For nothing canst thou to damnation add Greater than that. IAGO O grace! O heaven forgive me!
Are you a man? have you a soul or sense?
God be wi' you; take mine office. O wretched fool.
That livest to make thine honesty a vice!
O monstrous world! Take note, take note, O world, To be direct and honest is not safe.
I thank you for this profit; and from hence I'll love no friend, sith love breeds such offence. OTHELLO Nay, stay: thou shouldst be honest. IAGO I should be wise, for honesty's a fool And loses that it works for. OTHELLO By the world, I think my wife be honest and think she is not;
I think that thou art just and think thou art not.
I'll have some proof. Her name, that was as fresh As Dian's visage, is now begrimed and black As mine own face. If there be cords, or knives, Poison, or fire, or suffocating streams, I'll not endure it. Would I were satisfied! IAGO I see, sir, you are eaten up with passion:
I do repent me that I put it to you.
You would be satisfied? OTHELLO Would! nay, I will. IAGO And may: but, how? how satisfied, my lord?
Would you, the supervisor, grossly gape on--
Behold her topp'd? OTHELLO Death and damnation! O! IAGO It were a tedious difficulty, I think, To bring them to that prospect: damn them then, If ever mortal eyes do see them bolster More than their own! What then? how then?
What shall I say? Where's satisfaction?
It is impossible you should see this, Were they as prime as goats, as hot as monkeys, As salt as wolves in pride, and fools as gross As ignorance made drunk. But yet, I say, If imputation and strong circumstances, Which lead directly to the door of truth, Will give you satisfaction, you may have't. OTHELLO Give me a living reason she's disloyal. IAGO I do not like the office:
But, sith I am enter'd in this cause so far, Prick'd to't by foolish honesty and love, I will go on. I lay with Cassio lately;
And, being troubled with a raging tooth, I could not sleep.
There are a kind of men so loose of soul, That in their sleeps will mutter their affairs:
One of this kind is Cassio:
In sleep I heard him say 'Sweet Desdemona, Let us be wary, let us hide our loves;'
And then, sir, would he gripe and wring my hand, Cry 'O sweet creature!' and then kiss me hard, As if he pluck'd up kisses by the roots That grew upon my lips: then laid his leg Over my thigh, and sigh'd, and kiss'd; and then Cried 'Cursed fate that gave thee to the Moor!' OTHELLO O monstrous! monstrous! IAGO Nay, this was but his dream. OTHELLO But this denoted a foregone conclusion:
'Tis a shrewd doubt, though it be but a dream. IAGO And this may help to thicken other proofs That do demonstrate thinly. OTHELLO I'll tear her all to pieces. IAGO Nay, but be wise: yet we see nothing done;
She may be honest yet. Tell me but this, Have you not sometimes seen a handkerchief Spotted with strawberries in your wife's hand? OTHELLO I gave her such a one; 'twas my first gift. IAGO I know not that; but such a handkerchief--
I am sure it was your wife's--did I to-day See Cassio wipe his beard with. OTHELLO If it be that-- IAGO If it be that, or any that was hers, It speaks against her with the other proofs. OTHELLO O, that the slave had forty thousand lives!
One is too poor, too weak for my revenge.
Now do I see 'tis true. Look here, Iago;
All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven.
'Tis gone.
Arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow cell!
Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearted throne To tyrannous hate! Swell, bosom, with thy fraught, For 'tis of aspics' tongues! IAGO Yet be content. OTHELLO O, blood, blood, blood! IAGO Patience, I say; your mind perhaps may change. OTHELLO Never, Iago: Like to the Pontic sea, Whose icy current and compulsive course Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on To the Propontic and the Hellespont, Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace, Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love, Till that a capable and wide revenge Swallow them up. Now, by yond marble heaven, Kneels In the due reverence of a sacred vow I here engage my words. IAGO Do not rise yet.
Kneels Witness, you ever-burning lights above, You elements that clip us round about, Witness that here Iago doth give up The execution of his wit, hands, heart, To wrong'd Othello's service! Let him command, And to obey shall be in me remorse, What bloody business ever.
They rise OTHELLO I greet thy love, Not with vain thanks, but with acceptance bounteous, And will upon the instant put thee to't:
Within these three days let me hear thee say That Cassio's not alive. IAGO My friend is dead; 'tis done at your request:
But let her live. OTHELLO Damn her, lewd minx! O, damn her!
Come, go with me apart; I will withdraw, To furnish me with some swift means of death For the fair devil. Now art thou my lieutenant. IAGO I am your own for ever.