I will go seek him. Cassio, walk here about,
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If I do find him fit I’ll move your suit
And seek to effect it to my uttermost.
CASSIO I humbly thank your ladyship.
Exeunt Desdemona and Emilia.
Enter BIANCA.
BIANCA Save you, friend Cassio!
CASSIO What make you from home?
How is’t with you, my most fair Bianca?
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I’faith, sweet love, I was coming to your house.
BIANCA And I was going to your lodging, Cassio.
What, keep a week away? seven days and nights?
Eight score eight hours? and lovers’ absent hours
More tedious than the dial, eight score times!
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O weary reckoning!
CASSIO Pardon me, Bianca,
I have this while with leaden thoughts been pressed,
But I shall in a more continuate time
Strike off this score of absence. Sweet Bianca,
[giving her Desdemona’s handkerchief]
Take me this work out.
BIANCA O Cassio, whence came this?
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This is some token from a newer friend!
To the felt absence now I feel a cause:
Is’t come to this? Well, well.
CASSIO Go to, woman,
Throw your vile guesses in the devil’s teeth
From whence you have them! You are jealous now
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That this is from some mistress, some remembrance:
No, by my faith, Bianca.
BIANCA Why, whose is it?
CASSIO I know not neither, I found it in my chamber.
I like the work well: ere it be demanded,
As like enough it will, I’d have it copied.
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Take it, and do’t, and leave me for this time.
BIANCA Leave you? Wherefore?
CASSIO I do attend here on the general
And think it no addition, nor my wish,
To have him see me womaned.
BIANCA Why, I pray you?
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CASSIO Not that I love you not.
BIANCA But that you do not love me.
I pray you, bring me on the way a little,
And say if I shall see you soon at night.
CASSIO ’Tis but a little way that I can bring you
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For I attend here, but I’ll see you soon.
BIANCA ’Tis very good: I must be circumstanced.
Exeunt.
4.1 Enter OTHELLO and IAGO.
IAGO Will you think so?
OTHELLO Think so, Iago?
IAGO What,
To kiss in private?
OTHELLO An unauthorized kiss!
IAGO Or to be naked with her friend in bed
An hour or more, not meaning any harm?
OTHELLO Naked in bed, Iago, and not mean harm?
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It is hypocrisy against the devil:
They that mean virtuously, and yet do so,
The devil their virtue tempts, and they tempt heaven.
IAGO So they do nothing, ’tis a venial slip;
But if I give my wife a handkerchief –
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OTHELLO What then?
IAGO Why, then ’tis hers, my lord, and being hers
She may, I think, bestow’t on any man.
OTHELLO She is protectress of her honour too:
May she give that?
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IAGO Her honour is an essence that’s not seen,
They have it very oft that have it not.
But for the handkerchief –
OTHELLO
By heaven, I would most gladly have forgot it!
Thou said’st – O, it comes o’er my memory
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As doth the raven o’er the infectious house
Boding to all – he had my handkerchief.
IAGO Ay, what of that?
OTHELLO That’s not so good now.
IAGO
What if I had said I had seen him do you wrong?
Or heard him say – as knaves be such abroad
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Who, having by their own importunate suit
Or voluntary dotage of some mistress
Convinced or supplied them, cannot choose
But they must blab –
OTHELLO Hath he said anything?
IAGO He hath, my lord, but be you well assured
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No more than he’ll unswear.
OTHELLO What hath he said?
IAGO
Faith, that he did – I know not what. He did –
OTHELLO What? what?
IAGO Lie.
OTHELLO With her?
IAGO With her, on her, what you will.
OTHELLO Lie with her? lie on her? We say lie on her
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when they belie her! Lie with her, zounds, that’s
fulsome! – Handkerchief! confessions! handkerchief!
– To confess, and be hanged for his labour! First to be
hanged, and then to confess: I tremble at it. Nature
would not invest herself in such shadowing passion
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without some instruction. It is not words that shakes
me thus. Pish! Noses, ears, and lips. Is’t possible?
Confess! handkerchief! O devil! [He falls in a trance].
IAGO Work on,
My medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught,
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And many worthy and chaste dames even thus,
All guiltless, meet reproach. – What ho! my lord!
My lord, I say! Othello!
Enter CASSIO.
How now, Cassio?
CASSIO What’s the matter?
IAGO My lord is fallen into an epilepsy;
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This is his second fit, he had one yesterday.
CASSIO Rub him about the temples.
