The World is an Apple by Alberto
S. Florentino
GLORIA: (Calls from inside) Mario! Is that
you, Mario?
MARIO: Yes
GLORIA: (A small woman about Marios age,
with long hair, comes out wiping her hands
on her dress.)
Im glad youre home early.
MARIO: How is Tita?
(Without waiting for an answer, he enters the
dwelling).
GLORIA: (Crosses to the bench)-
Dont wake her up, Mario. Shes tired. She
cried the whole day.
MARIO: (reappears and crosses to the bench
and sits on one end) Has she
been eating well?
GLORIA: She wouldnt eat even a mouthful of
lugao. But Ill
buy her some biscuits. Maybe shell eat
them. (She slips her fingers
into his breast pocket) Ill take some of the
Money!
MARIO: (Rises, annoyed)
Gloria! Cant you wait a minute?
GLORIA:(Taken aback)-
Hey, whats the matter? Why are you
suddenly so touchy?
MARIO: Who wouldnt be? Im talking to you
about the
child and you bother me by ransacking my
pockets I wish youd think more of our
daughter.
GLORIA: (Crosses at the Center)
My God! Wasnt I thinking of her? Why do
you think I need some
money? To buy me a pretty dress? Or see a
movie?
MARIO: Tone down your voice. Youll wake
the child up.
GLORIA: (Low but intense)
All I want is a little money to buy her
something to eat!!She hasnt
eaten anything all day! That was why I was
bothering you!
MARIO: (Repentant)- Im sorry, Gloria
(Grips her arm)
GLORIA: Its all right, Mario. Now, may I have
some of the money?
MARIO: (Turns to her)-Money? I dont have
any not now.
GLORIA: Today is payday, Mario.
MARIO: Yes but
GLORIA: But what? Wheres your pay for the
week?
MARIO: I dont have it.
GLORIA : What? I waited for you the whole
day and you tell me..
MARIO:(Angry)- that I have nothing! Nothing!
What do you want me to do-
steal?
GLORIA: Im not asking you to do a thing like
that! All I want to know is
what you did with your money.
MARIO: (Sits on the bench)-Nothing is left of
it.
GLORIA: Nothing? What happened?
MARIO: Oh, I had a few drinks with my
friends. Before I knew it, I had
spent every centavo of it.
GLORIA: (Eyeing him intently)-Mario, do you
think you can make a fool of
me? Havent I seen you drunk before:
crawling home like
a wounded snake and reeking of alcohol like
a hospital? You dont
smell or look drunk.
MARIO: All right, so I didnt go drinking.
GLORIA: But your pay- what happened to it?
MARIO: Its better if you dont know, Gloria
GLORIA: Look, Mario Im your wife. I have the
right to half of everything
you get. If I cant have my share, I have the
right to know at least
where it went!
MARIO: All right.(Rises.) I spent it all on
another woman.
GLORIA: Another woman? I dont believe it. I
know you wouldnt do such
thing.
MARIO: I didnt know you had so much faith
in me.
GLORIA: No, Mario, what I mean is- you
wouldnt spend all
your money when you know your daughter
may need some of it. You
love her too much to do that.
(Mario sits down and buries his head in his
hands. Gloria crosses to him and lays a hand
on his shoulder.)
GLORIA: Whats wrong, Mario?
MARIO: (Turns his face away)- Nothing,
Gloria, nothing.
GLORIA: (Sits beside him) I know something
is wrong,
Mario. I can feel it. Tell me what it is.
MARIO: (Stares at the ground) Gloria, Ive
lost my job.
GLORIA: (Rises, shocked) Oh, No!
MARIO: (Looks up at her)Its true, Gloria
GLORIA: What about your pay for the whole
week?
MARIO: I lost my job a week ago.
GLORIA: And you never even told me!
MARIO: I thought I could get another, without
making you worry.
GLORIA: Do you think you can get another in
five months? It
took you that long to get the last one.
MARIO: It wont take me as long to get
another.
GLORIA: But how did you lose it? Mario! Have
your sinful
fingers brought you trouble again?
MARIO: Now, now, Gloria! Dont try to accuse
me, as they did!
GLORIA: What did they accuse you of?
MARIO: Just what you meant to say, Pilfering,
they call it.
GLORIA: What else would you call it?
(Pause.)What , according to them,
did you steal?
MARIO: (Low) It was nothing much, really
nothing at all.
GLORIA: What was it?
MARIO: It was an apple.
GLORIA: An apple! You mean-
MARIO: An apple! Dont you know what an
apple is?
GLORIA: You mean, you took one apple.
MARIO: Yes, and they kicked me out for it: for
taking one , single apple.
Not a dozen, not a crate.
GLORIA: Thats what you get
MARIO: (Sits down ) -Could I have guessed
they would
do that for one apple? When there were
millions of them?(Pause.) We
were hauling them to the warehouse. I saw
one roll out of a broken
crate. It was that big. Suddenly, I found
myself putting it in my lunch
bag.
GLORIA- Thats the trouble with you; when
you think of your own stomach,
you think of nothing else!
MARIO: (Rise)- I was not thinking of myself!
GLORIA: Whom were you thinking of- me?
Did I ever ask for apples?
MARIO: Yes, she did. (pause.) Do you
remember that day I took her out for
a walk? On our way home we passed a
grocery store that sold
delicious apples at seventy centavos each.
She wanted me to buy
one for her, but I did not have seventy
centavos. What I
did was buy her one of those small green
apples they sell on the
sidewalk, but she just threw it away, saying it
was not a real apple.
Then she cried. (Pause.)So when I saw this
apple roll out of the
broken crate, I thought that Tita would love
to have it.
GLORIA: You should have tried to bring home
pan-de-sal, or rice, or milk-
and not those delicious apples. Were not
rich. We can live without
apples!
MARIO: Why? Did God create apple trees to
bear fruit for rich alone? Didnt
He create the whole world for everyone?
Thats why I tried to bring the
apple home for Tita. When we brought her
into this world we sort of
promised her everything she had a right to
have in life.
GLORIA : So, for a measly apple, you lost a
job .
MARIO: I wouldnt mind losing a thousand
jobs for an apple for my
daughter!
GLORIA: Where was this apple? Did you bring
it home to Tita?
(Crosses to the bench to get the lunch bag)
MARIO: No, they kept it-as evidence. (Sits
down.)
GLORIA: See? You lost your job trying to filch
an apple
and you even lost the apple for which you
lost your job.
(Gloria puts away the shoes and the lunch
bag. She sits on the steps and they remain
silent for a time.)
GLORIA: (Rising)-Filching an apple thats too
small a reason to kick a poor
man out of work. You should ask them to
give you a second chance,
Mario.
MARIO: They wont do that.
GLORIA: Why not?
MARIO: (Rises) Can.t you see they had been
waiting for
me to make a slip like that? Theyve wanted
to throw me out for any
reason, so that they may bring their own
men in.
GLORIA: You should complain.
MARIO: If I did? They would dig up my police
record.
GLORIA: (Crosses to him)- But, Mario that
was so long
ago! Why would they try to dig that thing up?
MARIO: Theyll do anything to keep me out .
(Holds her arm.) But dont
worry, Ill find another job. It isnt really so
hard to look for a job
nowadays. (From this point he avoids her
eyes). You know Ive been
job hunting for a week now, and I think I
have found a good job.
GLORIA: There you go, lying again.
MARIO: Believe me, Im not lying this time.
GLORIA:(Crosses to the center)- -Youre
always lying- I
cant tell when youre telling the truth or not.
MARIO: In fact Ill see someone tonight who
knows of a company that
needs a night watchman.
GLORIA: (Holds his arm) Honest?
MARIO: (Avoids her eyes) Honest! (Sits
down.)
GLORIA: I knew God wouldnt let us down. He
never lets anybody down. Ill
pray tonight and ask Him to let you have that
job.
(Looks at Mario)
But, Mario would it mean that youd have to
stay out all night?
MARIO: That would be all right. I can always
sleep during the day.
GLORIA: (Brushes against him like a cat)-
What I mean is, it will be
Different when you arent by my side at
night. (Walks away from
him.) But, oh, I think Ill get used to it.
(Crosses to the center and
turns around.) Why dont you go and see this
friend of yours right
now? Anyway you dont have anything to do
tonight. Dont you think
its wise to see him as early as you can?
MARIO:(After a pause)-Yes, I think Ill do that.
(Gloria crosses to the steps to get his shoes,
followed by Mario.)
GLORIA: (Hands him the shoes.)-
Here, Mario, put these on and go Ill step up
and wait for you.
(Sits on the steps and watches him.)
MARIO: (Putting on the shoes)-
No, Gloria, you must not wait for me. I may
be back quite late.
GLORIA: All right, But doubt if i can sleep a
wink until you return.
(Gloria comes up to him after he finishes and
tries to hug him, but he pushes her away).
Suddenly confused, he sits
on the steps. Gloria sits beside him and plays
with his hands.)
GLORIA: Mother was wrong. You know, before
we got married, she used to
tell me:Gloria, youll commit the greatest
mistake of your life if you
marry that good-for-nothing loafer!
Oh, I wish she were alive now, She would
have seen how much
youve changed.
(She sees someone behind the tree: Pablo.
He has been watching them for a time. He is
older than Mario, sinister-looking, and well
dressed.)
PABLO: (Sarcastic)-Hmmmmmm How
romantic
MARIO: Pablo!
(Suddenly unnerved, Mario starts to fidget.
Gloria rises and walks to the center, her eyes
burning with hate. Pablo lights a cigarette,
never taking his eyes burning with hate.
Pablo lights a cigarette, never taking his eyes
off her.)
PABLO: Youre not glad to see me, are you?
(Puts a foot on the bench.)
GLORIA: (Angry)- What are you doing here?
What do you want?
PABLO: Saaaay! Is that the right way to
receive a friend who has come a
visiting?
GLORIA: We dont care for your visits!
PABLO: You havent changed a bit, Gloria
not a bit.
GLORIA : Neither have you, I can see!
PABLO: Youre still that same woman who
cursed me to hell because I
happened to be Marios friend long before
you met him. Time has
not made you any kinder to me. You still hate
me, dont you?
GLORIA: Yes! And I wish youd stay away
from us for the rest of our lives!
PABLO: Am I not staying away from you?
GLORIA: Then why are you here?
PABLO: God! May I not even come to see you
now and then, to see if life
has been kind to you? How are you getting
along?
GLORIA: (Scornfully) We were doing well until
you showed up!
PABLO: Your daughter- she was only that high
when I saw her last-how is
she?
GLORIA: Shes all right!
PABLO: Oh! and I thought she had not been
very well.
GLORIA: (Suspicious)How did you know? (To
Mario). Did you tell him?
MARIO: I how could I? I havent seen him
in a long time (Sits down.)
until now of course.
PABLO: What? is she sick with?
GLORIA: (Curtly)- We dont know!
PABLO: Dont you think you should take her
to a doctor? (Puts his
foot down and pulls out his wallet). Here, Ill
loan you a few
pesos. It may help your daughter to get well.
GLORIA: (Scornfully)- We need it all right-but
no, thank you
PABLO: Why dont you take it!
GLORIA: Paying you back will only mean
seeing your face again.
PABLO: Well, if you hate my face so much,
you dont have to pay me back.
Take it as a gift.
GLORIA: The more reason I should refuse it!
PABLO: All right, if thats how you want it.-
(Sits down and plays with the
wallet.)GLORIA: Mario has stopped
depending on you, since the day I took him
away from your clutches!I have no
regrets.PABLO: How about Mario? Has he no
regrets either?GLORIA: He has none.PABLO:
How can you be so sure? When he and I were
pals we could go to
first-class air-conditioned movie houses
every other day. Ill bet all the
money I have here now (brandishing his
wallet) that he has not been
to one since you liberated him from me.
And that was almost four
years ago.GLORIA: One cannot expect too
much from honest money- and we dont.
PABLO: (Rises and walks about) What is
honest money? Does it look better
than dishonest money? Does it buy more?
honesty? What is it?
Dressing like that? Staying in this dungeon
you call a house? Is that
what you call honesty?MARIO: (Rises)-
Pablo!
PABLO: See what happened to your daughter.
That is what honesty has
done to her. And how can honesty help her
now? Shes not sick and
needs: food. Good food.
MARIO: : I know you have come to lead him
back to your dishonest ways,
but you cant. He wont listen to you now
now! We have gone this far
and we can go on living without your help!
PABLO: ( Sarcastic) You call this living? This,
Gloria is what you call dying-
dying slowly-minute by minute.(Laughs.)
MARIO: (Crosses to him and shakes him)-
Pablo, stop
it! (Pablo stops). You shouldnt have
come.PABLO: I got tired waiting for you!
GLORIA: So you have been seeing each
other! I was afraid so!PABLO :He came to the
house yesterday.MARIO: Pablo, dontPABLO:
(Ignoring Mario) He said he would be back
this noon. But he didnt
show up. I came because I was afraid his
conscience was bothering
him.MARIO- Pablo, I told you she should not
know!PABLO: Its all right, Mario. Youd better
tell her everything. Shes bound to
know later. Tell her what you told me: that
you no longer believe in
the way she wanted you to live. Tell her.
(Mario turns his back on them.)GLORIA:
Mario is this what you meant by another
jobMARIO: Gloria youyou must try to
understand I tried but I couldnot left us
out of this kind of lifeGLORIA:(shouts at
Pablo)- Youre to blame for this, you son-of-
devil!PABLO: He came to
mefirstGLORIA:When you know hell cling to
anything and do anything! Evenreturn to the
life he hates!Get out!PABLO: Ill leave-just as
soon as Mario is ready to go.GLORIA: Hes
not going with you!PABLO: Is that so! Why
dont you ask him?- (sits on the bench,
grinning.)GLORIA: ( to Mario)-Youre not going
with him, are you, Mario? Tell him to
leave us and never come back! Tell him to
go, please, Mario I know
he has talked to you and tried to poison your
mind again but dont
go with him.MARIO:(Holds her) Gloria, I
PABLO : Dont worry about him, Gloria. Hes
safe with me.MARIO: ( Pulls her away)- You
stay there, Pablo, Ill be with you in a
minute.MARIO:-Gloria, Im going with
him.GLORIA: Dont Mario, dontMARIO: You
cant make me stop now, Ive thought about
this since last week.GLORIA- No, no Mario, no
(Holds fast to him.)MARIO: You take good
care of yourself and our child. Ill take good
care of
myself. Dont wait up for me. Ill come home
very late.
(Mario walks away with Pablo. Gloria stares
at them, then she shouts.)GLORIA-
MARIOOOOOOOOOO!
(She covers her face with her dress and cries
into it. The daughter,from inside, joins her
crying as the curtain closes.)
A Slander
by Anton Chekhov
(1860-1904)
Serge Kapitonich Ahineev, the writing
master, was marrying his daughter to the
teacher of history and geography. The
wedding festivities were going off most
successfully. In the drawing room there was
singing, playing, and dancing. Waiters hired
from the club were flitting distractedly about
the rooms, dressed in black swallow-tails and
dirty white ties. There was a continual
hubbub and din of conversation. Sitting side
by side on the sofa, the teacher of
mathematics, Tarantulov, the French teacher,
Pasdequoi, and the junior assessor of taxes,
Mzda, were talking hurriedly and interrupting
one another as they described to the guests
cases of persons being buried alive, and
gave their opinions on spiritualism. None of
them believed in spiritualism, but all
admitted that there were many things in this
world which would always be beyond the
mind of man. In the next room the literature
master, Dodonsky, was explaining to the
visitors the cases in which a sentry has the
right to fire on passers-by. The subjects, as
you perceive, were alarming, but very
agreeable. Persons whose social position
precluded them from entering were looking
in at the windows from the yard.
Just at midnight the master of the house
went into the kitchen to see whether
everything was ready for supper. The kitchen
from floor to ceiling was filled with fumes
composed of goose, duck, and many other
odours. On two tables the accessories, the
drinks and light refreshments, were set out in
artistic disorder. The cook, Marfa, a red-faced
woman whose figure was like a barrel with a
belt around it, was bustling about the tables.
"Show me the sturgeon, Marfa," said
Ahineev, rubbing his hands and licking his
lips. "What a perfume! I could eat up the
whole kitchen. Come, show me the
sturgeon."
Marfa went up to one of the benches and
cautiously lifted a piece of greasy newspaper.
Under the paper on an immense dish there
reposed a huge sturgeon, masked in jelly and
decorated with capers, olives, and carrots.
Ahineev gazed at the sturgeon and gasped.
His face beamed, he turned his eyes up. He
bent down and with his lips emitted the
sound of an ungreased wheel. After standing
a moment he snapped his fingers with
delight and once more smacked his lips.
"Ah-ah! the sound of a passionate kiss....
Who is it you're kissing out there, little
Marfa?" came a voice from the next room,
and in the doorway there appeared the
cropped head of the assistant usher, Vankin.
"Who is it? A-a-h!... Delighted to meet you!
Sergei Kapitonich! You're a fine grandfather, I
must say! Tte--tte with the fair sex--
tette!""I'm not kissing," said Ahineev in
confusion. "Who told you so, you fool? I was
only... I smacked my lips... in reference to...
as an indication of. . . pleasure... at the sight
of the fish.""Tell that to the marines!" The
intrusive face vanished, wearing a broad
grin.Ahineev flushed."Hang it!" he thought,
"the beast will go now and talk scandal. He'll
disgrace me to all the town, the
brute."Ahineev went timidly into the
drawing-room and looked stealthily round for
Vankin. Vankinwas standing by the piano,
and, bending down with a jaunty air, was
whispering something to the inspector's
sister-in-law, who was laughing."Talking
about me!" thought Ahineev. "About me,
blast him! And she believes it... believes it!
She laughs! Mercy on us! No, I can't let it
pass... I can't. I must do something to
prevent his being believed.... I'll speak to
them all, and he'll be shown up for a fool and
a gossip."Ahineev scratched his head, and
still overcome with embarrassment, went up
to Pasdequoi."I've just been in the kitchen to
see after the supper," he said to the
Frenchman. "I know you are fond of fish, and
I've a sturgeon, my dear fellow, beyond
everything! A yard and a half long! Ha, ha,
ha! And, by the way... I was just forgetting....
In the kitchen just now, with that sturgeon...
quite a little story! I went into the kitchen
just now and wanted to look at the supper
dishes. I looked at the sturgeon and I
smacked my lips with relish... at the
piquancy of it. And at the very moment that
fool Vankin came in and said:... 'Ha, ha, ha!...
So you're kissing here!' Kissing Marfa, the
cook! What a thing to imagine, silly fool! The
woman is a perfect fright, like all the beasts
put together, and he talks about kissing!
Queer fish!""Who's a queer fish?" asked
Tarantulov, coming up."Why he, over there --
Vankin! I went into the kitchen... "And he told
the story of Vankin. ". . . He amused me,
queer fish! I'd rather kiss a dog than Marfa, if
you ask me," added Ahineev. He looked
round and saw behind him Mzda."We were
talking of Vankin," he said. "Queer fish, he is!
He went into the kitchen, saw me beside
Marfa, and began inventing all sorts of silly
stories. 'Why are you kissing?' he says. He
must have had a drop too much. 'And I'd
rather kiss a turkeycock than Marfa,' I said,
'And I've a wife of my own, you fool,' said I.
He did amuse me!""Who amused you?"
asked the priest who taught Scripture in the
school, going up to Ahineev."Vankin. I was
standing in the kitchen, you know, looking at
the sturgeon.... "And so on. Within half an
hour or so all the guests knew the incident of
the sturgeon and Vankin."Let him tell away
now!" thought Ahineev, rubbing his hands.
"Let him! He'll begin telling his story and
they'll say to him at once, 'Enough of your
improbable nonsense, you fool, we know all
about it!' "And Ahineev was so relieved that
in his joy he drank four glasses too many.
