For she is with me: No, when light-wing'd toys
Of feather'd Cupid seel2 with wanton dulness
My speculative and active instruments,

That my disports corrupt and taint my business,
Let housewives make a skillet of my helm,4
And all indign and base adversities

Make head against my estimation!

Duke. Be it as you shall privately determine, Either for her stay, or going: the affair cries-haste, And speed must answerit; you must hence to-night. Des. To-night, my lord?

Duke.

Oth.

This night.

With all my heart.

Duke. At nine i'the morning here we'll meet

again.

Othello, leave some officer behind,

And he shall our commission bring to you;
With such things else of quality and respect,
As doth import you.

Oth.

Please your grace, my ancient: ;

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 every one.-And, noble signior,

If virtue no delighted beauty lack,

[To Brabantio.

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

1 Sen. Adieu, brave Moor! use Desdemona well. Bra. Look to her, Moor; have a quick eye to see. She has deceiv'd her father, and may thee.

[Exeunt Duke, Senators, Officers, &c Oth. My life upon her faith.-Honest lago, My Desdemona must I leave to thee;

I pr'ythee, let thy wife attend on her;

And bring them after in the best advantage.—

(1) Because.
(3) A small kettle.

(2) Blind.

(4) Helmet.

Come, Desdemona; I have but an hour
Of love, of worldly matters and direction,
To spend with thee: we must obey the time.
[Exeunt Othello and Desdemona.

Rod. Iago.

Iago. What say'st thou, noble heart? Rod. What will I do, thinkest thou? Iago. Why, go to bed and sleep. Rod. I will incontinently drown myself. Iago. Well, if thou dost, I shall never love thee after it. Why, thou silly gentleman!

Rod. It is silliness to live, when to live is a torment: and then have we a prescription to die, when death is our physician.

lago. O villanous! I have looked upon the world for four times seven years; and since I could distinguish between a benefit and an injury, I never found a man 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.

Rod. What should I do? I confess, it is my shame to be so fond 2 but it is not in virtue to amend it.

Iago. Virtue? a fig! 'tis in ourselves, that we are thus, or thus. Our bodies are our gardens; to the which, our wills are gardeners: so that if we will plant nettles, or sow lettuce: set hyssop, and weed up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs, or distract it with many; either to have it steril 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 preposterous conclusions: But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our

(1) Immediately.

(2) Foolish.

unbitted lust; whereof I take this, that you calllove, to be a sect,2 or scion.

Rod. It cannot be.

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 than now. Put money in thy purse; follow these wars; defeat thy favour with an usurped beard ;3 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 commencement, 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 as bitter as 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. Make all the money thou canst : If sanctimony and a frail vow, betwixt an erring4 barbarian and a supersubtle 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 way; seek thou rather to be hanged in compassing thy joy, than to be drowned and go without her.

Rod. Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend on the issue?

lago. Thou art sure of me;-Go, make money:

(1) Unbridled.

(2) A sect is what the gardeners call a cutting. (3) Change your countenance with a false beard. (4) Wandering.

-I have told 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, and me a sport. There are many events in the womb of time, which will be delivered. Traverse; go; provide thy money. We will have more of this to-morrow. Adieu.

Rod. Where shall we meet i'the morning?
Iago. At my lodging.

Rod. I'll be with thee betimes.

Iago. Go to; farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo?
Rod. What say you?

Iago. No more of drowning, do you hear?
Rod. I am changed. I'll sell all my land.

Iago. Go to; farewell: put money enough in
your purse.
[Exit Roderigo.
Thus do I ever make my fool my purse:
For I mine own gain'd 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
He has 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 holds2 me well;
The better shall my purpose work on him.
Cassio's a proper man: Let me see now;
To get his place, and to plume up my will;
A double knavery,-How? how?-Let me 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,

To be suspected; fram'd 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 the nose,

(1) An ancient military word of command. (2) Esteems.

As asses are.

I have't;-it is engender'd :-Hell and night Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light. [Exit.

ACT II.

SCENE I.—A sea-port town in Cyprus. A platform. Enter Montano and two Gentlemen. Mon. What from the cape can you discern at sea? 1 Gent. Nothing at all: it is a high-wrought flood; I cannot, 'twixt the heaven and the main, Descry a sail.

Mon. Methinks, the wind hath spoke aloud at land:

A fuller blast ne'er shook our battlements :
If it hath ruffian'd so upon the sea,
What ribs of oak, when mountains melt on them,
Can hold the mortise? what shall we hear of this?
2 Gent. A segregation of the Turkish fleet:
For do but stand upon the foaming shore,
The chiding billow seems to pelt the clouds;
The wind-shak'd surge, with high and monstrous
main,

Seems to cast water on the burning bear,2
And quench the guards of the ever-fixed pole:
I never did like molestation view

On th' enchafed flood.

Mon.

If that the Turkish fleet

Be not inshelter'd and embay'd, they are drown'd; It is impossible they bear it out.

Enter a third Gentleman.

3 Gent. News, lords! our wars are done;

(1) Separation.

(2) The constellation near the polar star.