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 today
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 hell!
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, Iago, 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,
In the due reverence of a sacred vow [Kneels.]
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.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE IX
Cyprus. Before the Castle.
[Enter Desdemona, Emilia, and 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 one to say a soldier lies is 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 inquire 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 that 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.
EMILIA
Look, where he comes.
DESDEMONA
I will not leave him now till Cassio
Be call’d to him.
[Enter Othello.]
How is’t with you, my lord?
SCENE X