After escorting the young people to their
room, he went to bed and slept like an
innocent babe, and next day he thought no
more of the incident with the sturgeon. But,
alas! man proposes, but God disposes. An
evil tongue did its evil work, and Ahineev's
strategy was of no avail. Just a week later --
to be precise, on Wednesday after the third
lesson -- when Ahineev was standing in the
middle of the teacher's room, holding forth
on the vicious propensities of a boy called
Visekin, the head master went up to him and
drew him aside:"Look here, Sergei
Kapitonich," said the head master, "you must
excuse me.... It's not my business; but all the
same I must make you realize.... It's my duty.
You see, there are rumors that you are
romancing with that... cook.... It's nothing to
do with me, but... flirt with her, kiss her... as
you please, but don't let it be so public,
please. I entreat you! Don't forget that you're
a schoolmaster."Ahineev turned cold and
faint. He went home like a man stung by a
wholeswarm of bees, like a man scalded with
boiling water. As he walked home, it seemed
to him that the whole town was looking at
him as though he were smeared with pitch.
At home fresh trouble awaited him."Why
aren't you gobbling up your food as usual?"
his wife asked him at dinner. "What are you
so pensive about? Brooding over your
amours? Pining for your Marfa? I know all
about it, Mohammedan! Kind friends have
opened my eyes! O-o-o!... you savage!"And
she slapped him in the face. He got up from
the table, not feeling the earth under his
feet, and without his hat or coat, made his
way to Vankin. He found him at home."You
scoundrel!" he addressed him. "Why have
you covered me with mud before all the
town? Why did you set this slander going
about me?""What slander? What are you
talking about?""Who was it gossiped of my
kissing Marfa? Wasn't it you? Tell me that.
Wasn't it you, you brigand?"Vankin blinked
and twitched in every fibre of his battered
countenance, raised his eyes to the icon and
articulated, "God blast me! Strike me blind
and lay me out, if I said a single word about
you! May I be left without house and home,
may I be stricken with worse than
cholera!"Vankin's sincerity did not admit of
doubt. It was evidently not he who was the
author of the slander."But who, then, who?"
Ahineev wondered, going over all his
acquaintances in his mind and beating
himself on the breast. "Who, then?" Who,
then? We, too, ask the reader.
The Dog Eaters ( Leoncio P. Deriada)
Mariana looked out of the window toward the
other side of Artiaga Street. A group of men
had gathered around a low table in front of
Sergio's sari-sari store. It was ten o'clock,
Tuesday morning. Yet these men did not find
it too early to drink, and worse. They wanted
her husband to be with them. Victor was now
reaching for his shirt hooked on the wall
between Nora Aunor and Vilma Santos.
Mariana turned to him, her eyes wild in
repulsion and anger.
"Those filthy men!" she snarled. "Whose dog
did they slaughter today?"
Victor did not answer. He put on his shirt.
Presently, he crawled on the floor and
searched for his slippers under the table.
Mariana watched him strain his body toward
the wall, among the rattan tools. He looked
like a dog tracking the smell hidden carrion.
"My God, Victor, do you have to join them
every time they stew somebody's pet?"
Victor found his slippers. He emerged from
under the table, smoothed his pants and
unbutton his shirt. He was sweating. He
looked at his wife and smiled faintly, the
expression sarcastic, and in an attempt to be
funny, "it's barbecue today."
"I'm not in the mood for jokes!" Mariana
raised her voice. "It's time you stop going
with those good-for-nothing scavengers."
Her words stung. For now she noted an angry
glint in Victor's eyes. "They are my friends,
Mariana," he said.
"You should have married one of them!" she
snapped back. Suddenly, she straightened.
She heard Sergio's raspy voice, calling from
his store across the street. It was an ugly
voice, and it pronounced Victor's name in a
triumphant imitation of a dog's bark.
"Victor! Victor! Aw! Aw!" the canine growl
floated across Artiaga Street. Mariana glared
at her husband as he brushed her aside on
his way to the window. She felt like clawing
his face, biting his arms, ripping the smelly
shirt off his back. "I'm coming," Victor
answered, leaning out of the window.
Mariana opened her mouth for harsher
invectives but a sharp cry from the bedroom
arrested her. It was her baby. She rushed to
the table, pick a cold bottle of milk, and
entered.
In his rattan crib that looked like a rat's nest,
the baby cried louder. Mariana shook the crib
vehemently. The baby - all mouth and all legs
- thrust in awkward arms into the air, blindly
searching for accustomed nipple.
The baby sucked the rubber nipple easily. But
Mariana's mind was outside the room as she
watched her husband lean out of the window
to answer the invitation of the dog-eaters of
Artiaga Street.
"Aren't you inviting your wife?" she spoke
loud, the hostility in her voice unchecked by
the dirty plywood wall. "Perhaps your friends
have reserved the best morsel for me. Which
is the most delicious part of a dog, ha,
Victor? Its heart? Its liver? Its brain? Blood?
Bone? Ears? Tongue? Tail? I wish to God you'd
all die of hydrophobia!"
"Can you feed the baby and talk at the same
time?" Victor said. She did not expect him to
answer and now that he had, she felt angrier.
The heat from the unceilinged roof had
become terrible and it had all seeped into
her head. She was ready for a fight.
The baby had gone back to sleep. Mariana
dashed out of the room, her right hand tight
around the empty bottle. She had to have a
weapon. She came upon her husband
opening the door to little porch. The porch
was at the top of the stairs that led out into
Artiaga Street.
"Why don't you do something instead of
drinking their stinking tuba and eating that
filthy meat? Why don't you decent for a
change?"
Victor turned her off. It seemed he was also
ready for a fight. The glint in his eyes had
become sinister.
And what's so indecent about eating dog
meat?" His voice sounded canine, too, like
Sergio's. "The people of Artiaga Street have
been eating dog meat for as long as I can
remember."
"No wonder their manners have gone to the
dogs!"
"You married one of them."
"Yes, to lead a dog's life!"
Victor stepped closer, breathing hard. Marina
did not move. "What's eating you?" he
demanded.
"What's eating me?" she yelled. "Dog's! I'm
ready to say aw-aw, don't you know?"
Victor repaired his face, amused by this type
of quarrel. Again, he tried to be funny.
"Come, come, Mariana darling," he said,
smiling condescendingly.
Mariana was not amused. She was all set
to proceed with the fight. Now she tried to be
acidly ironic.
Shall I slaughter Ramir for you? That pet of
yours does nothing but bark at strangers and
dirty the doorstep. Perhaps you can invite
your friends tonight. Lets celebrate.
Leave Ramir alone, Victor said, seriously.
That dog is enslaving me!
Victor turned to the door. It was the final
insult, Mariana thought. The bastard! How
dare he turn his back on her?
Punyeta! she screeched and flung the
bottle at her husband. Instinctively, Victor
turned and parried the object with his arm.
The bottle fell to the floor but did not break.
It rolled noisily under the table where Victor
moment had hunted for his rubber slippers.
He looked at her, but there was no reaction
in his face. Perhaps he thought it was all a
joke. He opened the door and stepped out
into the street.
Mariana ran to the door and banged it once,
twice, thrice, all the while shrieking, Go! Eat
and drink until your tongue hangs like a mad
dogs. Then Ill call a veterinarian.
Loud after came across the street.
Mariana leaned out of the window and
shouted to the men gathered in front of
Sergios store.
Why dont you leave my husband alone?
You dogs!
The men laughed louder, obscenely. Their
voices offended the ears just as the stench
from the garbage dump at the Artiaga-Mabini
junction offended the nostrils. There were
five other men aside from the chief drinker,
Sergio. Downing a gallon of tuba at ten
oclock in the morning with of Artiagas idle
men was his idea of brotherhood. It was good
for his store, he thought, though his wife
languish behind the row of glass jars and
open cartons of dried fish the poor woman
deep in notebooks of unpaid bills the
neighbors had accumulated these last two
years.
Mariana closed the window. The slight
darkening of the room intensified the heat on
the roof and in her head. She pulled a stool
and sat beside the sewing machine under
the huge pictures of Nora Aunor and Vilma
Santos, under the altar-like alcove on the
wall where a transistor radio was enshrined
like an idol.
She felt tired. Once again, her eyes surveyed
the room with repulsion. She had stayed in
this rented house for two years, tried to
paste pictures on the wall, hung up classic
curtains that could not completely ward off
the stink from the street. Instead of cheering
up the house, they made it sadder,
emphasizing the lack of the things she had
dreamed of having when she eloped with
Victor two years ago.
Victor was quite attractive. When he was
teen-ager, he was a member of the
Gregory Body Building Club on Cortes Street.
He dropped out of freshmen year at
Harvadian and instead developed his chest
and biceps at the club. His was to be Mr.
Philippines, until one day, Gregory cancelled
his membership. Big Boss Gregory - who was
not interested in girls but in club members
with the proportions of Mr. Philippines had
discovered that Victor was dating a
manicurist named Fely.
Victor found work as a bouncer at Three
Diamonds, a candlelit bar at the end of
Artiaga, near Jacinto Street. All
the hostesses there were Felys customers.
Mariana, who came from a better
neighborhood, was a third year BSE student
at Rizal Memorial Colleges. They eloped
during the second semester, the very week
Fey drowned in the pool behind Three
Diamonds. Just as Mariana grew heavy with a
child, Victor lost his job at the bar. He
quarreled with the manager. An uncle
working in a construction company found
him a new job. But he showed up only when
the man did not report for work. These last
few days, not one of the carpenters got sick.
So Victor had to stay home.
Mariana felt a stirring in her womb. She felt
her belly with both hands. Her tight faded
dress could not quite conceal this most
unwanted pregnancy. The baby in the crib in
the other room was only eight months, and
here she was - carrying another child. She
closed her eyes and pressed her belly hard.
She felt the uncomfortable swell, and in a
moment, she had ridiculous thought. What if
she bore a pair or a trio of puppies? She
imagined herself as a dog, a spent bitch with
hind legs spread out obscenely as her litter
of three, or four, or five, fought for her tits
while the mongrel who was responsible for
all this misery flirted with the other dogs of
the neighborhood.
A dog barked. Mariana was startled. It was
Ramir. His chain clanked and she could
picture the dog going up the stairs, his lethal
fangs bared in terrible growl.
Ay, ay, Mariana! a familiar, nervous voice
rose from the din. Your dog! Hell bite me.
Shoo! Shoo!
It was Aling Elpidia, the fish and vegetable
vendor.
Stay away from the beast, Aling Elpidia!
Mariana shouted. She opened the door. Aling
Elpidia was in the little yard, her hands
nervously holding her basket close to her like
a shield. Ramir was at the bottom of the
stairs, straining at his chain, barking at the
old woman.
Mariana pulled the chain. The dog resisted.
But soon he relaxed and stopped barking. He
ran upstairs, encircled Mariana once, and
then sniffed her hands.
Come on up, Aling Elpidia. Dont be afraid.
Im holding Ramirs leash.
The old woman rushed upstairs, still
shielding herself with her basket of fish and
vegetables.
Naku, Mariana. Why do you keep that crazy
dog at the door? Hell bite a kilo off every
visitor. The last time I was here I almost had
a heart attack.
Thats Victors idea of a house guard. Come,
sit down.
Aling Elpidia dragged a stool to the window.
Why, Im still trembling! she said. Why
must you close the window, Mariana?
Mariana opened the window. Those horrible
men across the street, I cant stand their
noise.
Wheres Victor?
There! Mariana said contemptuously. With
them. The old woman looked out of the
window.
He is one of them!
One of what?
The dog-eaters of Artiaga Street! Mariana
spat out the words, her eyes wild in anger.
Aling Elpidia sat down again. What is so
terrible about that? she asked.
Mariana looked at the old woman. For the
first time she noticed that Aling Elpidia had
been dying her hair. But the growth of hair
this week had betrayed her.
Do you eat dog meat, Aling Elpidia?
Mariana asked.
Its better than goats meat: And a dog is
definitely cleaner than a pig. With the price
of pork and beef as high as Mount Apo one
would rather eat dog meat. Hows the baby?
Asleep
Aling Elpidia picked up her basket from the
floor. Heres your days supply of
vegetables. I also brought some bangus.
Cook Victor a pot of sinigang and hell forget
the most delicious chunk of aw-aw meat. Go,
get a basket.
Mariana went to the kitchen to get a basket
as Aling Elpidia busied herself sorting out the
vegetables.
I hope you havent forgotten the green
mangoes and and that thing you promised
me, Mariana said, laying her basket on the
floor.
I brought all of them, assured the old
woman. She began transferring the
vegetables and fish into Marianas basket.
Mariana helped her.
I havent told Victor anything, Mariana said
in a low, confidential tone.
He does not have to know, Aling Elpidia
said.
The old woman produced from the bottom of
the basket a tall bottle filled with a dark
liquid and some leaves and tiny, gnarled
roots. She held the bottle against the light.
Mariana regarded it with interest and horror.
Im afraid, Aling Elpidia, she whispered.
Nonsense. Go, take these vegetables to the
kitchen.
Mariana sped to the kitchen. Aling Elpidia
moved to the table, pushed the dish rack
that held some five or six tin plates, and set
the bottle beside a plastic tumbler that
contained spoon and forks. She pulled a stool
from beneath the table and sat down. Soon
Mariana was beside her.
Is it effective? Mariana asked nervously.
Very effective. Come on let me touch
you.Mariana stood directly in front of the old
woman, her belly her belly almost touching
the vendors face. Aling Elpidia felt Marianas
belly with both hands.
Three months did you say, Mariana?
Three months and two weeks.
Are you sure you dont want this child?
Aling Elpidia asked one hand flat on
Marianas belly. It feels so healthy.
I dont want another child, Mariana said.
And to stress the finality of her decision, she
grabbed the bottle and stepped away from
the old woman. The bottle looked like
atrophy in her hand.
Well, its your decision, Aling Elpidia said
airily. The bottle is yours.
Is it bitter?
Yes.
Mariana squirmed. How shall I take this?
A spoonful before you sleeps in the evening
and another spoonful after breakfast.
May I take it with a glass of milk or a bottle
of coke?
No. You must take it pure.
Its not dangerous, is it, Aling Elpidia?
Dont you worry. It is bitter but it is
harmless. It will appear as an accident. Like
falling down the stairs. Moreover, there will
be less pain and blood.
Please come everyday. Things might go
wrong.
Aling Elpidia nodded and stood up. I think I
must go now, she said. Then she lowered
her voice and asked, Do you have the
money?
Yes, yes, Mariana said. She went to the
sewing machine and opened a drawer. She
handed Aling Epidia some crumpled bills.
The vendor counted the bills expertly, and
then dropped the little bundle into her
breast. She picked up her basket and walked
to the door. Suddenly she stopped. Your
dog, Mariana. Her voice became nervous
again.
Mariana held Ramirs leash as the old woman
hurried down the stairs. You may start
taking it tonight. It was her last piece of
medical advice. Loud laughter rose from the
store across the street. Mariana stiffened.
Her anger returned. Then her baby cried.
She hurried to the bedroom. The tall bottle
looked grotesque on the table: tiny, gnarled
roots seemed to twist like worms or
miniature umbilical cords. With a shudder,
she glanced at the bottle. The sharp cry
became louder. Mariana rushed inside and
discovered that the baby had wetted its
clothes.
She heard somebody coming up the stairs. It
must be Victor. Ramir did not bark.
Mariana! Victor called out. Mariana!
Quiet! she shouted back. The babys
going back to sleep.
The house had become hotter. Mariana went
out of the bedroom, ready to resume the
unfinished quarrel. Victor was now in the
room, sweating and red-eyed. He had taken
off his shirt and his muscular body glistened
wit animal attractiveness. But now Mariana
was in a different type of heat.
I met that old witch Elpidia, Victor said,
What did she bring you today?
The same things. Vegetables. Some fish.
Fish! Again?
You are drunk! Im not drunk. Come
Mariana dear. Let me hold you.
Dont touch me! she screamed. You
stink!
Victor moved back, offended. I dont stink
and Im not drunk.
Mariana stepped closer to her husband. He
smelled of cheap pomade, onions, and
vinegar.
Do you have to be like this all the time?
Quarreling every day? Why dont you get a
steady job like any decent husband? You
would be out the whole day, and perhaps, I
would miss you.
You dont have to complain, Victor said
roughly. True, my work is not permanent but
I think we have enough. We are not starving,
are we?
You call this enough? her hands
gesticulated madly. You call this rats nest,
this hell of a neighborhood enough? You
call these tin plates, this plastic curtains
enough? This is not the type of life I expect. I
should have continued school. You fooled
me!
I thought you understood. I-
No, no I didnt understand. And still I dont
understand why you you
Lets not quarrel, Victor said abruptly. I
dont want to quarrel with you.
But I want to quarrel with you! Mariana
shouted.
Be reasonable.
You are not reasonable. You never tried to
please me. You would rather be with your
stinking friends and drink their dirty wine
and eat their dirty meat. Oh, how I hate it,
Victor!
What do you want me to do stay here and
boil the babys milk?
I wish you would!
Thats your job. Youre a woman.
Oh, how are you admire yourself for being a
man, Mariana sneered in utter sarcasm.
You miserable-
Dont yell. You wake up the baby.
To hell with your baby!
You are mad, Mariana.
And so Im mad. Im mad because I dont
eat dog meat. Im mad because I want my
husband to make a man of himself, Im mad
because
Stop it!
Punyeta!
Relax, Mariana. You are excited. Thats not
good for you. I want my second baby
healthy.
There will be no second baby.
What do you mean?
You met Aling Elpidia on your way.
And what did that witch do? Curse my baby?
Is a vampire?
She came to help me.
Mariana went to the table and snatched the
bottle. She held high in Victors face. See
this, Victor? she taunted him. Victor was not
interested. You dont want me to drink tuba,
and here you are with a bottle of sioktong.
How dull you are! her lips twisted in
derision. See those leaves? See those roots?
They are very potent, Victor.
I dont understand.
One spoonful in the morning and one
spoonful in the evening. Its bitter, Victor, but
I will bear it. Like a retarded, Victor stared at
his wife. Then the truth dawned upon him
and exclaimed in horror, What? What? My
baby! Mariana faced her husband squarely.
Yes! And Im not afraid! she jeered.
You wont do it.
Im not afraid.
Give me that bottle.
No!
What kind of woman are you?
And what kind of man are you?
Its my baby!
Its mine. I have the right to dispose of it, I
dont want another child.
Why, Mariana, why?
Because you cannot afford it! What would
you feed your another child, ha, Victor? Tuba
milk? Dog meat for rice?
We shall manage, Mariana. Everything will
be all right.
Sure, sure, everything will be all right for
you. I dont believe in that anymore.
Give me that bottle!
No!
They grappled for a moment. Mariana fought
like an untamed animal. At last Victor took
hold the bottle. He pushed his wife against
the wall and ran to the window, his right
hand holding the bottle above his head.
And like a man possessed, he hurled the
bottle out f the window. The crash of the
glass against the gravel on the road
rendered Mariana speechless. But she
recovered. She dashed to the window and
gave out almost inhuman scream at what
she saw. The bottle was broken into
countless splinters and the dark liquid
stained the dry gravel street. Bits of leaves
and roots stuck to the dust. Presently, a dog
came along and sniffed the wet ground
suspiciously, then left with his tail between
his legs.
Mariana screamed again in horror and
frustration. In the glare of the late morning
sun she had a momentary image of the men
now faceless and voiceless in front of the
store across the street. This time they did not
laugh, but they watched her from certain
blankness. She turned to her husband and
flung herself at him, raising her arms, her
fingers poised like claws. She scratched his
face and pounded his chest with her fists.
Damn you! Damn you! she shrieked in fury.
