A shot

A GENTLEMAN

They give their greeting to the citadel.

This likewise is a friend.

CASSIO

See for the news.

Exit Gentleman

Good ensign, you are welcome. (Kissing Emilia)

Welcome, mistress.

Let it not gall your patience, good Iago,

That I extend my manners. ’Tis my breeding

That gives me this bold show of courtesy.

IAGO

Sir, would she give you so much of her lips

As of her tongue she oft bestows on me,

You would have enough.

DESDEMONA Alas, she has no speech!

IAGO In faith, too much.

I find it still when I ha’ leave to sleep.

Marry, before your ladyship, I grant,

She puts her tongue a little in her heart,

And chides with thinking.

EMILIA

You ha’ little cause to say so.

IAGO

Come on, come on. You are pictures out of door,

Bells in your parlours; wildcats in your kitchens,

Saints in your injuries; devils being offended,

Players in your housewifery, and hussies in your beds.

DESDEMONA

O, fie upon thee, slanderer!

IAGO

Nay, it is true, or else I am a Turk.

You rise to play and go to bed to work.

EMILIA

You shall not write my praise.

IAGO No, let me not.

DESDEMONA

What wouldst write of me, if thou shouldst praise me?

IAGO

O, gentle lady, do not put me to’t,

For I am nothing if not critical.

DESDEMONA

Come on, essay—there’s one gone to the harbour?

IAGO Ay, madam.

DESDEMONA

I am not merry, but I do beguile

The thing I am by seeming otherwise.

Come, how wouldst thou praise me?

IAGO

I am about it, but indeed my invention

Comes from my pate as birdlime does from frieze—

It plucks out brains and all. But my muse labours,

And thus she is delivered:

If she be fair and wise, fairness and wit,

The one’s for use, the other useth it.

DESDEMONA Well praised! How if she be black and witty?

IAGO

If she be black and thereto have a wit,

She’ll find a white that shall her blackness fit.

DESDEMONA

Worse and worse.

EMILIA

How if fair and foolish?

IAGO

She never yet was foolish that was fair,

For even her folly helped her to an heir.

DESDEMONA These are old fond paradoxes, to make fools laugh i’th’ alehouse.

What miserable praise hast thou for her

That’s foul and foolish?

IAGO

There’s none so foul and foolish thereunto,

But does foul pranks which fair and wise ones do.

DESDEMONA O heavy ignorance! Thou praisest the worst best. But what praise couldst thou bestow on a deserving woman indeed—one that, in the authority of her merit, did justly put on the vouch of very malice itself?

IAGO

She that was ever fair and never proud,

Had tongue at will and yet was never loud,

Never lacked gold and yet went never gay,

Fled from her wish, and yet said ‘Now I may’;

She that, being angered, her revenge being nigh,

Bade her wrong stay and her displeasure fly;

She that in wisdom never was so frail

To change the cod’s head for the salmon’s tail;

She that could think and ne’er disclose her mind,

See suitors following, and not look behind—

She was a wight, if ever such wights were—

DESDEMONA To do what?

IAGO

To suckle fools, and chronicle small beer.

DESDEMONA O most lame and impotent conclusion! Do not learn of him, Emilia, though he be thy husband. How say you, Cassio, is he not a most profane and liberal counsellor?

CASSIO He speaks home, madam. You may relish him more in the soldier than in the scholar.

Cassio and Desdemona talk apart

IAGO (aside) He takes her by the palm. Ay, well said—whisper. With as little a web as this will I ensnare as great a fly as Cassio. Ay, smile upon her, do. I will gyve thee in thine own courtship. You say true, ‘tis so indeed. If such tricks as these strip you out of your lieutenantry, it had been better you had not kissed your three fingers so oft, which now again you are most apt to play the sir in. Very good, well kissed, an excellent curtsy, ’tis so indeed; yet again your fingers to your lips? Would they were clyster-pipes for your sake.

Trumpets within

(Aloud) The Moor—I know his trumpet.

CASSIO ’Tis truly so.

DESDEMONA

Let’s meet him and receive him.

CASSIO Lo where he comes!

Enter Othello and attendants

OTHELLO (to Desdemona)

O my fair warrior!

DESDEMONA My dear Othello.

OTHELLO

It gives me wonder great as my content

To see you here before me. O my soul’s joy,

If after every tempest come such calms,

May the winds blow till they have wakened death,

And let the labouring barque climb hills of seas

Olympus-high, and duck again as low

As hell’s from heaven. If it were now to die

’Twere now to be most happy, for I fear

My soul hath her content so absolute

That not another comfort like to this

Succeeds in unknown fate.

DESDEMONA The heavens forbid

But that our loves and comforts should increase

Even as our days do grow.

OTHELLO Amen to that, sweet powers!

I cannot speak enough of this content.

It stops me here, it is too much of joy.

And this, (they kiss) and this, the greatest discords be

That e’er our hearts shall make.

IAGO (aside) O, you are well tuned now,

But I’ll set down the pegs that make this music,

As honest as I am.

OTHELLO Come, let us to the castle.

News, friends: our wars are done, the Turks are

drowned.

How does my old acquaintance of this isle?—

Honey, you shall be well desired in Cyprus,

I have found great love amongst them. O my sweet,

I prattle out of fashion, and I dote

In mine own comforts. I prithee, good Iago,