For ’tis of aspics’ tongues.

IAGO Yet be content.

OTHELLO

O, blood, blood, blood!

IAGO Patience, I say. Your mind may change.

OTHELLO

Never, Iago. Like to the Pontic Sea,

Whose icy current and compulsive course

Ne‘er knows 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.

⌈He kneels⌉

Now, by yon marble heaven,

In the due reverence of a sacred vow

I here engage my words.

IAGO Do not rise yet.

Iago 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 wronged 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, 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.

Exeunt

3.4 Enter Desdemona, Emilia, and the Clown

DESDEMONA Do you know, sirrah, where Lieutenant Cassio lies?

CLOWN I dare not say he lies anywhere.

DESDEMONA Why, man?

CLOWN He’s a soldier, and for me to say a soldier lies, ’tis stabbing.

DESDEMONA Go to. Where lodges he?

CLOWN To tell you where he lodges is to tell you where I lie.

DESDEMONA Can anything be made of this?

CLOWN I know not where he lodges, and for me to devise a lodging and say he lies here, or he lies there, were to lie in mine own throat.

DESDEMONA Can you enquire him out, and be edified by report?

CLOWN I will catechize the world for him; that is, make questions, and by them answer.

DESDEMONA Seek him, bid him come hither, tell him I have moved my lord on his behalf, and hope all will be well.

CLOWN To do this is within the compass of man’s wit, and therefore I will attempt the doing it.

Exit

DESDEMONA

Where should I lose the handkerchief, Emilia?

EMILIA I know not, madam.

DESDEMONA

Believe me, I had rather have lost my purse

Full of crusadoes, and but my noble Moor

Is true of mind, and made of no such baseness

As jealous creatures are, it were enough

To put him to ill thinking.

EMILIA Is he not jealous?

DESDEMONA

Who, he? I think the sun where he was born

Drew all such humours from him.

Enter Othello

EMILIA Look where he comes.

DESDEMONA

I will not leave him now till Cassio

Be called to him. How is’t with you, my lord?

OTHELLO

Well, my good lady. (Aside) O hardness to dissemble!—

How do you, Desdemona?

DESDEMONA Well, my good lord.

OTHELLO

Give me your hand. This hand is moist, my lady.

DESDEMONA

It hath felt no age, nor known no sorrow.

OTHELLO

This argues fruitfulness and liberal heart.

Hot, hot and moist—this hand of yours requires

A sequester from liberty; fasting, and prayer,

Much castigation, exercise devout,

For here’s a young and sweating devil here

That commonly rebels. ’Tis a good hand,

A frank one.

DESDEMONA You may indeed say so,

For ’twas that hand that gave away my heart.

OTHELLO

A liberal hand. The hearts of old gave hands,

But our new heraldry is hands, not hearts.

DESDEMONA

I cannot speak of this. Come now, your promise.

OTHELLO What promise, chuck?

DESDEMONA

I have sent to bid Cassio come speak with you.

OTHELLO

I have a salt and sorry rheum offends me.

Lend me thy handkerchief.

DESDEMONA (offering a handkerchief) Here, my lord.

OTHELLO

That which I gave you.

DESDEMONA I have it not about me.

OTHELLO Not?

DESDEMONA

No, faith, my lord.

OTHELLO That’s a fault. That handkerchief

Did an Egyptian to my mother give.

She was a charmer, and could almost read

The thoughts of people. She told her, while she kept it

’Twould make her amiable, and subdue my father

Entirely to her love; but if she lost it,

Or made a gift of it, my father’s eye

Should hold her loathèd, and his spirits should hunt

After new fancies. She, dying, gave it me,

And bid me, when my fate would have me wived,

To give it her. I did so, and take heed on’t.

Make it a darling, like your precious eye.

To lose’t or give’t away were such perdition

As nothing else could match.

DESDEMONA Is’t possible?

OTHELLO

’Tis true. There’s magic in the web of it.

A sibyl that had numbered in the world

The sun to course two hundred compasses

In her prophetic fury sewed the work.

The worms were hallowed that did breed the silk,

And it was dyed in mummy, which the skilful

Conserved of maidens’ hearts.

DESDEMONA I’faith, is’t true?

OTHELLO

Most veritable. Therefore look to’t well.

DESDEMONA

Then would to God that I had never seen it!

OTHELLO Ha, wherefore?

DESDEMONA

Why do you speak so startingly and rash?

OTHELLO

Is’t lost? Is’t gone? Speak, is’t out o’th’ way?

DESDEMONA Heaven bless us!

OTHELLO Say you?

DESDEMONA

It is not lost, but what an if it were?

OTHELLO HOW?

DESDEMONA

I say it is not lost.