Victor caught her arms and shook her. Stop
it, Mariana! he mumbled under his breath.
Let me go! You are hurting me!
Behave you woman! Victor shook her
harder.
Mariana spat on his face. Then she bit on the
right arm. She spat again, for she had a
quick taste of salt and dirt.
Victor released her. She moved back, her
uncontrollable rage shaking her. You threw it
away! You destroy it! I paid forty pesos for it
and its not your money!
Forty pesos, Victor murmured. That is a under the sink.
lot of milk.
Mariana caught her breath. She allowed dryly
and said, What do you want me to do now
cut childrens dresses?
You are unnatural. You dont act like a
mother, you want to kill your own child.
Its my own child.
Its murder!
Nobody will know.
I will know. You will know. And God and
God will know!
Ahhh! Mariana sneered sontemptuously.
Now whos talking? When was the last time
you went to church, ha Victor? That was the
time the Legion of Mary brought us to Fatima
Church to be married and you fought with
the priest in the confessional. And now here
you are mentioning Gods name to me.
Please, please, Mariana, Victor was
begging now. Thats our child!
I told you I didnt want another child. You
broke that bottle but Ill look for other
means. Ill starve myself. Ill jump out of the
window. Ill fall down the stairs.
Mariana!
You cannot afford to buy pills or hire a
doctor.
I want a child.
You men can talk because you dont have to
bear the children. You coward!
Victor raised his hand to strike her. Mariana
offered her face, daring him to complete his
own humiliation. Victor dropped his hand. He
was lost, totally unmanned.
A bit of his male vanity stirred inside him. He
raised his hand again, but Mariana was quick
with the nearest weapon. She seized a stool
with both hands, and with the strength all
her arms could muster, throws the stool at
him. Victor caught the object with his strong
shoulder. The stool dropped to the floor as
Mariana made ready with another weapon, a
vase of plastic flowers.
Go away from me! Get out! Get out!
Victor went out of the room. Mariana was left
panting, giving vent to her anger by pulling
down the plastic curtains and the printed
cover of the sewing machine. She stooped to
the table and with a furious sweep of her
hand, cleared it of dish rack, tin plates,
spoons, and forks. Then she went to the
kitchen and tossed the basket of vegetables
and fish out of the kitchen window. A trio of
dogs rushed in from nowhere and fought
over the fish strewn in the muddy space
Then Ramir barked.
Shut up, you miserable dog!
Ramir continued barking.
Mariana paused. Ramir, she taught. Victors
dog. A cruel thought crossed her mind and
stayed there. Now she knew exactly what to
do. She reached for the big kitchen knife of a
shelf above the sink. Kicking the scattered
tin plates on the floor, she crossed the main
room to the porch.
Downstairs, Ramir was barking at some
object in the street. Noticing Marianas
presence, he stopped barking. Mariana
stared at the dog. The dog stared back, and
Mariana noticed the change in the animals
eyes. They became fiery, dangerous. My
God, Mariana thought. This creature knew!
Ramirs ears stood. The hair on the back of
its neck stood, too. Then he bared his fangs
viscously and growled.
Mariana dropped the knife. She did not know
how to use it at this moment. She was
beginning to be afraid.
Slowly, she climbed up the stairs. He moved
softly but menacingly. Like a hunter sizing up
his quarry. His yellowing fangs dropped with
saliva.
Meanwhile, Mariana was untying the chain
on the top of the stairs.
And the dog rushed into the roaring attack.
Quicker than she thought she was, Mariana
slipped the end of the chain under the
makeshift railing of the stairway and pulled
the leash with all her might. As she had
expected, the dog hurtled into the space
between the broken banisters and fell. The
weight of the animal pulled her to her knees,
but she was prepared for that, too. She
braced herself against the rails of the porch,
and now, the dog was dangling below her. A
crowd had now gathered in front of the
house to witness the unexpected execution.
But Mariana neither saw their faces nor
heard their voices.
Ramir gave a final yelp and stopped kicking
the air.
Mariana laughed deliriously. She watches the
hanging animal and addressed it in triumph:
Ill slit your throat and drink your blood and
cut you to pieces and stew you and eat you!
Damn you Victor. Damn this child. Damn
everything. Ill cook you, Ramir. Ill cook you
and eat you and eat you and eat you!
She released the chain and the canine
carcass dropped with a thud on the ground
below.
Mariana sat on the topmost step of the
stairs; she put her hands between her legs
and stared blankly at the rusty rooftops in
front of her. And for the first in all her life on
the Artiaga Street, Mariana cried.
DEAD STARS
by Paz Marquez Benitez
Photo courtesy of NASA
THROUGH the open window the air-steeped
outdoors passed into his room, quietly
enveloping him, stealing into his very
thought. Esperanza, Julia, the sorry mess he
had made of life, the years to come even
now beginning to weigh down, to crush--they
lost concreteness, diffused into formless
melancholy. The tranquil murmur of
conversation issued from the brick-
tiled azotea where Don Julian and Carmen
were busy puttering away among the rose
pots.
"Papa, and when will the 'long table' be set?"
"I don't know yet. Alfredo is not very specific,
but I understand Esperanza wants it to be
next month."
Carmen sighed impatiently. "Why is he not a
bit more decided, I wonder. He is over thirty,
is he not? And still a bachelor! Esperanza
must be tired waiting."
"She does not seem to be in much of a hurry
either," Don Julian nasally commented, while
his rose scissors busily snipped away.
"How can a woman be in a hurry when the
man does not hurry her?" Carmen returned,
pinching off a worm with a careful, somewhat
absent air. "Papa, do you remember how
much in love he was?"
"In love? With whom?"
"With Esperanza, of course. He has not had
another love affair that I know of," she said
with good-natured contempt. "What I mean
is that at the beginning he was enthusiastic--
flowers, serenades, notes, and things like
that--"
Alfredo remembered that period with a
wonder not unmixed with shame. That was
less than four years ago. He could not
understand those months of a great hunger
that was not of the body nor yet of the mind,
a craving that had seized on him one quiet
night when the moon was abroad and under
the dappled shadow of the trees in the plaza,
man wooed maid. Was he being cheated by
life? Love--he seemed to have missed it. Or
was the love that others told about a mere
fabrication of perfervid imagination, an
exaggeration of the commonplace, a
glorification of insipid monotonies such as
made up his love life? Was love a
combination of circumstances, or sheer
native capacity of soul? In those days love
was, for him, still the eternal puzzle; for love,
as he knew it, was a stranger to love as he
divined it might be.
Sitting quietly in his room now, he could
almost revive the restlessness of those days,
the feeling of tumultuous haste, such as he
knew so well in his boyhood when something
beautiful was going on somewhere and he
was trying to get there in time to see. "Hurry,
hurry, or you will miss it," someone had
seemed to urge in his ears. So he had avidly
seized on the shadow of Love and deluded
himself for a long while in the way of
humanity from time immemorial. In the
meantime, he became very much engaged
to Esperanza.
Why would men so mismanage their lives?
Greed, he thought, was what ruined so many.
Greed--the desire to crowd into a moment all
the enjoyment it will hold, to squeeze from
the hour all the emotion it will yield. Men
commit themselves when but half-meaning
to do so, sacrificing possible future fullness
of ecstasy to the craving for immediate
excitement. Greed--mortgaging the future--
forcing the hand of Time, or of Fate.
"What do you think happened?" asked
Carmen, pursuing her thought.
"I supposed long-engaged people are like
that; warm now, cool tomorrow. I think they
are oftener cool than warm. The very fact
that an engagement has been allowed to
prolong itself argues a certain placidity of
temperament--or of affection--on the part of
either, or both." Don Julian loved to
philosophize. He was talking now with an
evident relish in words, his resonant, very
nasal voice toned down to monologue pitch.
"That phase you were speaking of is natural
enough for a beginning. Besides, that, as I
see it, was Alfredo's last race with escaping
youth--"
Carmen laughed aloud at the thought of her
brother's perfect physical repose--almost
indolence--disturbed in the role suggested by
her father's figurative language.
"A last spurt of hot blood," finished the old
man.
Few certainly would credit Alfredo Salazar
with hot blood. Even his friends had
amusedly diagnosed his blood as cool and
thin, citing incontrovertible evidence. Tall and
slender, he moved with an indolent ease that
verged on grace. Under straight recalcitrant
hair, a thin face with a satisfying breadth of
forehead, slow, dreamer's eyes, and
astonishing freshness of lips--indeed Alfredo
Salazar's appearance betokened little of
exuberant masculinity; rather a poet with
wayward humor, a fastidious artist with keen,
clear brain.
He rose and quietly went out of the house.
He lingered a moment on the stone steps;
then went down the path shaded by
immature acacias, through the little tarred
gate which he left swinging back and forth,
now opening, now closing, on the gravel road
bordered along the farther side by madre
cacao hedge in tardy lavender bloom.
The gravel road narrowed as it slanted up to
the house on the hill, whose wide, open
porches he could glimpse through the heat-
shrivelled tamarinds in the Martinez yard.
Six weeks ago that house meant nothing to
him save that it was the Martinez house,
rented and occupied by Judge del Valle and
his family. Six weeks ago Julia Salas meant
nothing to him; he did not even know her
name; but now--
One evening he had gone "neighboring" with
Don Julian; a rare enough occurrence, since
he made it a point to avoid all appearance of
currying favor with the Judge. This particular
evening however, he had allowed himself to
be persuaded. "A little mental relaxation now
and then is beneficial," the old man had said.
"Besides, a judge's good will, you know;" the
rest of the thought--"is worth a rising young
lawyer's trouble"--Don Julian conveyed
through a shrug and a smile that derided his
own worldly wisdom.
A young woman had met them at the door. It
was evident from the excitement of the
Judge's children that she was a recent and
very welcome arrival. In the characteristic
Filipino way formal introductions had been
omitted--the judge limiting himself to a
casual "Ah, ya se conocen?"--with the
consequence that Alfredo called her Miss del
Valle throughout the evening.
He was puzzled that she should smile with
evident delight every time he addressed her
thus. Later Don Julian informed him that she
was not the Judge's sister, as he had
supposed, but his sister-in-law, and that her
name was Julia Salas. A very dignified rather
austere name, he thought. Still, the young
lady should have corrected him. As it was, he
was greatly embarrassed, and felt that he
should explain.
To his apology, she replied, "That is nothing,
Each time I was about to correct you, but I
remembered a similar experience I had once
before."
"Oh," he drawled out, vastly relieved.
"A man named Manalang--I kept calling him
Manalo. After the tenth time or so, the young
man rose from his seat and said suddenly,
'Pardon me, but my name is Manalang,
Manalang.' You know, I never forgave him!"
He laughed with her.
"The best thing to do under the
circumstances, I have found out," she
pursued, "is to pretend not to hear, and to let
the other person find out his mistake without
help."
"As you did this time. Still, you looked
amused every time I--"
"I was thinking of Mr. Manalang."
Don Julian and his uncommunicative friend,
the Judge, were absorbed in a game of
chess. The young man had tired of playing
appreciative spectator and desultory
conversationalist, so he and Julia Salas had
gone off to chat in the vine-covered porch.
The lone piano in the neighborhood
alternately tinkled and banged away as the
player's moods altered. He listened, and
wondered irrelevantly if Miss Salas could
sing; she had such a charming speaking
voice.
He was mildly surprised to note from her
appearance that she was unmistakably a
sister of the Judge's wife, although Doa
Adela was of a different type altogether. She
was small and plump, with wide brown eyes,
clearly defined eyebrows, and delicately
modeled hips--a pretty woman with the
complexion of a baby and the expression of a
likable cow. Julia was taller, not so obviously
pretty. She had the same eyebrows and lips,
but she was much darker, of a smooth rich
brown with underlying tones of crimson
which heightened the impression she gave of
abounding vitality.
On Sunday mornings after mass, father and
son would go crunching up the gravel road to
the house on the hill. The Judge's wife
invariably offered them beer, which Don
Julian enjoyed and Alfredo did not. After a
half hour or so, the chessboard would be
brought out; then Alfredo and Julia Salas
would go out to the porch to chat. She sat in
the low hammock and he in a rocking chair
and the hours--warm, quiet March hours--
sped by. He enjoyed talking with her and it
was evident that she liked his company; yet
what feeling there was between them was so
undisturbed that it seemed a matter of
course. Only when Esperanza chanced to ask
him indirectly about those visits did some
uneasiness creep into his thoughts of the girl
next door.
Esperanza had wanted to know if he went
straight home after mass. Alfredo suddenly
realized that for several Sundays now he had
not waited for Esperanza to come out of the
church as he had been wont to do. He had
been eager to go "neighboring."
He answered that he went home to work.
And, because he was not habitually
untruthful, added, "Sometimes I go with Papa
to Judge del Valle's."
She dropped the topic. Esperanza was not
prone to indulge in unprovoked jealousies.
She was a believer in the regenerative virtue
of institutions, in their power to regulate
feeling as well as conduct. If a man were
married, why, of course, he loved his wife; if
he were engaged, he could not possibly love
another woman.
That half-lie told him what he had not
admitted openly to himself, that he was
giving Julia Salas something which he was
not free to give. He realized that; yet
something that would not be denied
beckoned imperiously, and he followed on.
It was so easy to forget up there, away from
the prying eyes of the world, so easy and so
poignantly sweet. The beloved woman, he
standing close to her, the shadows around,
enfolding.
"Up here I find--something--"
He and Julia Salas stood looking out into the
she quiet night. Sensing unwanted intensity,
laughed, woman-like, asking, "Amusement?"
"No; youth--its spirit--"
"Are you so old?"
"And heart's desire."
Was he becoming a poet, or is there a poet
lurking in the heart of every man?
"Down there," he had continued, his voice
somewhat indistinct, "the road is too broad,
too trodden by feet, too barren of mystery."
"Down there" beyond the ancient tamarinds
lay the road, upturned to the stars. In the
darkness the fireflies glimmered, while an
errant breeze strayed in from somewhere,
bringing elusive, faraway sounds as of voices
in a dream.
"Mystery--" she answered lightly, "that is so
brief--"
"Not in some," quickly. "Not in you."
"You have known me a few weeks; so the
mystery."
"I could study you all my life and still not find
it."
"So long?"
"I should like to."
Those six weeks were now so swift--seeming
in the memory, yet had they been so deep in
the living, so charged with compelling power
and sweetness. Because neither the past nor
the future had relevance or meaning, he
lived only the present, day by day, lived it
intensely, with such a willful shutting out of
fact as astounded him in his calmer
moments.
Just before Holy Week, Don Julian invited the
judge and his family to spend Sunday
afternoon at Tanda where he had a coconut
plantation and a house on the beach.
Carmen also came with her four energetic
children. She and Doa Adela spent most of
the time indoors directing the preparation of
the merienda and discussing the likeable
absurdities of their husbands--how Carmen's
Vicente was so absorbed in his farms that he
would not even take time off to accompany
her on this visit to her father; how Doa
Adela's Dionisio was the most absentminded
of men, sometimes going out without his
collar, or with unmatched socks.
After the merienda, Don Julian sauntered off
with the judge to show him what a thriving
young coconut looked like--"plenty of leaves,
close set, rich green"--while the children,
convoyed by Julia Salas, found unending
entertainment in the rippling sand left by the
ebbing tide. They were far down, walking at
the edge of the water, indistinctly outlined
against the gray of the out-curving beach.
Alfredo left his perch on the bamboo ladder
of the house and followed. Here were her
footsteps, narrow, arched. He laughed at
himself for his black canvas footwear which
he removed forthwith and tossed high up on
dry sand.
When he came up, she flushed, then smiled
with frank pleasure.
"I hope you are enjoying this," he said with a
questioning inflection.
"Very much. It looks like home to me, except
that we do not have such a lovely beach."
There was a breeze from the water. It blew
the hair away from her forehead, and
whipped the tucked-up skirt around her
straight, slender figure. In the picture was
something of eager freedom as of wings
poised in flight. The girl had grace,
distinction. Her face was not notably pretty;
yet she had a tantalizing charm, all the more
compelling because it was an inner quality,
an achievement of the spirit. The lure was
there, of naturalness, of an alert vitality of
mind and body, of a thoughtful, sunny
temper, and of a piquant perverseness which
is sauce to charm.
"The afternoon has seemed very short,
hasn't it?" Then, "This, I think, is the last
time--we can visit."
"The last? Why?"
"Oh, you will be too busy perhaps."
He noted an evasive quality in the answer.
"Do I seem especially industrious to you?"
"If you are, you never look it."
"Not perspiring or breathless, as a busy man
ought to be."
"But--" "Always unhurried, too unhurried, and
calm." She smiled to herself.
"I wish that were true," he said after a
meditative pause.
She waited.
"A man is happier if he is, as you say, calm
and placid."
"Like a carabao in a mud pool," she retorted
perversely
"Who? I?"
"Oh, no!"
"You said I am calm and placid."
"That is what I think."
"I used to think so too. Shows how little we
know ourselves."
It was strange to him that he could be
wooing thus: with tone and look and covert
phrase.
"I should like to see your home town."
"There is nothing to see--little crooked
streets, bunut roofs with ferns growing on
them, and sometimes squashes."
That was the background. It made her seem
less detached, less unrelated, yet withal
more distant, as if that background claimed
her and excluded him.
"Nothing? There is you."
"Oh, me? But I am here."
"I will not go, of course, until you are there."
"Will you come? You will find it dull. There
isn't even one American there!"
"Well--Americans are rather essential to my
entertainment."
She laughed.
"We live on Calle Luz, a little street with
trees."
"Could I find that?"
"If you don't ask for Miss del Valle," she
smiled teasingly.
"I'll inquire about--"
"What?"
"The house of the prettiest girl in the town."
"There is where you will lose your way." Then
she turned serious. "Now, that is not quite
sincere."
"It is," he averred slowly, but emphatically.
"I thought you, at least, would not say such
things."
"Pretty--pretty--a foolish word! But there is
none other more handy I did not mean that
quite--"
"Are you withdrawing the compliment?"
"Re-enforcing it, maybe. Something is pretty
when it pleases the eye--it is more than that
when--"
"If it saddens?" she interrupted hastily.
"Exactly."
"It must be ugly."
"Always?"
Toward the west, the sunlight lay on the
dimming waters in a broad, glinting streamer
of crimsoned gold.
"No, of course you are right."
"Why did you say this is the last time?" he
asked quietly as they turned back.
"I am going home."
The end of an impossible dream!
"When?" after a long silence.
"Tomorrow. I received a letter from Father
and Mother yesterday. They want me to
spend Holy Week at home."
She seemed to be waiting for him to speak.
"That is why I said this is the last time."
"Can't I come to say good-bye?"
"Oh, you don't need to!"
"No, but I want to."
"There is no time."
The golden streamer was withdrawing,
shortening, until it looked no more than a
pool far away at the rim of the world.
Stillness, a vibrant quiet that affects the
senses as does solemn harmony; a peace
that is not contentment but a cessation of
tumult when all violence of feeling tones
down to the wistful serenity of regret. She
turned and looked into his face, in her dark
eyes a ghost of sunset sadness. "Home
seems so far from here. This is almost like
another life."
"I know. This is Elsewhere, and yet strange
enough, I cannot get rid of the old things."
"Old things?"
"Oh, old things, mistakes, encumbrances, old
baggage." He said it lightly, unwilling to mar
the hour. He walked close, his hand
sometimes touching hers for one whirling
second.
Don Julian's nasal summons came to them
on the wind.
Alfredo gripped the soft hand so near his
own. At his touch, the girl turned her face
away, but he heard her voice say very low,
"Good-bye."
