I will your serious and great business scant
When she is with me. No, when light-winged toys
Of feathered Cupid seel with wanton dullness
My speculative and officed instruments,
That my disports corrupt and taint my business,
Let housewives make a skillet of my helm,
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. Th’affair cries haste,
And speed must answer it.
A SENATOR (to Othello)
You must away tonight.
DESDEMONA
Tonight, my lord?
DUKE
This night.
OTHELLO
With all my heart.
DUKE
At nine i’th’ morning here we’ll meet again.
Othello, leave some officer behind,
And he shall our commission bring to you,
And such things else of quality and respect
As doth import you.
OTHELLO
So please your grace, my ensign.
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 everyone. (To Brabanzio) And, noble
signor,
If virtue no delighted beauty lack,
Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.
A SENATOR
Adieu, brave Moor. Use Desdemona well.
BRABANZIO
Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see.
She has deceived her father, and may thee.
OTHELLO
My life upon her faith. Honest Iago,
My Desdemona must I leave to thee.
I prithee let thy wife attend on her,
And bring them after in the best advantage.
Come, Desdemona. I have but an hour
Of love, of worldly matter and direction
To spend with thee. We must obey the time.
Exeunt Othello and Desdemona
RODERIGO Iago.
IAGO What sayst thou, noble heart?
RODERIGO What will I do, think’st thou?
IAGO Why, go to bed and sleep.
RODERIGO I will incontinently drown myself.
IAGO If thou dost, I shall never love thee after. Why, thou silly gentleman!
RODERIGO It is silliness to live when to live is torment; and then have we a prescription to die when death is our physician.
IAGO O, villainous! I ha’ looked upon the world for four times seven years, and since I could distinguish betwixt a benefit and an injury I never found 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.
RODERIGO What should I do? I confess it is my shame to be so fond, but it is not in my 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 sterile with idleness or manured with industry, why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills. If the beam of our lives had not one scale of reason to peise 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 unbitted lusts; whereof I take this that you call love to be a sect or scion.
RODERIGO 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 thou the wars, defeat thy favour with an usurped beard. I say, put money in thy purse. It cannot be long that Desdemona should continue her love to the Moor—put money in thy purse—nor he his to her. It was a violent commencement in her, 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. 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 erring barbarian and a super-subtle Venetian be not too hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell, thou shalt enjoy her; therefore make money. A pox o’ 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.
RODERIGO Wilt thou be fast to my hopes if I depend on the issue?
IAGO Thou art sure of me. Go, make money. 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, 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 tomorrow. Adieu.
RODERIGO
Where shall we meet i’th’ morning?
IAGO At my lodging.
RODERIGO
I’ll be with thee betimes.
IAGO Go to, farewell—
Do you hear, Roderigo?
RODERIGO
I’ll sell all my land.
Exit
IAGO
Thus do I ever make my fool my purse—
For I mine own gained 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 holds 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
In double knavery—how, how? Let’s see.
After some time to abuse Othello’s ears
That he is too familiar with his wife;
He hath a person and a smooth dispose
To be suspected, framed to make women false.