Othello Page #9

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Look, if my gentle love be not raised up!

I'll make thee an example.

DESDEMONA:

What's the matter?

OTHELLO:

All's well now, sweeting; come away to bed.

Sir, for your hurts, myself will be your surgeon:

Lead him off.

To MONTANO, who is led off

Iago, look with care about the town,

And silence those whom this vile brawl distracted.

Come, Desdemona:
'tis the soldiers' life

To have their balmy slumbers waked with strife.

Exeunt all but IAGO and CASSIO

IAGO:

What, are you hurt, lieutenant?

CASSIO:

Ay, past all surgery.

IAGO:

Marry, heaven forbid!

CASSIO:

Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost

my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of

myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation,

Iago, my reputation!

IAGO:

As I am an honest man, I thought you had received

some bodily wound; there is more sense in that than

in reputation. Reputation is an idle and most false

imposition:
oft got without merit, and lost without

deserving:
you have lost no reputation at all,

unless you repute yourself such a loser. What, man!

there are ways to recover the general again: you

are but now cast in his mood, a punishment more in

policy than in malice, even so as one would beat his

offenceless dog to affright an imperious lion: sue

to him again, and he's yours.

CASSIO:

I will rather sue to be despised than to deceive so

good a commander with so slight, so drunken, and so

indiscreet an officer. Drunk? and speak parrot?

and squabble? swagger? swear? and discourse

fustian with one's own shadow? O thou invisible

spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by,

let us call thee devil!

IAGO:

What was he that you followed with your sword? What

had he done to you?

CASSIO:

I know not.

IAGO:

Is't possible?

CASSIO:

I remember a mass of things, but nothing distinctly;

a quarrel, but nothing wherefore. O God, that men

should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away

their brains! that we should, with joy, pleasance

revel and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!

IAGO:

Why, but you are now well enough: how came you thus

recovered?

CASSIO:

It hath pleased the devil drunkenness to give place

to the devil wrath; one unperfectness shows me

another, to make me frankly despise myself.

IAGO:

Come, you are too severe a moraler: as the time,

the place, and the condition of this country

stands, I could heartily wish this had not befallen;

but, since it is as it is, mend it for your own good.

CASSIO:

I will ask him for my place again; he shall tell me

I am a drunkard! Had I as many mouths as Hydra,

such an answer would stop them all. To be now a

sensible man, by and by a fool, and presently a

beast! O strange! Every inordinate cup is

unblessed and the ingredient is a devil.

IAGO:

Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature,

if it be well used: exclaim no more against it.

And, good lieutenant, I think you think I love you.

CASSIO:

I have well approved it, sir. I drunk!

IAGO:

You or any man living may be drunk! at a time, man.

I'll tell you what you shall do. Our general's wife

is now the general: may say so in this respect, for

that he hath devoted and given up himself to the

contemplation, mark, and denotement of her parts and

graces:
confess yourself freely to her; importune

her help to put you in your place again: she is of

so free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition,

she holds it a vice in her goodness not to do more

than she is requested: this broken joint between

you and her husband entreat her to splinter; and, my

fortunes against any lay worth naming, this

crack of your love shall grow stronger than it was before.

CASSIO:

You advise me well.

IAGO:

I protest, in the sincerity of love and honest kindness.

CASSIO:

I think it freely; and betimes in the morning I will

beseech the virtuous Desdemona to undertake for me:

I am desperate of my fortunes if they cheque me here.

IAGO:

You are in the right. Good night, lieutenant; I

must to the watch.

CASSIO:
Good night, honest Iago.

Exit

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