II ALFREDO Salazar turned to the right
where, farther on, the road broadened and
entered the heart of the town--heart of
Chinese stores sheltered under low-hung
roofs, of indolent drug stores and tailor
shops, of dingy shoe-repairing
establishments, and a cluttered goldsmith's
cubbyhole where a consumptive bent over a
magnifying lens; heart of old brick-roofed
houses with quaint hand-and-ball knockers
on the door; heart of grass-grown plaza
reposeful with trees, of ancient church
and convento, now circled by swallows
gliding in flight as smooth and soft as the
afternoon itself. Into the quickly deepening
twilight, the voice of the biggest of the
church bells kept ringing its insistent
summons. Flocking came the devout with
their long wax candles, young women in
vivid apparel (for this was Holy Thursday and
the Lord was still alive), older women in
sober black skirts. Came too the young men
in droves, elbowing each other under the
talisay tree near the church door. The gaily
decked rice-paper lanterns were again on
display while from the windows of the older
houses hung colored glass globes, heirlooms
from a day when grasspith wicks floating in
coconut oil were the chief lighting device.
Soon a double row of lights emerged from
the church and uncoiled down the length of
the street like a huge jewelled band studded
with glittering clusters where the saints'
platforms were. Above the measured music
rose the untutored voices of the choir,
steeped in incense and the acrid fumes of
burning wax.
The sight of Esperanza and her mother
sedately pacing behind Our Lady of Sorrows
suddenly destroyed the illusion of continuity
and broke up those lines of light into
component individuals. Esperanza stiffened
self-consciously, tried to look unaware, and
could not.
The line moved on.
Suddenly, Alfredo's slow blood began to beat
violently, irregularly. A girl was coming down
the line--a girl that was striking, and vividly
alive, the woman that could cause violent
commotion in his heart, yet had no place in
the completed ordering of his life.
Her glance of abstracted devotion fell on him
and came to a brief stop.
The line kept moving on, wending its
circuitous route away from the church and
then back again, where, according to the old
proverb, all processions end.
At last Our Lady of Sorrows entered the
church, and with her the priest and the choir,
whose voices now echoed from the arched
ceiling. The bells rang the close of the
procession.
A round orange moon, "huge as a winnowing
basket," rose lazily into a clear sky,
whitening the iron roofs and dimming the
lanterns at the windows. Along the still
densely shadowed streets the young women
with their rear guard of males loitered and,
maybe, took the longest way home.
Toward the end of the row of Chinese stores,
he caught up with Julia Salas. The crowd had
dispersed into the side streets, leaving Calle
Real to those who lived farther out. It was
past eight, and Esperanza would be
expecting him in a little while: yet the
thought did not hurry him as he said "Good
evening" and fell into step with the girl.
"I had been thinking all this time that you
had gone," he said in a voice that was both
excited and troubled.
"No, my sister asked me to stay until they
are ready to go."
"Oh, is the Judge going?"
"Yes."
The provincial docket had been cleared, and
Judge del Valle had been assigned elsewhere.
As lawyer--and as lover--Alfredo had found
that out long before.
"Mr. Salazar," she broke into his silence, "I
wish to congratulate you."
Her tone told him that she had learned, at
last. That was inevitable.
"For what?"
"For your approaching wedding."
Some explanation was due her, surely. Yet
what could he say that would not offend?
"I should have offered congratulations long
before, but you know mere visitors are slow
about getting the news," she continued.
He listened not so much to what she said as
to the nuances in her voice. He heard
nothing to enlighten him, except that she
had reverted to the formal tones of early
acquaintance. No revelation there; simply
the old voice--cool, almost detached from
personality, flexible and vibrant, suggesting
potentialities of song.
"Are weddings interesting to you?" he finally
brought out quietly
"When they are of friends, yes."
"Would you come if I asked you?"
"When is it going to be?"
"May," he replied briefly, after a long pause.
"May is the month of happiness they say,"
she said, with what seemed to him a shade
of irony.
"They say," slowly, indifferently. "Would you
come?"
"Why not?"
"No reason. I am just asking. Then you will?"
"If you will ask me," she said with disdain.
"Then I ask you."
"Then I will be there."
The gravel road lay before them; at the
road's end the lighted windows of the house
on the hill. There swept over the spirit of
Alfredo Salazar a longing so keen that it was
pain, a wish that, that house were his, that
all the bewilderments of the present were
not, and that this woman by his side were his
long wedded wife, returning with him to the
peace of home.
"Julita," he said in his slow, thoughtful
manner, "did you ever have to choose
between something you wanted to do and
something you had to do?"
"No!"
"I thought maybe you had had that
experience; then you could understand a
man who was in such a situation."
"You are fortunate," he pursued when she did
not answer.
"Is--is this man sure of what he should do?"
"I don't know, Julita. Perhaps not. But there is
a point where a thing escapes us and rushes
downward of its own weight, dragging us
along. Then it is foolish to ask whether one
will or will not, because it no longer depends
on him."
"But then why--why--" her muffled voice
came. "Oh, what do I know? That is his
problem after all."
"Doesn't it--interest you?"
"Why must it? I--I have to say good-bye, Mr.
Salazar; we are at the house."
Without lifting her eyes she quickly turned
and walked away.
Had the final word been said? He wondered.
It had. Yet a feeble flutter of hope trembled
in his mind though set against that hope
were three years of engagement, a very near
wedding, perfect understanding between the
parents, his own conscience, and Esperanza
herself--Esperanza waiting, Esperanza no
longer young, Esperanza the efficient, the
literal-minded, the intensely acquisitive.
He looked attentively at her where she sat on
the sofa, appraisingly, and with a kind of
aversion which he tried to control.
She was one of those fortunate women who
have the gift of uniformly acceptable
appearance. She never surprised one with
unexpected homeliness nor with startling
reserves of beauty. At home, in church, on
the street, she was always herself, a woman
past first bloom, light and clear of
complexion, spare of arms and of breast,
with a slight convexity to thin throat; a
woman dressed with self-conscious care,
even elegance; a woman distinctly not
average.
She was pursuing an indignant relation about
something or other, something about Calixta,
their note-carrier, Alfredo perceived, so he
merely half-listened, understanding
imperfectly. At a pause he drawled out to fill
in the gap: "Well, what of it?" The remark
sounded ruder than he had intended. "She is
not married to him," Esperanza insisted in
her thin, nervously pitched voice. "Besides,
she should have thought of us. Nanay
practically brought her up. We never thought
she would turn out bad."
What had Calixta done? Homely, middle-
aged Calixta?
"You are very positive about her badness,"
he commented dryly. Esperanza was always
positive.
"But do you approve?"
"Of what?"
"What she did."
"No," indifferently.
"Well?"
He was suddenly impelled by a desire to
disturb the unvexed orthodoxy of her mind.
"All I say is that it is not necessarily wicked."
"Why shouldn't it be? You talked like an--
immoral man. I did not know that your ideas
were like that."
"My ideas?" he retorted, goaded by a deep,
accumulated exasperation. "The only test I
wish to apply to conduct is the test of
fairness. Am I injuring anybody? No? Then I
am justified in my conscience. I am right.
Living with a man to whom she is not
married--is that it? It may be wrong, and
again it may not."
"She has injured us. She was ungrateful." Her
voice was tight with resentment.
"The trouble with you, Esperanza, is that you
are--" he stopped, appalled by the passion in
his voice.
"Why do you get angry? I do not understand
you at all! I think I know why you have been
indifferent to me lately. I am not blind, or
deaf; I see and hear what perhaps some are
trying to keep from me." The blood surged
into his very eyes and his hearing sharpened
to points of acute pain. What would she say
next?
"Why don't you speak out frankly before it is
too late? You need not think of me and of
what people will say." Her voice trembled.
Alfredo was suffering as he could not
remember ever having suffered before. What
people will say--what will they not say? What
don't they say when long engagements are
broken almost on the eve of the wedding?
"Yes," he said hesitatingly, diffidently, as if
merely thinking aloud, "one tries to be fair--
according to his lights--but it is hard. One
would like to be fair to one's self first. But
that is too easy, one does not dare--"
"What do you mean?" she asked with
repressed violence. "Whatever my
shortcomings, and no doubt they are many
in your eyes, I have never gone out of my
way, of my place, to find a man."
Did she mean by this irrelevant remark that
he it was who had sought her; or was that a
covert attack on Julia Salas?
"Esperanza--" a desperate plea lay in his
stumbling words. "If you--suppose I--" Yet
how could a mere man word such a plea?
"If you mean you want to take back your
word, if you are tired of--why don't you tell
me you are tired of me?" she burst out in a
storm of weeping that left him completely
shamed and unnerved. The last word had
been said. III
AS Alfredo Salazar leaned against the boat
rail to watch the evening settling over the
lake, he wondered if Esperanza would
attribute any significance to this trip of his.
He was supposed to be in Sta. Cruz whither
the case of the People of the Philippine
Islands vs. Belina et al had kept him, and
there he would have been if Brigida Samuy
had not been so important to the defense.
He had to find that elusive old woman. That
the search was leading him to that particular
lake town which was Julia Salas' home should
not disturb him unduly Yet he was disturbed
to a degree utterly out of proportion to the
prosaicalness of his errand. That inner tumult
was no surprise to him; in the last eight
years he had become used to such
occasional storms. He had long realized that
he could not forget Julia Salas. Still, he had
tried to be content and not to remember too
much. The climber of mountains who has
known the back-break, the lonesomeness,
and the chill, finds a certain restfulness in
level paths made easy to his feet. He looks
up sometimes from the valley where settles
the dusk of evening, but he knows he must
not heed the radiant beckoning. Maybe, in
time, he would cease even to look up.
He was not unhappy in his marriage. He felt
no rebellion: only the calm of capitulation to
what he recognized as irresistible forces of
circumstance and of character. His life had
simply ordered itself; no more struggles, no
more stirring up of emotions that got a man
nowhere. From his capacity of complete
detachment he derived a strange solace. The
essential himself, the himself that had its
being in the core of his thought, would, he
reflected, always be free and alone. When
claims encroached too insistently, as
sometimes they did, he retreated into the
inner fastness, and from that vantage he saw
things and people around him as remote and
alien, as incidents that did not matter. At
such times did Esperanza feel baffled and
helpless; he was gentle, even tender, but
immeasurably far away, beyond her reach.
Lights were springing into life on the shore.
That was the town, a little up-tilted town
nestling in the dark greenness of the groves.
A snubcrested belfry stood beside the
ancient church. On the outskirts the evening
smudges glowed red through the sinuous
mists of smoke that rose and lost themselves
in the purple shadows of the hills. There was
a young moon which grew slowly luminous
as the coral tints in the sky yielded to the
darker blues of evening.
The vessel approached the landing quietly,
trailing a wake of long golden ripples on the
dark water. Peculiar hill inflections came to
his ears from the crowd assembled to meet
the boat--slow, singing cadences,
characteristic of the Laguna lake-shore
speech. From where he stood he could not
distinguish faces, so he had no way of
knowing whether the presidente was there to
meet him or not. Just then a voice shouted.
"Is the abogado there? Abogado!"
"What abogado?" someone irately asked.
That must be the presidente, he thought,
and went down to the landing.
It was a policeman, a tall pock-marked
individual. The presidente had left with
Brigida Samuy--Tandang "Binday"--that noon
for Santa Cruz. Seor Salazar's second letter
had arrived late, but the wife had read it and
said, "Go and meet the abogado and invite
him to our house."
Alfredo Salazar courteously declined the
invitation. He would sleep on board since the
boat would leave at four the next morning
anyway. So the presidente had received his
first letter? Alfredo did not know because
that official had not sent an answer. "Yes,"
the policeman replied, "but he could not
write because we heard that Tandang Binday
was in San Antonio so we went there to find
her." San Antonio was up in the hills! Good
man, the presidente! He, Alfredo, must do
something for him. It was not every day that
one met with such willingness to help.
Eight o'clock, lugubriously tolled from the
bell tower, found the boat settled into a
somnolent quiet. A cot had been brought out
and spread for him, but it was too bare to be
inviting at that hour. It was too early to
sleep: he would walk around the town. His
heart beat faster as he picked his way to
shore over the rafts made fast to sundry
piles driven into the water.
How peaceful the town was! Here and there
a little tienda was still open, its dim light
issuing forlornly through the single window
which served as counter. An occasional
couple sauntered by, the
women's chinelas making scraping sounds.
From a distance came the shrill voices of
children playing games on the street--
tubigan perhaps, or "hawk-and-chicken." The
thought of Julia Salas in that quiet place filled
him with a pitying sadness.
How would life seem now if he had married
Julia Salas? Had he meant anything to her?
That unforgettable red-and-gold afternoon in
early April haunted him with a sense of
incompleteness as restless as other unlaid
ghosts. She had not married--why?
Faithfulness, he reflected, was not a
conscious effort at regretful memory. It was
something unvolitional, maybe a recurrent
awareness of irreplaceability. Irrelevant
trifles--a cool wind on his forehead, far-away
sounds as of voices in a dream--at times
moved him to an oddly irresistible impulse to
listen as to an insistent, unfinished prayer.
A few inquiries led him to a certain little tree-
ceilinged street where the young moon wove
indistinct filigrees of fight and shadow. In the
gardens the cotton tree threw its angular
shadow athwart the low stone wall; and in
the cool, stilly midnight the cock's first call
rose in tall, soaring jets of sound. Calle Luz.
Somehow or other, he had known that he
would find her house because she would
surely be sitting at the window. Where else,
before bedtime on a moonlit night? The
house was low and the light in the sala
behind her threw her head into unmistakable
relief. He sensed rather than saw her start of
vivid surprise.
"Good evening," he said, raising his hat.
"Good evening. Oh! Are you in town?"
"On some little business," he answered with
a feeling of painful constraint.
"Won't you come up?"
He considered. His vague plans had not
included this. But Julia Salas had left the
window, calling to her mother as she did so.
After a while, someone came downstairs with
a lighted candle to open the door. At last--he
was shaking her hand.
She had not changed much--a little less
slender, not so eagerly alive, yet something
had gone. He missed it, sitting opposite her,
looking thoughtfully into her fine dark eyes.
She asked him about the home town, about
this and that, in a sober, somewhat
meditative tone. He conversed with
increasing ease, though with a growing
wonder that he should be there at all. He
could not take his eyes from her face. What
had she lost? Or was the loss his? He felt an
impersonal curiosity creeping into his gaze.
The girl must have noticed, for her cheek
darkened in a blush.
Gently--was it experimentally?--he pressed
her hand at parting; but his own felt
undisturbed and emotionless. Did she still
care? The answer to the question hardly
interested him.
The young moon had set, and from the
uninviting cot he could see one half of a star-
studded sky.
So that was all over.
Why had he obstinately clung to that dream?
So all these years--since when?--he had been
seeing the light of dead stars, long
extinguished, yet seemingly still in their
appointed places in the heavens.
An immense sadness as of loss invaded his
spirit, a vast homesickness for some
immutable refuge of the heart far away
where faded gardens bloom again, and
where live on in unchanging freshness, the
dear, dead loves of vanished youth.
THE FENCE : GARCIA VILLA They should
have stood apart, away from each other,
those two nipa houses. There should have
been a lofty impenetrable wall between
them, so that they should not stare so coldly,
so starkly, at each otherjust staring, not
saying a word, not even a cruel word. Only a
yard of parched soil separated them, a yard
of brittle-crusted earth with only a stray
weed or two to show there was life still in its
bosom.
They stood there on the roadside, they two
alone, neighborless but for themselves, and
they were like two stealthy shadows, each
avid to betray the other. Queer old houses.
So brown were the nipa leaves that walled
and roofed them that they looked musty,
gloomy. One higher than the other, pyramid-
roofed, it tried to assume the air of mastery,
but in vain. For though the other was low,
wind-bent, supported without by luteous
bamboo poles against the aggressiveness of
the weather, it had its eyes to stare back as
haughtily as the otherwindows as desolate
as the souls of the occupants of the house,
as sharply angular as the intensity of their
hatred.
From the road these houses feared no enemy
no enemy from the length, from the dust,
of the road; they were unfenced. But of each
other they were afraid: there ran a green,
house high, bamboo fence through the
narrow ribbon of thirsty earth between them,
proclaiming that one side belonged to one
house, to it alone; the other side to the
other, and to it alone.
Formerly there had been no bamboo fence;
there had been no weeds. There had been
two rows of vegetables, one to each house,
and the soil was not parched but soft and
rich. But something had happened and the
fence came to be built, and the vegetables
that were so green began to turn pale, then
paler and yellow and brown. Those of each
house would not water their plants, for if
they did, would not water their water spread
to the other side and quench too the thirst of
pechays and mustards not theirs? Little by
little the plants had died, the soil had
cracked with neglect, on both sides of the
fence.
Two women had built that fence. Two tanned
country-women. One of them had caught her
husband with the other one night, and the
next morning she had gone to the bamboo
clumps near the river Pasig and felled canes
with her woman strength. She left her baby
son at home, heeded not the little cries. And
one by one that hot afternoon she
shouldered the canes to her home. She was
tired, very tired, yet that night she could not
sleep. When morning dawned she rose and
went back t the back of the house and began
to split the bamboos. Her husband noticed
her, but said nothing. By noon, AlingBiang
was driving tall bamboo splits into the
narrow ribbon of yard.
Pok, Pok, Pok, sounded her crude hammer.
Pok, Pok, Pok-Pok, Pok, Pok.
When her husband asked her what she was
doing, she answered, I am building a fence.
What for? he asked. I need a fence. And
then, too, even AlingSebia, the other woman,
a child-less widow, asked inoffensively,
What are you doing, AlingBiang? I am
building a fence. What for? I need a
fence, AlingSebia. Please do not talk to me
again. And with that AlingSebia had felt
hurt. Out of spite she too had gone to the
bamboo clumps to fell canes. After she had
split them, tried though she was, she began
to thrust them into the ground, on the same
straight line as AlingBiangs but from the
opposite end. The building of the fence
progressed from the opposite end. The
building of the fence progresses from the
ends centerward. AlingBiang drove in the last
split. And the fence completed, oily
perspiration wetting the brows of the two
young women, they gazed pridefully at the
majestic wall of green that now sperated
them. Not long after the completion of the
fence AlingBiangs husband disappeared and
never came back. AlingBiang took the matter
passively, and made no effort to find him.
She had become a hardened woman. The
fence hid all the happenings in each house
from those who lived in the other. The other
side was to each a beyond, dark in elemental
prejudice, and no one dared encroach on it.
So the months passed, and each woman
lived as though the other were nonexistent.
But early one night, from beyond the fence,
AlingBiang heard cries from AlingSebia.
Unwilling to pay any heed to them, she
extinguished the light of the petrol kinke and
laid herself down beside her child. But, in
spite of all, the cries of the other woman
made her uneasy. She stood up, went to the
window that faced the fence, and cried from
there: What is the matter with you,
AlingSebang? Faintly from the other side
came: AlingBiang, please go the town and
get me a hilot (midwife). What do you need
a hilot for? asked AlingBiang. I am going to
deliever a child, AlingBiang, and I am alone.
Please go, fetch a hilot. AlingBiang stood
there by the window a long time. She knew
when child it was that was coming as the
child of AlingSebia. She stood motionless, the
wind brushing her face coldly. What did she
care of AlingSebia was to undergo childbirth?
The wind blew colder and pierced the
thinness of her shirt. She decided to lie down
and sleep. Her body struck against her
childs as she did so, and the child moaned:
Ummm The other child, too, could be
moaning like that. Like her
child. Ummm.From the womb of AlingSebia
the wrong womb. Hastily AlingBiang stood
up, wound her tapiz round her waist, covered
her shoulders with a cheap shawl.
