FIRST SENATOR. Adieu, brave Moor, use Desdemona well.
BRABANTIO. Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see;
She has deceived her father, and may thee.
Exeunt Duke, Senators, and
Officers.
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 matters and direction,
To spend with thee. We must obey the time.
Exeunt Othello and
Desdemona.
RODERIGO. Iago!
IAGO. What say'st thou, noble heart?
RODERIGO. What will I do, thinkest 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 have 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 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 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 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 favor with an usurped beard. 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 acerb as the 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 erring 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.
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 retell 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' the morning?
IAGO. At my lodging.
RODERIGO. I'll be with thee betimes.
IAGO. Go to, farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo?
RODERIGO. What say you?
IAGO. No more of drowning, do you hear?
RODERIGO.