IAGO No, forbear:
The lethargy must have his quiet course,
If not, he foams at mouth, and by and by
Breaks out to savage madness. Look, he stirs;
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Do you withdraw yourself a little while,
He will recover straight. When he is gone
I would on great occasion speak with you.
Exit Cassio.
How is it, general? have you not hurt your head?
OTHELLO Dost thou mock me?
IAGO I mock you? no, by heaven!
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Would you would bear your fortune like a man!
OTHELLO A horned man’s a monster, and a beast.
IAGO There’s many a beast then in a populous city,
And many a civil monster.
OTHELLO Did he confess it?
IAGO Good sir, be a man,
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Think every bearded fellow that’s but yoked
May draw with you. There’s millions now alive
That nightly lie in those unproper beds
Which they dare swear peculiar: your case is better.
O, ’tis the spite of hell, the fiend’s arch-mock,
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To lip a wanton in a secure couch
And to suppose her chaste. No, let me know,
And, knowing what I am, I know what she shall be.
OTHELLO O, thou art wise, ’tis certain.
IAGO Stand you a while apart,
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Confine yourself but in a patient list.
Whilst you were here o’erwhelmed with your grief
– A passion most unsuiting such a man –
Cassio came hither. I shifted him away
And laid good ’scuse upon your ecstasy,
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Bade him anon return and here speak with me,
The which he promised. Do but encave yourself
And mark the fleers, the gibes and notable scorns
That dwell in every region of his face;
For I will make him tell the tale anew
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Where, how, how oft, how long ago, and when
He hath and is again to cope your wife.
I say, but mark his gesture; marry, patience,
Or I shall say you’re all in all in spleen
And nothing of a man.
OTHELLO Dost thou hear, Iago?
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I will be found most cunning in my patience
But – dost thou hear? – most bloody.
IAGO That’s not amiss,
But yet keep time in all. Will you withdraw?
[Othello withdraws.]
Now will I question Cassio of Bianca,
A housewife that by selling her desires
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Buys herself bread and clothes: it is a creature
That dotes on Cassio – as ’tis the strumpet’s plague
To beguile many and be beguiled by one.
He, when he hears of her, cannot refrain
From the excess of laughter. Here he comes.
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Enter CASSIO.
As he shall smile, Othello shall go mad.
And his unbookish jealousy must construe
Poor Cassio’s smiles, gestures and light behaviour
Quite in the wrong. How do you now, lieutenant?
CASSIO The worser, that you give me the addition
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Whose want even kills me.
IAGO Ply Desdemona well, and you are sure on’t.
[speaking lower] Now if this suit lay in Bianca’s power
How quickly should you speed!
CASSIO Alas, poor caitiff!
OTHELLO Look how he laughs already!
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IAGO I never knew a woman love man so.
CASSIO Alas, poor rogue, I think i’faith she loves me.
OTHELLO Now he denies it faintly, and laughs it out.
IAGO Do you hear, Cassio?
OTHELLO Now he importunes him
To tell it o’er; go to, well said, well said.
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IAGO She gives it out that you shall marry her;
Do you intend it?
CASSIO Ha, ha, ha!
OTHELLO Do ye triumph, Roman, do you triumph?
CASSIO I marry! What, a customer! prithee bear some
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charity to my wit, do not think it so unwholesome. Ha,
ha, ha!
OTHELLO So, so, so, so: they laugh that win.
IAGO Faith, the cry goes that you shall marry her.
CASSIO Prithee say true!
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IAGO I am a very villain else.
OTHELLO Have you stored me? Well.
CASSIO This is the monkey’s own giving out. She is
persuaded I will marry her, out of her own love and
flattery, not out of my promise.
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OTHELLO Iago beckons me: now he begins the story.
CASSIO She was here even now, she haunts me in every
place. I was the other day talking on the sea-bank with
certain Venetians, and thither comes the bauble and,
by this hand, falls me thus about my neck –
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OTHELLO Crying ‘O dear Cassio!’ as it were: his gesture
imports it.
CASSIO So hangs and lolls and weeps upon me, so
shakes and pulls me! Ha, ha, ha!
OTHELLO Now he tells how she plucked him to my
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chamber. O, I see that nose of yours, but not that dog
I shall throw it to.
CASSIO Well, I must leave her company.
IAGO Before me! look where she comes!
Enter BIANCA.
CASSIO ’Tis such another fitchew; marry, a perfumed
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one. What do you mean by this haunting of me?
BIANCA Let the devil and his dam haunt you! What did
you mean by that same handkerchief you gave me even
now? I was a fine fool to take it – I must take out the
work! A likely piece of work, that you should find it in
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your chamber and know not who left it there! This is