Ummm.Ummm.The cry that
called her.Ummm. The cry of a life She
descended the bamboo steps. They creaked
in the night. The fence grew moldy and
inclined to one side, the child of
AlingBianggrew up into sickly boy with hollow
dark eyes and shaggy hair, and the child that
was born to AlingSebia grew up into a girl, a
girl with rugged features , a simian face, and
a very narrow brow. But not a word had
passed across the fence since that night. The
boy Iking was not allowed to play by the
roadside; for if he did, would he not know
were on the other side of the fence? For his
realm he had only his home and the little
backyard. Sometimes, he would loiter along
the narrow strip of yard beside the fence,
and peep surreptitiously through the slits.
And he could catch glimpses of a girl, dark-
complex-ioned, flat-nosed on the other side.
She was an ugly girl, even uglier than he
was, but she was full-muscled, healthy. As he
peeped, his body, like a thin reed pressed
against the fungused canes, would be
breathless. The flat-nosed girl intoxicated
him, his loose architecture of a body, so that
it pulsed, vibrated cruelly with the leap in his
blood. The least sound of the wind against
the nipa wall of their house would startle
him, as though he had been caught,
surprised, in his clandestine passion; a wave
of frigid coldness would start in his chest and
expand, expand, expand until he was all cold
and shivering. Watching that girl only
intensified his lonelinesswatching that girl
of whom he knew nothing except that form
them it was not right to know each other.
When his mother caught him peeping, she
would scold him, and he would turn quickly
about, his convex back pressed painfully
against the fence. Did I not tell you never to
peep through that fence? Go up. And he
would go up without answering a word,
because the moment he tried to reason out
things, prolonged coughs would seize him
and shake his thin body unmercifully. At
night, as he lay on the bamboo floor, notes
of a guitar would reach his ears. The notes
were metallic, clanking, and at the middle of
the nocturne they stopped abruptly. Who
played the raucous notes? Who played the
only music he had ever heard in his life? And
why did the player never finish his music?
And lying beside his mother, he felt he
wanted to rise and go down the bamboo
steps to the old forbidden? fence and see
who it was that was playing. But AlingBiang
would stir and ask, Are you feeling cold,
Iking? Here is the blanket. Poor mother she
did not know that it was she who was making
the soul of this boy so cold, so barren, so
desolate. And one night, after AlingBiang had
prepared his bedding beside her, Iking
approached her and said: I will sleep by the
door, nanay. I want to sleep alone. I am
grownup. I am fifteen. He folded his mat
and tucked it under an arm carrying a
kundiman-cased pillow in one thin hand, and
marched stoically to the place he mentioned.
When the playing came, he stood up and
went down the stairs and moved towards the
bamboo fence. He leaned against it and
listened, enthralled, to the music. When it
ceased he wanted to scream in protest, but a
strangling cough seized him. He choked, yet
his neck craned and his eye strained to see
who had been the player. His lips did not
move, but his soul wept, It is she! And he
wanted to hurl himself against fence to break
it down. But he knew that even that old,
mildewed fence was stronger than he.
Strongerstronger than the loneliness of his
soul, stronger than his soul itself. Pok, Pok,
PokPok, Pok, Pok. The boy Iking, pallid,
tubercular, watched his mother with sunken,
hating eyes from the window. She was
mending the fence, because now it leaned to
their side and many of the old stakes had
decayed. She substituted fresh ones for
these, until finally, among the weather-
beaten ones, rose bold green splits like stout
corporals among squads of unhealthy
soldiers. From the window, the boy Iking
asked nervously: Why do you do that,
mother? WhywhyIt needs reinforcing
replied his mother. Pok, Pok, Pok Why-
why! he exclaimed in protest.His mother
stopped hammering. She stared at him
cruelly. I need it, she declared forcefully,
the veins on her forehead rising out clearly.
Your mother needs it. You need it too. Iking
cowered from the window. He heard again:
Pok, Pok, PokPok, Pok, Pok. That night no
playing came from beyond the fence. And
Iking knew why. PhthisicalIking.Eighteen-
year-old bony Iking.Lying ghastly pale on the
mat all the time.Waiting for the music from
the other side of the fence that had stopped
three years ago. And tonight was Christmas
Eve. Ikings Christmas Eve. He must be
happy tonighthe must be made happy
tonight At one corner of the room his
mother crooned to herself. A Biblia was on
the table, but no one read it; they did not
know how to read. But they knew it was
Christmas Eve. AlingBiang said, The Lord
will be born tonight. The Lord will be born
tonight, echoed her son. Let us pray,
Iking. Iking stood up. His emaciated form
looked so pitiful that his mother said, Better
lie down again, Iking. I will pray alone. But
Iking did not lie down. He move slowly to the
door and descended into the backyard His
mother would pray. Could she pray? his
soul asked He stood motionless. And then
he saw the fencethe fence that his mother
had built and strengthenedto crush his
soul. He ran weakly, groggily, to itallured
by its forbidding, crushing sterness. He
peeped hungrily between the splitssaw
her His dry lips mumbled, tried to make
her hear his word, Play for me tonight! He
saw that she heard. Her ugly faced turned
sharply to the fence that separated him and
her. He wept. He had spoken to herthe first
timethe first time He laid himself down
as soon as he was back in the house. He
turned his face toward the window to wait for
her music. He drew his blanket closer round
him so that he should not feel cold. The
moonlight that poured into the room pointed
at his face, livid, anxious, hoping, and at a
little, wet, red smudge on the blanket where
it touched his lips. Cicadas sang and leaves
of trees rustled. A gorgeous moon sailed
westward across the sky. Dark-skinned bats
occasionally lost their way into the room. A
pale silken moth flew in to flirt with the flame
of kerosene kinke. And then the cicadas had
tired of singing. The moon was far above at
its zenith now. The bats had found their way
out of the room. The moth now lay signed on
the table, beside he realized now that the
fence between their houses extended into
the heart of this girl. The Lord is born,
announced AlingBiang, for it was midnight.
He is born, said her son, his ears still ready
for her music because the fence did not run
through his soul. The moon descended
descended.. At two a.m. Ikings eyes were
closed and his hands were cold. His mother
wept. His heart beat no more. Two-three a.m.
only a few minutes afterand from beyond
the fence came the notes of a guitar.The
notes of
a guitar.Metallic.Clanking.Raucous.Notes of
the same guitar. And she who played it
finished her nocturne that mourn. AlingBiang
stood up from beside her son, approached
the window, stared accusingly outside, and
said in a low resentful voice, They are
mocking. Who would play at such a time of
morn as this? Because my son is dead.
But she saw only the fence she had built and
strengthened, stately white in the matutinal
moonlight.
OTHELLO
ACT
SCENE I. Venice. A street.
Enter RODERIGO and IAGO
RODERIGO Tush! never tell me; I take it much
unkindly
That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse As if
the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.
IAGO 'Sblood, but you will not hear me: If
ever I did dream of such a matter, Abhor me.
RODERIGO Thou told'st me thou didst hold
him in thy hate. IAGO Despise me, if I do not.
Three great ones of the city, In personal suit
to make me his lieutenant, Off-capp'd to him:
and, by the faith of man, I know my price, I
am worth no worse a place: But he; as loving
his own pride and purposes, Evades them,
with a bombast circumstance Horribly stuff'd
with epithets of war; And, in conclusion,
Nonsuits my mediators; for, 'Certes,' says
he,'I have already chose my officer.'
And what was he? Forsooth, a great
arithmetician, One Michael Cassio, a
Florentine,
A fellow almost damn'd in a fair wife; That
never set a squadron in the field, Nor the
division of a battle knows More than a
spinster; unless the bookish theoric,
Wherein the toged consuls can propose As
masterly as he: mere prattle, without
practise, Is all his soldiership. But he, sir, had
the election:
And I, of whom his eyes had seen the proof
At Rhodes, at Cyprus and on other grounds
Christian and heathen, must be be-lee'd and
calm'd By debitor and creditor: this counter-
caster,
He, in good time, must his lieutenant be, And
I--God bless the mark!--his Moorship's
ancient. RODERIGO By heaven, I rather
would have been his hangman. IAGO Why,
there's no remedy; 'tis the curse of service,
Preferment goes by letter and affection,
And not by old gradation, where each second
Stood heir to the first. Now, sir, be judge
yourself, Whether I in any just term am
affined To love the Moor. RODERIGO I would
not follow him then. IAGO O, sir, content you;
I follow him to serve my turn upon him:
We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
Cannot be truly follow'd. You shall mark
Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave,
That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,
Wears out his time, much like his master's
ass, For nought but provender, and when
he's old, cashier'd: Whip me such honest
knaves. Others there are
Who, trimm'd in forms and visages of duty,
Keep yet their hearts attending on
themselves, And, throwing but shows of
service on their lords, Do well thrive by them
and when they have lined
their coats Do themselves homage: these
fellows have some soul;
And such a one do I profess myself. For, sir, It
is as sure as you are Roderigo,
Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago: In
following him, I follow but myself;
Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
But seeming so, for my peculiar end:
For when my outward action doth
demonstrate The native act and figure of my
heart
In compliment extern, 'tis not long after But I
will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws
to peck at: I am not what I am. RODERIGO
What a full fortune does the thicklips owe If
he can carry't thus! IAGO Call up her father,
Rouse him: make after him, poison his
delight,
Proclaim him in the streets; incense her
kinsmen, And, though he in a fertile climate
dwell, Plague him with flies: though that his
joy be joy,
Yet throw such changes of vexation on't, As it
may lose some colour. RODERIGOHere is her
father's house; I'll call aloud. IAGO Do, with
like timorous accent and dire yell
As when, by night and negligence, the fire
Is spied in populous cities. RODERIGO What,
ho, Brabantio! Signior Brabantio, ho! IAGO
Awake! what, ho, Brabantio! thieves!
thieves! thieves!
Look to your house, your daughter and your
bags! Thieves! thieves! BRABANTIO appears
above, at a window BRABANTIO What is the
reason of this terrible summons? What is the
matter there? RODERIGO Signior, is all your
family within? IAGO Are your doors lock'd?
BRABANTIO Why, wherefore ask you this?
IAGO 'Zounds, sir, you're robb'd; for shame,
put on
your gown; Your heart is burst, you have lost
half your soul;
Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
Is topping your white ewe. Arise, arise;
Awake the snorting citizens with the bell, Or
else the devil will make a grandsire of you:
Arise, I say. BRABANTIO What, have you lost
your wits? RODERIGO Most reverend signior,
do you know my voice? BRABANTIO Not I
what are you? RODERIGO My name is
Roderigo. BRABANTIO The worser welcome:
I have charged thee not to haunt about my
doors:
In honest plainness thou hast heard me say
My daughter is not for thee; and now, in
madness, Being full of supper and
distempering draughts, Upon malicious
bravery, dost thou come To start my
quiet.RODERIGOSir, sir, sir,-- BRABANTIO But
thou must needs be sure
My spirit and my place have in them power
To make this bitter to thee. RODERIGO
Patience, good sir. BRABANTIO What tell'st
thou me of robbing? this is Venice;
My house is not a grange. RODERIGO Most
grave Brabantio,In simple and pure soul I
come to you. IAGO 'Zounds, sir, you are one
of those that will not
serve God, if the devil bid you. Because we
come to
do you service and you think we are ruffians,
you'll
have your daughter covered with a Barbary
horse;
you'll have your nephews neigh to you; you'll
have
coursers for cousins and gennets for
germans. BRABANTIO What profane wretch
art thou? IAGO I am one, sir, that comes to
tell you your daughter and the Moor are now
making the beast with two backs.
BRABANTIO Thou art a villain. IAGO You
are--a senator. BRABANTIO This thou shalt
answer; I know thee, Roderigo. RODERIGO
Sir, I will answer any thing. But, I beseech
you,
If't be your pleasure and most wise consent,
As partly I find it is, that your fair daughter,
At this odd-even and dull watch o' the night,
Transported, with no worse nor better guard
But with a knave of common hire, a
gondolier,
To the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor-- If
this be known to you and your allowance,
We then have done you bold and saucy
wrongs; But if you know not this, my
manners tell me We have your wrong rebuke.
Do not believe
That, from the sense of all civility, I thus
would play and trifle with your reverence:
Your daughter, if you have not given her
leave, I say again, hath made a gross revolt;
Tying her duty, beauty, wit and fortunes In an
extravagant and wheeling stranger
Of here and every where. Straight satisfy
yourself: If she be in her chamber or your
house, LET loose on me the justice of the
state
For thus deluding you. BRABANTIO Strike on
the tinder, ho! Give me a taper! call up all
my people! This accident is not unlike my
dream:
Belief of it oppresses me already. Light, I say!
light! Exit above IAGO Farewell; for I must
leave you: It seems not meet, nor
wholesome to my place,
To be produced--as, if I stay, I shall--
Against the Moor: for, I do know, the state,
However this may gall him with some
cheque, Cannot with safety cast him, for he's
embark'd
With such loud reason to the Cyprus wars,
Which even now stand in act, that, for their
souls, Another of his fathom they have none,
To lead their business: in which regard,
Though I do hate him as I do hell-pains.
Yet, for necessity of present life, I must show
out a flag and sign of love,
Which is indeed but sign. That you shall
surely find him, Lead to the Sagittary the
raised search; And there will I be with him.
So, farewell. Exit Enter, below, BRABANTIO,
and Servants with torches BRABANTIO It is
too true an evil: gone she is;
And what's to come of my despised timeIs
nought but bitterness. Now, Roderigo,
Where didst thou see her? O unhappy girl!
With the Moor, say'st thou? Who would be a
father! How didst thou know 'twas she? O
she deceives me Past thought! What said she
to you? Get more tapers:
Raise all my kindred. Are they married, think
you? RODERIGO Truly, I think they are.
BRABANTIO O heaven! How got she out? O
treason of the blood!
Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters'
minds
By what you see them act. Is there not
charms By which the property of youth and
maidhood May be abused? Have you not
read, Roderigo,
Of some such thing? RODERIGO Yes, sir, I
have indeed. BRABANTIO Call up my brother.
O, would you had had her!
Some one way, some another. Do you know
Where we may apprehend her and the Moor?
RODERIGO I think I can discover him, if you
please,
To get good guard and go along with me.
BRABANTIO
Pray you, lead on. At every house I'll call; I
may command at most. Get weapons, ho!
And raise some special officers of night. On,
good Roderigo: I'll deserve your pains.
Exeunt SCENE II. Another street. Enter
OTHELLO, IAGO, and Attendants with torches
IAGO
Though in the trade of war I have slain men,
Yet do I hold it very stuff o' the conscience
To do no contrived murder: I lack iniquity
Sometimes to do me service: nine or ten
times I had thought to have yerk'd him here
under the ribs. OTHELLO 'Tis better as it is.
IAGO Nay, but he prated,
And spoke such scurvy and provoking terms
Against your honour That, with the little
godliness I have, I did full hard forbear him.
But, I pray you, sir, Are you fast married? Be
assured of this,
That the magnifico is much beloved,
And hath in his effect a voice potential As
double as the duke's: he will divorce you;
Or put upon you what restraint and
grievance The law, with all his might to
enforce it on, Will give him cable. OTHELLO
Let him do his spite:
My services which I have done the signiory
Shall out-tongue his complaints. 'Tis yet to
know,--Which, when I know that boasting is
an honour, I shall promulgate--I fetch my life
and being From men of royal siege, and my
demerits
May speak unbonneted to as proud a fortune
As this that I have reach'd: for know, Iago,
But that I love the gentle Desdemona,
I would not my unhoused free condition Put
into circumscription and confine For the sea's
worth. But, look! what lights come yond?
IAGO Those are the raised father and his
friends: You were best go in. OTHELLO Not I I
must be found:
My parts, my title and my perfect soul
Shall manifest me rightly. Is it they? IAGO By
Janus, I think no. Enter CASSIO, and certain
Officers with torches OTHELLO
The servants of the duke, and my lieutenant.
The goodness of the night upon you, friends!
What is the news? CASSIO
The duke does greet you, general, And he
requires your haste-post-haste appearance,
Even on the instant. OTHELLO What is the
matter, think you? CASSIO Something from
Cyprus as I may divine: It is a business of
some heat: the galleys
Have sent a dozen sequent messengers This
very night at one another's heels,
And many of the consuls, raised and met,
Are at the duke's already: you have been
hotly call'd for; When, being not at your
lodging to be found,
The senate hath sent about three several
guests To search you out. OTHELLO 'Tis well I
am found by you.
I will but spend a word here in the house,
And go with you. Exit CASSIO Ancient, what
makes he here? IAGO 'Faith, he to-night hath
boarded a land carack:
If it prove lawful prize, he's made for ever.
CASSIO I do not understand. IAGO He's
married. CASSIO= To who? Re-enter
OTHELLOIAGO Marry, to--Come, captain, will
you go OTHELLO Have with you. CASSIO
Here comes another troop to seek for you.
IAGO It is Brabantio. General, be advised; He
comes to bad intent. Enter BRABANTIO,
RODERIGO, and Officers with torches and
weapons OTHELLO Holla! stand there!
RODERIGO Signior, it is the Moor.
BRABANTIODown with him, thief! They draw
on ] both sides IAGO You, Roderigo! come,
sir, I am for you. OTHELLOKeep up your
bright swords, for the dew will rust them.
Good signior, you shall more command with
yearsThan with your weapons. BRABANTIO O
thou foul thief, where hast thou stow'd my
daughter?Damn'd as thou art, thou hast
enchanted her;
For I'll refer me to all things of sense, If she
in chains of magic were not bound,
Whether a maid so tender, fair and happy,
So opposite to marriage that she shunned
The wealthy curled darlings of our nation,
Would ever have, to incur a general mock,
Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom
Of such a thing as thou, to fear, not to
delight. Judge me the world, if 'tis not gross
in sense
That thou hast practised on her with foul
charms, Abused her delicate youth with
drugs or minerals That weaken motion: I'll
have't disputed on;
'Tis probable and palpable to thinking. I
therefore apprehend and do attach thee
For an abuser of the world, a practiser Of arts
inhibited and out of warrant.
Lay hold upon him: if he do resist, Subdue
him at his peril. OTHELLO Hold your hands,
Both you of my inclining, and the rest:
Were it my cue to fight, I should have known
it Without a prompter. Where will you that I
go To answer this your charge? BRABANTIO
To prison, till fit time
Of law and course of direct session Call thee
to answer. OTHELLO
What if I do obey? How may the duke be
therewith satisfied, Whose messengers are
here about my side, Upon some present
business of the state To bring me to him?
First Officer 'Tis true, most worthy signior;
The duke's in council and your noble self, I
am sure, is sent for. BRABANTIO How! the
duke in council! In this time of the night!
Bring him away:
Mine's not an idle cause: the duke himself,
Or any of my brothers of the state,
Cannot but feel this wrong as 'twere their
own; For if such actions may have passage
free, Bond-slaves and pagans shall our
statesmen be. Exeunt SCENE III. A council-
chamber. The DUKE and Senators sitting at a
table; Officers attending DUKE OF VENICE
There is no composition in these news That
gives them credit. First Senator Indeed, they
are disproportion'd; My letters say a hundred
and seven galleys. DUKE OF VENICE And
mine, a hundred and forty. Second Senator
And mine, two hundred:
But though they jump not on a just account,--
As in these cases, where the aim reports, 'Tis
oft with difference--yet do they all confirm A
Turkish fleet, and bearing up to Cyprus. DUKE
OF VENICE Nay, it is possible enough to
judgment:
I do not so secure me in the error,
But the main article I do approve In fearful
sense. Sailor [Within] What, ho! what, ho!
what, ho! First Officer A messenger from the
galleys. Enter a Sailor DUKE OF VENICE Now,
what's the business? Sailor The Turkish
preparation makes for Rhodes; So was I bid
report here to the state By Signior Angelo.
DUKE OF VENICE How say you by this
change? First Senator This cannot be, By no
assay of reason: 'tis a pageant,
To keep us in false gaze. When we consider
The importancy of Cyprus to the Turk,
And let ourselves again but understand, That
as it more concerns the Turk than Rhodes, So
may he with more facile question bear it, For
that it stands not in such warlike brace, But
altogether lacks the abilities
That Rhodes is dress'd in: if we make thought
of this, We must not think the Turk is so
unskillful To leave that latest which concerns
him first, Neglecting an attempt of ease and
gain, To wake and wage a danger profitless.
DUKE OF VENICE Nay, in all confidence, he's
not for Rhodes. First Officer Here is more
news. Enter a Messenger Messenger The
Ottomites, reverend and gracious,
Steering with due course towards the isle of
Rhodes,\Have there injointed them with an
after fleet. First Senator Ay, so I thought. How
many, as you guess? MessengerOf thirty sail:
and now they do restem Their backward
course, bearing with frank appearance Their
purposes toward Cyprus. Signior Montano,
Your trusty and most valiant servitor, With
his free duty recommends you thus,
And prays you to believe him. DUKE OF
VENICE 'Tis certain, then, for Cyprus.
Marcus Luccicos, is not he in town? First
Senator He's now in Florence. DUKE OF
VENICE Write from us to him; post-post-haste
dispatch. First Senator Here comes Brabantio
and the valiant Moor. Enter BRABANTIO,
OTHELLO, IAGO, RODERIGO, and Officers
DUKE OF VENICE Valiant Othello, we must
straight employ you Against the general
enemy Ottoman.To BRABANTIO I did not see
you; welcome, gentle signior;
We lack'd your counsel and your help
tonight. BRABANTIO So did I yours. Good
your grace, pardon me; Neither my place nor
aught I heard of business Hath raised me
from my bed, nor doth the general care Take
hold on me, for my particular grief
Is of so flood-gate and o'erbearing nature
That it engluts and swallows other sorrows
And it is still itself. DUKE OF VENICE , what's
the matter? BRABANTIO My daughter! O, my
daughter! DUKE OF VENICE Senator Dead?
BRABANTIO Ay, to me;
She is abused, stol'n from me, and corrupted
By spells and medicines bought of
mountebanks; For nature so preposterously
to err, Being not deficient, blind, or lame of
sense, Sans witchcraft could not. DUKE OF
VENICE Whoe'er he be that in this foul
proceeding Hath thus beguiled your daughter
of herself
You shall yourself read in the bitter letter
After your own sense, yea, though our proper
son Stood in your action. BRABANTIO
Humbly I thank your grace.
Here is the man, this Moor, whom now, it
seems, Your special mandate for the state-
affairs Hath hither brought. DUKE OF
VENICE Senato We are very sorry for't. DUKE
OF VENICE [To OTHELLO] What, in your own
part, can you say to this? BRABANTIO
Nothing, but this is so. OTHELLO Most potent,
grave, and reverend signiors,
My very noble and approved good masters,
That I have ta'en away this old man's
daughter, It is most true; true, I have married
her:
The very head and front of my offending
Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my
speech, And little bless'd with the soft phrase
of peace:
For since these arms of mine had seven
years' pith, Till now some nine moons
wasted, they have used Their dearest action
in the tented field,
And little of this great world can I speak,
More than pertains to feats of broil and
battle, And therefore little shall I grace my
cause
In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious
patience, I will a round unvarnish'd tale
deliver Of my whole course of love; what
drugs, what charms,
What conjuration and what mighty magic,
For such proceeding I am charged withal,
I won his daughter.BRABANTIOA maiden
never bold;
Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion
Blush'd at herself; and she, in spite of nature,
Of years, of country, credit, every thing,
To fall in love with what she fear'd to look on!
It is a judgment maim'd and most imperfect
That will confess perfection so could err
Against all rules of nature, and must be
driven To find out practises of cunning hell,
Why this should be. I therefore vouch again
That with some mixtures powerful o'er the
blood, Or with some dram conjured to this
effect,
He wrought upon her. DUKE OF VENICE To
vouch this, is no proof, Without more wider
and more overt test Than these thin habits
and poor likelihoods
Of modern seeming do prefer against him.
First Senator But, Othello, speak:
Did you by indirect and forced courses
Subdue and poison this young maid's
affections? Or came it by request and such
fair question As soul to soul affordeth?
OTHELLO I do beseech you,
Send for the lady to the Sagittary, And let
her speak of me before her father:
If you do find me foul in her report,
The trust, the office I do hold of you, Not only
take away, but let your sentence
Even fall upon my life. DUKE OF VENICE
Fetch Desdemona hither. OTHELLO Ancient,
conduct them: you best know the place.
Exeunt IAGO and Attendants And, till she
come, as truly as to heaven I do confess the
vices of my blood, So justly to your grave
ears I'll present How I did thrive in this fair
lady's love,
And she in mine. DUKE OF VENICE Say it,
Othello. OTHELLOHer father loved me; oft
invited me; Still question'd me the story of
my life,
From year to year, the battles, sieges,
fortunes, That I have passed.
I ran it through, even from my boyish days,
To the very moment that he bade me tell it;
Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field Of
hair-breadth scapes i' the imminent deadly
breach, Of being taken by the insolent foe
And sold to slavery, of my redemption
thence And portance in my travels' history:
Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,
Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads
touch heaven It was my hint to speak,--such
was the process;
And of the Cannibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to
hear Would Desdemona seriously incline:
But still the house-affairs would draw her
thence: Which ever as she could with haste
dispatch, She'ld come again, and with a
greedy ear Devour up my discourse: which I
observing, Took once a pliant hour, and
found good means To draw from her a prayer
of earnest heart That I would all my
pilgrimage dilate,
Whereof by parcels she had something
heard, But not intentively: I did consent,
And often did beguile her of her tears, When
I did speak of some distressful stroke
That my youth suffer'd. My story being done,
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:
She swore, in faith, twas strange, 'twas
passing strange, 'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous
pitiful: She wish'd she had not heard it, yet
she wish'd
That heaven had made her such a man: she
thank'd me, And bade me, if I had a friend
that loved her, I should but teach him how to
tell my story.
And that would woo her. Upon this hint I
spake: She loved me for the dangers I had
pass'd, And I loved her that she did pity
them.
This only is the witchcraft I have used: Here
comes the lady; let her witness it. Enter
DESDEMONA, IAGO, and Attendants DUKE OF
VENICE I think this tale would win my
daughter too. Good Brabantio, Take up this
mangled matter at the best:
Men do their broken weapons rather use
Than their bare hands. BRABANTIO I pray
you, hear her speak: If she confess that she
was half the wooer,
Destruction on my head, if my bad blame
Light on the man! Come hither, gentle
mistress: Do you perceive in all this noble
company Where most you owe obedience?
DESDEMONA My noble father,
I do perceive here a divided duty:To you I am
bound for life and education;
My life and education both do learn me How
to respect you; you are the lord of duty;
I am hitherto your daughter: but here's my
husband, And so much duty as my mother
show'd To you, preferring you before her
father,
So much I challenge that I may profess Due
to the Moor my lord. BRABANTIO God be wi'
you! I have done. Please it your grace, on to
the state-affairs:
I had rather to adopt a child than get it.
Come hither, Moor:
I here do give thee that with all my heart
Which, but thou hast already, with all my
heart I would keep from thee. For your sake,
jewel,
I am glad at soul I have no other child: For
thy escape would teach me tyranny,
To hang clogs on them. I have done, my lord.
DUKE OF VENICE Let me speak like yourself,
and lay a sentence, Which, as a grise or step,
may help these lovers
Into your favour. When remedies are past,
the griefs are ended
By seeing the worst, which late on hopes
depended. To mourn a mischief that is past
and gone Is the next way to draw new
mischief on.
What cannot be preserved when fortune
takes Patience her injury a mockery makes.
The robb'd that smiles steals something from
the thief; He robs himself that spends a
bootless grief. BRABANTIO So let the Turk of
Cyprus us beguile;
We lose it not, so long as we can smile. He
bears the sentence well that nothing bears
But the free comfort which from thence he
hears,
But he bears both the sentence and the
sorrow That, to pay grief, must of poor
patience borrow. These sentences, to sugar,
or to gall,
Being strong on both sides, are equivocal:
But words are words; I never yet did hear
That the bruised heart was pierced through
the ear. I humbly beseech you, proceed to
the affairs of state. DUKE OF VENICE The
Turk with a most mighty preparation makes
for Cyprus. Othello, the fortitude of the place
is best
known to you; and though we have there a
substitute of most allowed sufficiency, yet
opinion, a sovereign mistress of effects,
throws a more safer
voice on you: you must therefore be content
to slubber the gloss of your new fortunes
with this more stubborn and boisterous
expedition. OTHELLO The tyrant custom,
most grave senators, Hath made the flinty
and steel couch of war
My thrice-driven bed of down: I do agnise A
natural and prompt alacrity
I find in hardness, and do undertake These
present wars against the Ottomites.
Most humbly therefore bending to your state,
I crave fit disposition for my wife.
Due reference of place and exhibition, With
such accommodation and besort As levels
with her breeding. DUKE OF VENICE If you
please,
Be't at her father's. BRABANTIO I'll not have
it so. OTHELLO Nor I. DESDEMONA Nor I; I
would not there reside, To put my father in
impatient thoughts
By being in his eye. Most gracious duke, To
my unfolding lend your prosperous ear; And
let me find a charter in your voice, To assist
my simpleness. DUKE OF VENICE What would
You, Desdemona? DESDEMONA That I did
love the Moor to live with him, My downright
violence and storm of fortunes
May trumpet to the world: my heart's
subdued Even to the very quality of my lord:
I saw Othello's visage in his mind, And to his
honour and his valiant parts
Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate. So
that, dear lords, if I be left behind,
A moth of peace, and he go to the war, The
rites for which I love him are bereft me,
And I a heavy interim shall support By his
dear absence. Let me go with him. OTHELLO
Let her have your voices.
Vouch with me, heaven, I therefore beg it
not, To please the palate of my appetite,
Nor to comply with heat--the young affects
In me defunct--and proper satisfaction. But
to be free and bounteous to her mind:
And heaven defend your good souls, that you
think I will your serious and great business
scant For she is with me: no, when light-
wing'd toys
Of feather'd Cupid seal with wanton dullness
My speculative and officed instruments, That
my disports corrupt and taint my business,
Let housewives make a skillet of my helm,
And all indign and base adversities
Make head against my estimation! DUKE OF
VENICE Be it as you shall privately
determine, Either for her stay or going: the
affair cries haste,
And speed must answer it. First Senator You
must away to-night. OTHELLO With all my
heart. DUKE OF VENICE At nine i' the
morning here we'll meet again.
Othello, leave some officer behind,
And he shall our commission bring to you;
With such things else of quality and respect
As doth import you. OTHELLO So please your
grace, my ancient;
A man he is of honest and trust: To his
conveyance I assign my wife,
With what else needful your good grace shall
think To be sent after me. DUKE OF VENICE
Let it be so. Good night to every one. To
BRABANTIOAnd, noble signior,
If virtue no delighted beauty lack, Your son-
in-law is far more fair than black. 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 OF
VENICE, Senators, Officers, & c 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 our 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 Bcables of perdurable
toughness; I could never
better stead thee than now. Put money in thy
purse; follow thou the wars; defeat thy
favour 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 foodthat to him now is as
luscious as locusts, shall be
to him shortly as bitter as 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 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 re-tell thee again and again,
I If it hath ruffian'd so upon the sea,
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 to-morrow. 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 am changed: I'll go sell all
my land. Exit IAGO Thus do I ever make my
fool my purse: For I mine own gain'd
knowledge should profane, If I would time
expend with such a snipe.
But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor:
And it is thought abroad, that 'twixt my
sheetsHe has done my office: I know not if't
be true; But I, for mere suspicion in that
kind,
Will do as if for surety. He holds me well; The
better shall my purpose work on him.
Cassio's a proper man: let me see now: To
get his place and to plume up my will
In double knavery--How, how? Let's see:--
After some time, to abuse Othello's ear
That he is too familiar with his wife. He hath
a person and a smooth dispose
To be suspected, framed to make women
false.
The Moor is of a free and open nature, That
thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
And will as tenderly be led by the nose
As asses are.
I have't. It is engender'd. Hell and night
Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's
light.
Exit
ACT II
SCENE I. A Sea-port in Cyprus. An open place
near the quay.
Enter MONTANO and two Gentlemen
MONTANO
What from the cape can you discern at sea?
First Gentleman
Nothing at all: it is a highwrought flood;
I cannot, 'twixt the heaven and the main,
Descry a sail.
MONTANO
Methinks the wind hath spoke aloud at land;
A fuller blast ne'er shook our battlements:
What ribs of oak, when mountains melt on
them,
Can hold the mortise? What shall we hear of
this?
Second Gentleman
A segregation of the Turkish fleet: CASSIO
For do but stand upon the foaming shore, Thanks, you the valiant of this warlike isle,
The chidden billow seems to pelt the clouds; That so approve the Moor! O, let the heavens
The wind-shaked surge, with high and Give him defence against the elements,
monstrous mane, For I have lost us him on a dangerous sea.
seems to cast water on the burning bear, MONTANO
And quench the guards of the ever-fixed Is he well shipp'd?
pole: CASSIO
I never did like molestation view His bark is stoutly timber'd, his pilot
On the enchafed flood. Of very expert and approved allowance;
MONTANO Therefore my hopes, not surfeited to death,
If that the Turkish fleet Stand in bold cure.
Be not enshelter'd and embay'd, they are A cry within 'A sail, a sail, a sail!'
drown'd: Enter a fourth Gentleman
It is impossible they bear it out. CASSIO
Enter a third Gentleman What noise?
Third Gentleman Fourth Gentleman
News, lads! our wars are done. The town is empty; on the brow o' the sea
The desperate tempest hath so bang'd the Stand ranks of people, and they cry 'A sail!'
Turks, CASSIO
That their designment halts: a noble ship of My hopes do shape him for the governor.
Venice Guns heard
Hath seen a grievous wreck and sufferance Second Gentlemen
On most part of their fleet. They do discharge their shot of courtesy:
MONTANO Our friends at least.
How! is this true? CASSIO
Third Gentleman I pray you, sir, go forth,
The ship is here put in, And give us truth who 'tis that is arrived.
A Veronesa; Michael Cassio, Second Gentleman
Lieutenant to the warlike Moor Othello, I shall.
Is come on shore: the Moor himself at sea, Exit
And is in full commission here for Cyprus. MONTANO
MONTANO But, good lieutenant, is your general wived?
I am glad on't; 'tis a worthy governor. CASSIO
Third Gentleman Most fortunately: he hath achieved a maid
But this same Cassio, though he speak of That paragons description and wild fame;
comfort One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens,
Touching the Turkish loss, yet he looks sadly, And in the essential vesture of creation
And prays the Moor be safe; for they were Does tire the ingener.
parted Re-enter second Gentleman
With foul and violent tempest. How now! who has put in?
MONTANO Second Gentleman
Pray heavens he be; 'Tis one Iago, ancient to the general.
For I have served him, and the man CASSIO
commands Has had most favourable and happy speed:
Like a full soldier. Let's to the seaside, ho! Tempests themselves, high seas, and
As well to see the vessel that's come in howling winds,
As to throw out our eyes for brave Othello, The gutter'd rocks and congregated sands--
Even till we make the main and the aerial Traitors ensteep'd to clog the guiltless keel,--
blue As having sense of beauty, do omit
An indistinct regard. Their mortal natures, letting go safely by
Third Gentleman The divine Desdemona.
Come, let's do so: MONTANO
For every minute is expectancy What is she?
Of more arrivance. CASSIO
Enter CASSIO
She that I spake of, our great captain's She puts her tongue a little in her heart,
captain, And chides with thinking.
Left in the conduct of the bold Iago, EMILIA
Whose footing here anticipates our thoughts You have little cause to say so.
A se'nnight's speed. Great Jove, Othello IAGO
guard, Come on, come on; you are pictures out of
And swell his sail with thine own powerful doors,
breath, Bells in your parlors, wild-cats in your
That he may bless this bay with his tall ship, kitchens,
Make love's quick pants in Desdemona's Saints m your injuries, devils being offended,
arms, Players in your housewifery, and housewives'
Give renew'd fire to our extincted spirits in your beds.
And bring all Cyprus comfort! DESDEMONA
Enter DESDEMONA, EMILIA, IAGO, O, fie upon thee, slanderer!
RODERIGO, and Attendants IAGO
O, behold, Nay, it is true, or else I am a Turk:
The riches of the ship is come on shore! You rise to play and go to bed to work.
Ye men of Cyprus, let her have your knees. EMILIA
Hail to thee, lady! and the grace of heaven, You shall not write my praise.
Before, behind thee, and on every hand, IAGO
Enwheel thee round! No, let me not.
DESDEMONA DESDEMONA
I thank you, valiant Cassio. What wouldst thou write of me, if thou
What tidings can you tell me of my lord? shouldst
CASSIO praise me?
He is not yet arrived: nor know I aught IAGO
But that he's well and will be shortly here. O gentle lady, do not put me to't;
DESDEMONA For I am nothing, if not critical.
O, but I fear--How lost you company? DESDEMONA
CASSIO Come on assay. There's one gone to the
The great contention of the sea and skies harbour?
Parted our fellowship--But, hark! a sail. IAGO
Within 'A sail, a sail!' Guns heard Ay, madam.
Second Gentleman DESDEMONA
They give their greeting to the citadel; I am not merry; but I do beguile
This likewise is a friend. The thing I am, by seeming otherwise.
CASSIO Come, how wouldst thou praise me?
See for the news. IAGO
Exit Gentleman I am about it; but indeed my invention
Good ancient, you are welcome. Comes from my pate as birdlime does from
To EMILIA frize;
Welcome, mistress. It plucks out brains and all: but my Muse
Let it not gall your patience, good Iago, labours,
That I extend my manners; 'tis my breeding And thus she is deliver'd.
That gives me this bold show of courtesy. If she be fair and wise, fairness and wit,
Kissing her The one's for use, the other useth it.
IAGO DESDEMONA
Sir, would she give you so much of her lips Well praised! How if she be black and witty?
As of her tongue she oft bestows on me, IAGO
You'll have enough. If she be black, and thereto have a wit,
DESDEMONA She'll find a white that shall her blackness fit.
Alas, she has no speech. DESDEMONA
IAGO Worse and worse.
In faith, too much; EMILIA
I find it still, when I have list to sleep: How if fair and foolish?
Marry, before your ladyship, I grant, IAGO
She never yet was foolish that was fair;
For even her folly help'd her to an heir.
DESDEMONA
These are old fond paradoxes to make fools
laugh i'
the 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 lack'd gold and yet went never gay,
Fled from her wish and yet said 'Now I may,'
She that being anger'd, 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 wight 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.
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
courtesy! 'tis so, indeed. Yet again your
fingers
to your lips? would they were clyster-pipes
for your sake!
Trumpet within
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
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 waken'd
death!
And let the labouring bark 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, and this, the greatest discords be
Kissing her
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 drown'd.
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,
Go to the bay and disembark my coffers:
Bring thou the master to the citadel;
He is a good one, and his worthiness
Does challenge much respect. Come,
Desdemona,
Once more, well met at Cyprus.
Exeunt OTHELLO, DESDEMONA, and
Attendants
IAGO
Do thou meet me presently at the harbour.
Come
hither. If thou be'st valiant,-- as, they say,
base
men being in love have then a nobility in
their
natures more than is native to them--list me.
The
lieutenant tonight watches on the court of
guard:--first, I must tell thee this--
Desdemona is
directly in love with him.
RODERIGO
With him! why, 'tis not possible.
IAGO
Lay thy finger thus, and let thy soul be
instructed.
Mark me with what violence she first loved
the Moor,
but for bragging and telling her fantastical
lies:
and will she love him still for prating? let not
thy discreet heart think it. Her eye must be
fed;
and what delight shall she have to look on
the
devil? When the blood is made dull with the
act of
sport, there should be, again to inflame it
and to
give satiety a fresh appetite, loveliness in
favour,
sympathy in years, manners and beauties;
all which
the Moor is defective in: now, for want of
these
required conveniences, her delicate
tenderness will
find itself abused, begin to heave the gorge,
disrelish and abhor the Moor; very nature will
instruct her in it and compel her to some
second
choice. Now, sir, this granted,--as it is a most
pregnant and unforced position--who stands
so
eminent in the degree of this fortune as
Cassio
does? a knave very voluble; no further
conscionable than in putting on the mere
form of
civil and humane seeming, for the better
compassing
of his salt and most hidden loose affection?
why,
none; why, none: a slipper and subtle knave,
a
finder of occasions, that has an eye can
stamp and
counterfeit advantages, though true
advantage never
present itself; a devilish knave. Besides, the
knave is handsome, young, and hath all
those
requisites in him that folly and green minds
look
after: a pestilent complete knave; and the
woman
hath found him already.
RODERIGO
I cannot believe that in her; she's full of
most blessed condition.
IAGO
Blessed fig's-end! the wine she drinks is
made of
grapes: if she had been blessed, she would
never
have loved the Moor. Blessed pudding! Didst
thou
not see her paddle with the palm of his
hand? didst
not mark that?
RODERIGO
Yes, that I did; but that was but courtesy.
IAGO
Lechery, by this hand; an index and obscure
prologue
to the history of lust and foul thoughts. They
met
so near with their lips that their breaths
embraced The Moor, howbeit that I endure him not,
together. Villanous thoughts, Roderigo! when Is of a constant, loving, noble nature,
these And I dare think he'll prove to Desdemona
mutualities so marshal the way, hard at hand A most dear husband. Now, I do love her too;
comes Not out of absolute lust, though
the master and main exercise, the peradventure
incorporate I stand accountant for as great a sin,
conclusion, Pish! But, sir, be you ruled by But partly led to diet my revenge,
me: I For that I do suspect the lusty Moor
have brought you from Venice. Watch you to- Hath leap'd into my seat; the thought
night; whereof
for the command, I'll lay't upon you. Cassio Doth, like a poisonous mineral, gnaw my
knows inwards;
you not. I'll not be far from you: do you find And nothing can or shall content my soul
some occasion to anger Cassio, either by Till I am even'd with him, wife for wife,
speaking Or failing so, yet that I put the Moor
too loud, or tainting his discipline; or from At least into a jealousy so strong
what That judgment cannot cure. Which thing to
other course you please, which the time shall do,
more If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trash
favourably minister. For his quick hunting, stand the putting on,
RODERIGO I'll have our Michael Cassio on the hip,
Well. Abuse him to the Moor in the rank garb--
IAGO For I fear Cassio with my night-cap too--
Sir, he is rash and very sudden in choler, and Make the Moor thank me, love me and
haply reward me.
may strike at you: provoke him, that he may; For making him egregiously an ass
for And practising upon his peace and quiet
even out of that will I cause these of Cyprus Even to madness. 'Tis here, but yet
to confused:
mutiny; whose qualification shall come into Knavery's plain face is never seen tin used.
no true Exit
taste again but by the displanting of Cassio. SCENE II. A street.
So Enter a Herald with a proclamation; People
shall you have a shorter journey to your following
desires by Herald
the means I shall then have to prefer them; It is Othello's pleasure, our noble and valiant
and the general, that, upon certain tidings now
impediment most profitably removed, arrived,
without the importing the mere perdition of the Turkish
which there were no expectation of our fleet,
prosperity. every man put himself into triumph; some to
RODERIGO dance,
I will do this, if I can bring it to any some to make bonfires, each man to what
opportunity. sport and
IAGO revels his addiction leads him: for, besides
I warrant thee. Meet me by and by at the these
citadel: beneficial news, it is the celebration of his
I must fetch his necessaries ashore. Farewell. nuptial. So much was his pleasure should be
RODERIGO proclaimed. All offices are open, and there is
Adieu. full
Exit liberty of feasting from this present hour of
IAGO five
That Cassio loves her, I do well believe it; till the bell have told eleven. Heaven bless
That she loves him, 'tis apt and of great the
credit: isle of Cyprus and our noble general Othello!
Exeunt IAGO
SCENE III. A hall in the castle. Well, happiness to their sheets! Come,
Enter OTHELLO, DESDEMONA, CASSIO, and lieutenant, I
Attendants have a stoup of wine; and here without are a
OTHELLO brace
Good Michael, look you to the guard to-night: of Cyprus gallants that would fain have a
Let's teach ourselves that honourable stop, measure to
Not to outsport discretion. the health of black Othello.
CASSIO CASSIO
Iago hath direction what to do; Not to-night, good Iago: I have very poor and
But, notwithstanding, with my personal eye unhappy brains for drinking: I could well wish
Will I look to't. courtesy would invent some other custom of
OTHELLO entertainment.
Iago is most honest. IAGO
Michael, good night: to-morrow with your O, they are our friends; but one cup: I'll drink
earliest for
Let me have speech with you. you.
To DESDEMONA CASSIO
Come, my dear love, I have drunk but one cup to-night, and that
The purchase made, the fruits are to ensue; was
That profit's yet to come 'tween me and you. craftily qualified too, and, behold, what
Good night. innovation
Exeunt OTHELLO, DESDEMONA, and it makes here: I am unfortunate in the
Attendants infirmity,
Enter IAGO and dare not task my weakness with any
CASSIO more.
Welcome, Iago; we must to the watch. IAGO
IAGO What, man! 'tis a night of revels: the gallants
Not this hour, lieutenant; 'tis not yet ten o' desire it.
the CASSIO
clock. Our general cast us thus early for the Where are they?
love IAGO
of his Desdemona; who let us not therefore Here at the door; I pray you, call them in.
blame: CASSIO
he hath not yet made wanton the night with I'll do't; but it dislikes me.
her; and Exit
she is sport for Jove. IAGO
CASSIO If I can fasten but one cup upon him,
She's a most exquisite lady. With that which he hath drunk to-night
IAGO already,
And, I'll warrant her, fun of game. He'll be as full of quarrel and offence
CASSIO As my young mistress' dog. Now, my sick
Indeed, she's a most fresh and delicate fool Roderigo,
creature. Whom love hath turn'd almost the wrong
IAGO side out,
What an eye she has! methinks it sounds a To Desdemona hath to-night caroused
parley of Potations pottle-deep; and he's to watch:
provocation. Three lads of Cyprus, noble swelling spirits,
CASSIO That hold their honours in a wary distance,
An inviting eye; and yet methinks right The very elements of this warlike isle,
modest. Have I to-night fluster'd with flowing cups,
IAGO And they watch too. Now, 'mongst this flock
And when she speaks, is it not an alarum to of drunkards,
love? Am I to put our Cassio in some action
CASSIO That may offend the isle.--But here they
She is indeed perfection. come:
If consequence do but approve my dream, CASSIO
My boat sails freely, both with wind and Why, this is a more exquisite song than the
stream. other.
Re-enter CASSIO; with him MONTANO and IAGO
Gentlemen; servants following with wine Will you hear't again?
CASSIO CASSIO
'Fore God, they have given me a rouse No; for I hold him to be unworthy of his place
already. that
MONTANO does those things. Well, God's above all; and
Good faith, a little one; not past a pint, as I there
am be souls must be saved, and there be souls
a soldier. must not be saved.
IAGO IAGO
Some wine, ho! It's true, good lieutenant.
Sings CASSIO
And let me the canakin clink, clink; For mine own part,--no offence to the
And let me the canakin clink general, nor
A soldier's a man; any man of quality,--I hope to be saved.
A life's but a span; IAGO
Why, then, let a soldier drink. And so do I too, lieutenant.
Some wine, boys! CASSIO
CASSIO Ay, but, by your leave, not before me; the
'Fore God, an excellent song. lieutenant is to be saved before the ancient.
IAGO Let's
I learned it in England, where, indeed, they have no more of this; let's to our affairs.--
are Forgive
most potent in potting: your Dane, your us our sins!--Gentlemen, let's look to our
German, and business.
your swag-bellied Hollander--Drink, ho!--are Do not think, gentlemen. I am drunk: this is
nothing my
to your English. ancient; this is my right hand, and this is my
CASSIO left:
Is your Englishman so expert in his drinking? I am not drunk now; I can stand well enough,
IAGO and
Why, he drinks you, with facility, your Dane speak well enough.
dead All
drunk; he sweats not to overthrow your Excellent well.
Almain; he CASSIO
gives your Hollander a vomit, ere the next Why, very well then; you must not think then
pottle that I am drunk.
can be filled. Exit
CASSIO MONTANO
To the health of our general! To the platform, masters; come, let's set the
MONTANO watch.
I am for it, lieutenant; and I'll do you justice. IAGO
IAGO You see this fellow that is gone before;
O sweet England! He is a soldier fit to stand by Caesar
King Stephen was a worthy peer, And give direction: and do but see his vice;
His breeches cost him but a crown; 'Tis to his virtue a just equinox,
He held them sixpence all too dear, The one as long as the other: 'tis pity of him.
With that he call'd the tailor lown. I fear the trust Othello puts him in.
He was a wight of high renown, On some odd time of his infirmity,
And thou art but of low degree: Will shake this island.
'Tis pride that pulls the country down; MONTANO
Then take thine auld cloak about thee. But is he often thus?
Some wine, ho! IAGO
'Tis evermore the prologue to his sleep: Exit RODERIGO
He'll watch the horologe a double set, Nay, good lieutenant,--alas, gentlemen;--
If drink rock not his cradle. Help, ho!--Lieutenant,--sir,--Montano,--sir;
MONTANO Help, masters!--Here's a goodly watch
It were well indeed!
The general were put in mind of it. Bell rings
Perhaps he sees it not; or his good nature Who's that which rings the bell?--Diablo, ho!
Prizes the virtue that appears in Cassio, The town will rise: God's will, lieutenant,
And looks not on his evils: is not this true? hold!
Enter RODERIGO You will be shamed for ever.
IAGO Re-enter OTHELLO and Attendants
[Aside to him] How now, Roderigo! OTHELLO
I pray you, after the lieutenant; go. What is the matter here?
Exit RODERIGO MONTANO
MONTANO 'Zounds, I bleed still; I am hurt to the death.
And 'tis great pity that the noble Moor Faints
Should hazard such a place as his own OTHELLO
second Hold, for your lives!
With one of an ingraft infirmity: IAGO
It were an honest action to say Hold, ho! Lieutenant,--sir--Montano,--
So to the Moor. gentlemen,--
IAGO Have you forgot all sense of place and duty?
Not I, for this fair island: Hold! the general speaks to you; hold, hold,
I do love Cassio well; and would do much for shame!
To cure him of this evil--But, hark! what OTHELLO
noise? Why, how now, ho! from whence ariseth this?
Cry within: 'Help! help!' Are we turn'd Turks, and to ourselves do that
Re-enter CASSIO, driving in RODERIGO Which heaven hath forbid the Ottomites?
CASSIO For Christian shame, put by this barbarous
You rogue! you rascal! brawl:
MONTANO He that stirs next to carve for his own rage
What's the matter, lieutenant? Holds his soul light; he dies upon his motion.
CASSIO Silence that dreadful bell: it frights the isle
A knave teach me my duty! From her propriety. What is the matter,
I'll beat the knave into a twiggen bottle. masters?
RODERIGO Honest Iago, that look'st dead with grieving,
Beat me! Speak, who began this? on thy love, I charge
CASSIO thee.
Dost thou prate, rogue? IAGO
Striking RODERIGO I do not know: friends all but now, even now,
MONTANO In quarter, and in terms like bride and groom
Nay, good lieutenant; Devesting them for bed; and then, but now--
Staying him As if some planet had unwitted men--
I pray you, sir, hold your hand. Swords out, and tilting one at other's breast,
CASSIO In opposition bloody. I cannot speak
Let me go, sir, Any beginning to this peevish odds;
Or I'll knock you o'er the mazzard. And would in action glorious I had lost
MONTANO Those legs that brought me to a part of it!
Come, come, OTHELLO
you're drunk. How comes it, Michael, you are thus forgot?
CASSIO CASSIO
Drunk! I pray you, pardon me; I cannot speak.
They fight OTHELLO
IAGO Worthy Montano, you were wont be civil;
[Aside to RODERIGO] Away, I say; go out, The gravity and stillness of your youth
and cry a mutiny. The world hath noted, and your name is
great
In mouths of wisest censure: what's the
matter,
That you unlace your reputation thus
And spend your rich opinion for the name
Of a night-brawler? give me answer to it.
MONTANO
Worthy Othello, I am hurt to danger:
Your officer, Iago, can inform you,--
While I spare speech, which something now
offends me,--
Of all that I do know: nor know I aught
By me that's said or done amiss this night;
Unless self-charity be sometimes a vice,
And to defend ourselves it be a sin
When violence assails us.
OTHELLO
Now, by heaven,
My blood begins my safer guides to rule;
And passion, having my best judgment
collied,
Assays to lead the way: if I once stir,
Or do but lift this arm, the best of you
Shall sink in my rebuke. Give me to know
How this foul rout began, who set it on;
And he that is approved in this offence,
Though he had twinn'd with me, both at a
birth,
Shall lose me. What! in a town of war,
Yet wild, the people's hearts brimful of fear,
To manage private and domestic quarrel,
In night, and on the court and guard of
safety!
'Tis monstrous. Iago, who began't?
MONTANO
If partially affined, or leagued in office,
Thou dost deliver more or less than truth,
Thou art no soldier.
IAGO
Touch me not so near:
I had rather have this tongue cut from my
mouth
Than it should do offence to Michael Cassio;
Yet, I persuade myself, to speak the truth
Shall nothing wrong him. Thus it is, general.
Montano and myself being in speech,
There comes a fellow crying out for help:
And Cassio following him with determined
sword,
To execute upon him. Sir, this gentleman
Steps in to Cassio, and entreats his pause:
Myself the crying fellow did pursue,
Lest by his clamour--as it so fell out--
The town might fall in fright: he, swift of foot,
Outran my purpose; and I return'd the rather
For that I heard the clink and fall of swords,
And Cassio high in oath; which till to-night
I ne'er might say before. When I came back--
For this was brief--I found them close
together,
At blow and thrust; even as again they were
When you yourself did part them.
More of this matter cannot I report:
But men are men; the best sometimes
forget:
Though Cassio did some little wrong to him,
As men in rage strike those that wish them
best,
Yet surely Cassio, I believe, received
From him that fled some strange indignity,
Which patience could not pass.
OTHELLO
I know, Iago,
Thy honesty and love doth mince this
matter,
Making it light to Cassio. Cassio, I love thee
But never more be officer of mine.
Re-enter DESDEMONA, attended
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 It hath pleased the devil drunkenness to give
that than place
in reputation. Reputation is an idle and most to the devil wrath; one unperfectness shows
false me
imposition: oft got without merit, and lost another, to make me frankly despise myself.
without IAGO
deserving: you have lost no reputation at all, Come, you are too severe a moraler: as the
unless you repute yourself such a loser. time,
What, man! the place, and the condition of this country
there are ways to recover the general again: stands, I could heartily wish this had not
you befallen;
are but now cast in his mood, a punishment but, since it is as it is, mend it for your own
more in good.
policy than in malice, even so as one would CASSIO
beat his I will ask him for my place again; he shall tell
offenceless dog to affright an imperious lion: me
sue I am a drunkard! Had I as many mouths as
to him again, and he's yours. Hydra,
CASSIO such an answer would stop them all. To be
I will rather sue to be despised than to now a
deceive so sensible man, by and by a fool, and presently
good a commander with so slight, so a
drunken, and so beast! O strange! Every inordinate cup is
indiscreet an officer. Drunk? and speak unblessed and the ingredient is a devil.
parrot? IAGO
and squabble? swagger? swear? and Come, come, good wine is a good familiar
discourse creature,
fustian with one's own shadow? O thou if it be well used: exclaim no more against it.
invisible And, good lieutenant, I think you think I love
spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be you.
known by, CASSIO
let us call thee devil! I have well approved it, sir. I drunk!
IAGO IAGO
What was he that you followed with your You or any man living may be drunk! at a
sword? What time, man.
had he done to you? I'll tell you what you shall do. Our general's
CASSIO wife
I know not. is now the general: may say so in this
IAGO respect, for
Is't possible? that he hath devoted and given up himself to
CASSIO the
I remember a mass of things, but nothing contemplation, mark, and denotement of her
distinctly; parts and
a quarrel, but nothing wherefore. O God, that graces: confess yourself freely to her;
men importune
should put an enemy in their mouths to steal her help to put you in your place again: she
away is of
their brains! that we should, with joy, so free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a
pleasance disposition,
revel and applause, transform ourselves into she holds it a vice in her goodness not to do
beasts! more
IAGO than she is requested: this broken joint
Why, but you are now well enough: how between
came you thus you and her husband entreat her to splinter;
recovered? and, my
CASSIO 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
IAGO
And what's he then that says I play the
villain?
When this advice is free I give and honest,
Probal to thinking and indeed the course
To win the Moor again? For 'tis most easy
The inclining Desdemona to subdue
In any honest suit: she's framed as fruitful
As the free elements. And then for her
To win the Moor--were't to renounce his
baptism,
All seals and symbols of redeemed sin,
His soul is so enfetter'd to her love,
That she may make, unmake, do what she
list,
Even as her appetite shall play the god
With his weak function. How am I then a
villain
To counsel Cassio to this parallel course,
Directly to his good? Divinity of hell!
When devils will the blackest sins put on,
They do suggest at first with heavenly
shows,
As I do now: for whiles this honest fool
Plies Desdemona to repair his fortunes
And she for him pleads strongly to the Moor,
I'll pour this pestilence into his ear,
That she repeals him for her body's lust;
And by how much she strives to do him
good,
She shall undo her credit with the Moor.
So will I turn her virtue into pitch,
And out of her own goodness make the net
That shall enmesh them all.
Re-enter RODERIGO
How now, Roderigo!
RODERIGO
I do follow here in the chase, not like a hound
that
hunts, but one that fills up the cry. My money
is
almost spent; I have been to-night
exceedingly well
cudgelled; and I think the issue will be, I shall
have so much experience for my pains, and
so, with
no money at all and a little more wit, return
again to Venice.
IAGO
How poor are they that have not patience!
What wound did ever heal but by degrees?
Thou know'st we work by wit, and not by
witchcraft;
And wit depends on dilatory time.
Does't not go well? Cassio hath beaten thee.
And thou, by that small hurt, hast cashier'd
Cassio:
Though other things grow fair against the
sun,
Yet fruits that blossom first will first be ripe:
Content thyself awhile. By the mass, 'tis
morning;
Pleasure and action make the hours seem
short.
Retire thee; go where thou art billeted:
Away, I say; thou shalt know more hereafter:
Nay, get thee gone.
Exit RODERIGO
Two things are to be done:
My wife must move for Cassio to her
mistress;
I'll set her on;
Myself the while to draw the Moor apart,
And bring him jump when he may Cassio find
Soliciting his wife: ay, that's the way
Dull not device by coldness and delay.
Exit
ACT III
SCENE I. Before the castle.
Enter CASSIO and some Musicians
CASSIO
Masters, play here; I will content your pains;
Something that's brief; and bid 'Good
morrow, general.'
Music
Enter Clown
Clown
Why masters, have your instruments been in
Naples,
that they speak i' the nose thus?
First Musician
How, sir, how!
Clown
Are these, I pray you, wind-instruments? To send in to your wife: my suit to her
First Musician Is, that she will to virtuous Desdemona
Ay, marry, are they, sir. Procure me some access.
Clown IAGO
O, thereby hangs a tail. I'll send her to you presently;
First Musician And I'll devise a mean to draw the Moor
Whereby hangs a tale, sir? Out of the way, that your converse and
Clown business
Marry. sir, by many a wind-instrument that I May be more free.
know. CASSIO
But, masters, here's money for you: and the I humbly thank you for't.
general Exit IAGO
so likes your music, that he desires you, for I never knew
love's A Florentine more kind and honest.
sake, to make no more noise with it. Enter EMILIA
First Musician EMILIA
Well, sir, we will not. Good morrow, good Lieutenant: I am sorry
Clown For your displeasure; but all will sure be well.
If you have any music that may not be heard, The general and his wife are talking of it;
to't And she speaks for you stoutly: the Moor
again: but, as they say to hear music the replies,
general That he you hurt is of great fame in Cyprus,
does not greatly care. And great affinity, and that in wholesome
First Musician wisdom
We have none such, sir. He might not but refuse you; but he protests
Clown he loves you
Then put up your pipes in your bag, for I'll And needs no other suitor but his likings
away: To take the safest occasion by the front
go; vanish into air; away! To bring you in again.
Exeunt Musicians CASSIO
CASSIO Yet, I beseech you,
Dost thou hear, my honest friend? If you think fit, or that it may be done,
Clown Give me advantage of some brief discourse
No, I hear not your honest friend; I hear you. With Desdemona alone.
CASSIO EMILIA
Prithee, keep up thy quillets. There's a poor Pray you, come in;
piece I will bestow you where you shall have time
of gold for thee: if the gentlewoman that To speak your bosom freely.
attends CASSIO
the general's wife be stirring, tell her there's I am much bound to you.
one Cassio entreats her a little favour of Exeunt
speech: SCENE II. A room in the castle.
wilt thou do this? Enter OTHELLO, IAGO, and Gentlemen
Clown OTHELLO
She is stirring, sir: if she will stir hither, I These letters give, Iago, to the pilot;
shall seem to notify unto her. And by him do my duties to the senate:
CASSIO That done, I will be walking on the works;
Do, good my friend. Repair there to me.
Exit Clown IAGO
Enter IAGO Well, my good lord, I'll do't.
In happy time, Iago. OTHELLO
IAGO This fortification, gentlemen, shall we see't?
You have not been a-bed, then? Gentleman
CASSIO We'll wait upon your lordship.
Why, no; the day had broke Exeunt
Before we parted. I have made bold, Iago, SCENE III. The garden of the castle.
Enter DESDEMONA, CASSIO, and EMILIA Enter OTHELLO and IAGO
DESDEMONA IAGO
Be thou assured, good Cassio, I will do Ha! I like not that.
All my abilities in thy behalf. OTHELLO
EMILIA What dost thou say?
Good madam, do: I warrant it grieves my IAGO
husband, Nothing, my lord: or if--I know not what.
As if the case were his. OTHELLO
DESDEMONA Was not that Cassio parted from my wife?
O, that's an honest fellow. Do not doubt, IAGO
Cassio, Cassio, my lord! No, sure, I cannot think it,
But I will have my lord and you again That he would steal away so guilty-like,
As friendly as you were. Seeing you coming.
CASSIO OTHELLO
Bounteous madam, I do believe 'twas he.
Whatever shall become of Michael Cassio, DESDEMONA
He's never any thing but your true servant. How now, my lord!
DESDEMONA I have been talking with a suitor here,
I know't; I thank you. You do love my lord: A man that languishes in your displeasure.
You have known him long; and be you well OTHELLO
assured Who is't you mean?
He shall in strangeness stand no further off DESDEMONA
Than in a polite distance. Why, your lieutenant, Cassio. Good my lord,
CASSIO If I have any grace or power to move you,
Ay, but, lady, His present reconciliation take;
That policy may either last so long, For if he be not one that truly loves you,
Or feed upon such nice and waterish diet, That errs in ignorance and not in cunning,
Or breed itself so out of circumstance, I have no judgment in an honest face:
That, I being absent and my place supplied, I prithee, call him back.
My general will forget my love and service. OTHELLO
DESDEMONA Went he hence now?
Do not doubt that; before Emilia here DESDEMONA
I give thee warrant of thy place: assure thee, Ay, sooth; so humbled
If I do vow a friendship, I'll perform it That he hath left part of his grief with me,
To the last article: my lord shall never rest; To suffer with him. Good love, call him back.
I'll watch him tame and talk him out of OTHELLO
patience; Not now, sweet Desdemona; some other
His bed shall seem a school, his board a time.
shrift; DESDEMONA
I'll intermingle every thing he does But shall't be shortly?
With Cassio's suit: therefore be merry, OTHELLO
Cassio; The sooner, sweet, for you.
For thy solicitor shall rather die DESDEMONA
Than give thy cause away. Shall't be to-night at supper?
EMILIA OTHELLO
Madam, here comes my lord. No, not to-night.
CASSIO DESDEMONA
Madam, I'll take my leave. To-morrow dinner, then?
DESDEMONA OTHELLO
Why, stay, and hear me speak. I shall not dine at home;
CASSIO I meet the captains at the citadel.
Madam, not now: I am very ill at ease, DESDEMONA
Unfit for mine own purposes. Why, then, to-morrow night; or Tuesday
DESDEMONA morn;
Well, do your discretion. On Tuesday noon, or night; on Wednesday
Exit CASSIO morn:
I prithee, name the time, but let it not IAGO
Exceed three days: in faith, he's penitent; But for a satisfaction of my thought;
And yet his trespass, in our common reason-- No further harm.
Save that, they say, the wars must make OTHELLO
examples Why of thy thought, Iago?
Out of their best--is not almost a fault IAGO
To incur a private cheque. When shall he I did not think he had been acquainted with
come? her.
Tell me, Othello: I wonder in my soul, OTHELLO
What you would ask me, that I should deny, O, yes; and went between us very oft.
Or stand so mammering on. What! Michael IAGO
Cassio, Indeed!
That came a-wooing with you, and so many a OTHELLO
time, Indeed! ay, indeed: discern'st thou aught in
When I have spoke of you dispraisingly, that?
Hath ta'en your part; to have so much to do Is he not honest?
To bring him in! Trust me, I could do much,-- IAGO
OTHELLO Honest, my lord!
Prithee, no more: let him come when he will; OTHELLO
I will deny thee nothing. Honest! ay, honest.
DESDEMONA IAGO
Why, this is not a boon; My lord, for aught I know.
'Tis as I should entreat you wear your gloves, OTHELLO
Or feed on nourishing dishes, or keep you What dost thou think?
warm, IAGO
Or sue to you to do a peculiar profit Think, my lord!
To your own person: nay, when I have a suit OTHELLO
Wherein I mean to touch your love indeed, Think, my lord!
It shall be full of poise and difficult weight By heaven, he echoes me,
And fearful to be granted. As if there were some monster in his thought
OTHELLO Too hideous to be shown. Thou dost mean
I will deny thee nothing: something:
Whereon, I do beseech thee, grant me this, I heard thee say even now, thou likedst not
To leave me but a little to myself. that,
DESDEMONA When Cassio left my wife: what didst not
Shall I deny you? no: farewell, my lord. like?
OTHELLO And when I told thee he was of my counsel
Farewell, my Desdemona: I'll come to thee In my whole course of wooing, thou criedst
straight. 'Indeed!'
DESDEMONA And didst contract and purse thy brow
Emilia, come. Be as your fancies teach you; together,
Whate'er you be, I am obedient. As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain
Exeunt DESDEMONA and EMILIA Some horrible conceit: if thou dost love me,
OTHELLO Show me thy thought.
Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul, IAGO
But I do love thee! and when I love thee not, My lord, you know I love you.
Chaos is come again. OTHELLO
IAGO I think thou dost;
My noble lord-- And, for I know thou'rt full of love and
OTHELLO honesty,
What dost thou say, Iago? And weigh'st thy words before thou givest
IAGO them breath,
Did Michael Cassio, when you woo'd my lady, Therefore these stops of thine fright me the
Know of your love? more:
OTHELLO For such things in a false disloyal knave
He did, from first to last: why dost thou ask? Are tricks of custom, but in a man that's just
They are close delations, working from the
heart
That passion cannot rule.
IAGO
For Michael Cassio,
I dare be sworn I think that he is honest.
OTHELLO
I think so too.
IAGO
Men should be what they seem;
Or those that be not, would they might seem
none!
OTHELLO
Certain, men should be what they seem.
IAGO
Why, then, I think Cassio's an honest man.
OTHELLO
Nay, yet there's more in this:
I prithee, speak to me as to thy thinkings,
As thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of
thoughts
The worst of words.
IAGO
Good my lord, pardon me:
Though I am bound to every act of duty,
I am not bound to that all slaves are free to.
Utter my thoughts? Why, say they are vile
and false;
As where's that palace whereinto foul things
Sometimes intrude not? who has a breast so
pure,
But some uncleanly apprehensions
Keep leets and law-days and in session sit
With meditations lawful?
OTHELLO
Thou dost conspire against thy friend, Iago,
If thou but think'st him wrong'd and makest
his ear
A stranger to thy thoughts.
IAGO
I do beseech you--
Though I perchance am vicious in my guess,
As, I confess, it is my nature's plague
To spy into abuses, and oft my jealousy
Shapes faults that are not--that your wisdom
yet,
From one that so imperfectly conceits,
Would take no notice, nor build yourself a
trouble
Out of his scattering and unsure observance.
It were not for your quiet nor your good,
Nor for my manhood, honesty, or wisdom,
To let you know my thoughts.
OTHELLO
What dost thou mean?
IAGO
Good name in man and woman, dear my
lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis
something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to
thousands:
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.
OTHELLO
By heaven, I'll know thy thoughts.
IAGO
You cannot, if my heart were in your hand;
Nor shall not, whilst 'tis in my custody.
OTHELLO
Ha!
IAGO
O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth
mock
The meat it feeds on; that cuckold lives in
bliss
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his
wronger;
But, O, what damned minutes tells he o'er
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet
strongly loves!
OTHELLO
O misery!
IAGO
Poor and content is rich and rich enough,
But riches fineless is as poor as winter
To him that ever fears he shall be poor.
Good heaven, the souls of all my tribe
defend
From jealousy!
OTHELLO
Why, why is this?
Think'st thou I'ld make a lie of jealousy,
To follow still the changes of the moon
With fresh suspicions? No; to be once in
doubt
Is once to be resolved: exchange me for a
goat,
When I shall turn the business of my soul
To such exsufflicate and blown surmises,
Matching thy inference. 'Tis not to make me
jealous
To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves
company,
Is free of speech, sings, plays and dances
well;
Where virtue is, these are more virtuous:
Nor from mine own weak merits will I draw
The smallest fear or doubt of her revolt;
For she had eyes, and chose me. No, Iago;
I'll see before I doubt; when I doubt, prove;
And on the proof, there is no more but this,--
Away at once with love or jealousy!
IAGO
I am glad of it; for now I shall have reason
To show the love and duty that I bear you
With franker spirit: therefore, as I am bound,
Receive it from me. I speak not yet of proof.
Look to your wife; observe her well with
Cassio;
Wear your eye thus, not jealous nor secure:
I would not have your free and noble nature,
Out of self-bounty, be abused; look to't:
I know our country disposition well;
In Venice they do let heaven see the pranks
They dare not show their husbands; their
best conscience
Is not to leave't undone, but keep't unknown.
OTHELLO
Dost thou say so?
IAGO
She did deceive her father, marrying you;
And when she seem'd to shake and fear your
looks,
She loved them most.
OTHELLO
And so she did.
IAGO
Why, go to then;
She that, so young, could give out such a
seeming,
To seal her father's eyes up close as oak-
He thought 'twas witchcraft--but I am much
to blame;
I humbly do beseech you of your pardon
For too much loving you.
OTHELLO
I am bound to thee for ever.
IAGO
I see this hath a little dash'd your spirits.
OTHELLO
Not a jot, not a jot.
IAGO
I' faith, I fear it has.
I hope you will consider what is spoke
Comes from my love. But I do see you're
moved:
I am to pray you not to strain my speech
To grosser issues nor to larger reach
Than to suspicion.
OTHELLO
I will not.
IAGO
Should you do so, my lord,
My speech should fall into such vile success
As my thoughts aim not at. Cassio's my
worthy friend--
My lord, I see you're moved.
OTHELLO
No, not much moved:
I do not think but Desdemona's honest.
IAGO
Long live she so! and long live you to think
so!
OTHELLO
And yet, how nature erring from itself,--
IAGO
Ay, there's the point: as--to be bold with
you--
Not to affect many proposed matches
Of her own clime, complexion, and degree,
Whereto we see in all things nature tends--
Foh! one may smell in such a will most rank,
Foul disproportion thoughts unnatural.
But pardon me; I do not in position
Distinctly speak of her; though I may fear
Her will, recoiling to her better judgment,
May fall to match you with her country forms
And happily repent.
OTHELLO
Farewell, farewell:
If more thou dost perceive, let me know
more;
Set on thy wife to observe: leave me, Iago:
IAGO
[Going] My lord, I take my leave.
OTHELLO
Why did I marry? This honest creature
doubtless
Sees and knows more, much more, than he
unfolds.
IAGO
[Returning] My lord, I would I might entreat
your honour
To scan this thing no further; leave it to time:
Though it be fit that Cassio have his place,
For sure, he fills it up with great ability,
Yet, if you please to hold him off awhile,
You shall by that perceive him and his
means:
Note, if your lady strain his entertainment
With any strong or vehement importunity;
Much will be seen in that. In the mean time,
Let me be thought too busy in my fears--
As worthy cause I have to fear I am--
And hold her free, I do beseech your honour.
OTHELLO
Fear not my government.
IAGO
I once more take my leave.
Exit
OTHELLO My wayward husband hath a hundred times
This fellow's of exceeding honesty, Woo'd me to steal it; but she so loves the
And knows all qualities, with a learned spirit, token,
Of human dealings. If I do prove her haggard, For he conjured her she should ever keep it,
Though that her jesses were my dear That she reserves it evermore about her
heartstrings, To kiss and talk to. I'll have the work ta'en
I'ld whistle her off and let her down the wind, out,
To pray at fortune. Haply, for I am black And give't Iago: what he will do with it
And have not those soft parts of Heaven knows, not I;
conversation I nothing but to please his fantasy.
That chamberers have, or for I am declined Re-enter Iago
Into the vale of years,--yet that's not much-- IAGO
She's gone. I am abused; and my relief How now! what do you here alone?
Must be to loathe her. O curse of marriage, EMILIA
That we can call these delicate creatures Do not you chide; I have a thing for you.
ours, IAGO
And not their appetites! I had rather be a A thing for me? it is a common thing--
toad, EMILIA
And live upon the vapour of a dungeon, Ha!
Than keep a corner in the thing I love IAGO
For others' uses. Yet, 'tis the plague of great To have a foolish wife.
ones; EMILIA
Prerogatived are they less than the base; O, is that all? What will you give me now
'Tis destiny unshunnable, like death: For the same handkerchief?
Even then this forked plague is fated to us IAGO
When we do quicken. Desdemona comes: What handkerchief?
Re-enter DESDEMONA and EMILIA EMILIA
If she be false, O, then heaven mocks itself! What handkerchief?
I'll not believe't. Why, that the Moor first gave to Desdemona;
DESDEMONA That which so often you did bid me steal.
How now, my dear Othello! IAGO
Your dinner, and the generous islanders Hast stol'n it from her?
By you invited, do attend your presence. EMILIA
OTHELLO No, 'faith; she let it drop by negligence.
I am to blame. And, to the advantage, I, being here, took't
DESDEMONA up.
Why do you speak so faintly? Look, here it is.
Are you not well? IAGO
OTHELLO A good wench; give it me.
I have a pain upon my forehead here. EMILIA
DESDEMONA What will you do with 't, that you have been
'Faith, that's with watching; 'twill away again: so earnest
Let me but bind it hard, within this hour To have me filch it?
It will be well. IAGO
OTHELLO [Snatching it] Why, what's that to you?
Your napkin is too little: EMILIA
He puts the handkerchief from him; and it If it be not for some purpose of import,
drops Give't me again: poor lady, she'll run mad
Let it alone. Come, I'll go in with you. When she shall lack it.
DESDEMONA IAGO
I am very sorry that you are not well. Be not acknown on 't; I have use for it.
Exeunt OTHELLO and DESDEMONA Go, leave me.
EMILIA Exit EMILIA
I am glad I have found this napkin: I will in Cassio's lodging lose this napkin,
This was her first remembrance from the And let him find it. Trifles light as air
Moor: Are to the jealous confirmations strong
As proofs of holy writ: this may do
something.
The Moor already changes with my poison:
Dangerous conceits are, in their natures,
poisons.
Which at the first are scarce found to
distaste,
But with a little act upon the blood.
Burn like the mines of Sulphur. I did say so:
Look, where he comes!
Re-enter OTHELLO
Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owedst yesterday.
OTHELLO
Ha! ha! false to me?
IAGO
Why, how now, general! no more of that.
OTHELLO
Avaunt! be gone! thou hast set me on the
rack:
I swear 'tis better to be much abused
Than but to know't a little.
IAGO
How now, my lord!
OTHELLO
What sense had I of her stol'n hours of lust?
I saw't not, thought it not, it harm'd not me:
I slept the next night well, was free and
merry;
I found not Cassio's kisses on her lips:
He that is robb'd, not wanting what is stol'n,
Let him not know't, and he's not robb'd at all.
IAGO
I am sorry to hear this.
OTHELLO
I had been happy, if the general camp,
Pioners and all, had tasted her sweet body,
So I had nothing known. O, now, for ever
Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!
Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars,
That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!
Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill
trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious
war!
And, O you mortal engines, whose rude
throats
The immortal Jove's dead clamours
counterfeit,
Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!
IAGO
Is't possible, my lord?
OTHELLO
Villain, be sure thou prove my love a whore,
Be sure of it; give me the ocular proof:
Or by the worth of man's eternal soul,
Thou hadst been better have been born a
dog
Than answer my waked wrath!
IAGO
Is't come to this?
OTHELLO
Make me to see't; or, at the least, so prove it,
That the probation bear no hinge nor loop
To hang a doubt on; or woe upon thy life!
IAGO
My noble lord,--
OTHELLO
If thou dost slander her and torture me,
Never pray more; abandon all remorse;
On horror's head horrors accumulate;
Do deeds to make heaven weep, all earth
amazed;
For nothing canst thou to damnation add
Greater than that.
IAGO
O grace! O heaven forgive me!
Are you a man? have you a soul or sense?
God be wi' you; take mine office. O wretched
fool.
That livest to make thine honesty a vice!
O monstrous world! Take note, take note, O
world,
To be direct and honest is not safe.
I thank you for this profit; and from hence
I'll love no friend, sith love breeds such
offence.
OTHELLO
Nay, stay: thou shouldst be honest.
IAGO
I should be wise, for honesty's a fool
And loses that it works for.
OTHELLO
By the world,
I think my wife be honest and think she is
not;
I think that thou art just and think thou art
not.
I'll have some proof. Her name, that was as
fresh
As Dian's visage, is now begrimed and black
As mine own face. If there be cords, or
knives,
Poison, or fire, or suffocating streams,
I'll not endure it. Would I were satisfied!
IAGO
I see, sir, you are eaten up with passion:
I do repent me that I put it to you.
You would be satisfied?
OTHELLO
Would! nay, I will.
IAGO
And may: but, how? how satisfied, my lord?
Would you, the supervisor, grossly gape on--
Behold her topp'd?
OTHELLO
Death and damnation! O!
IAGO
It were a tedious difficulty, I think,
To bring them to that prospect: damn them
then,
If ever mortal eyes do see them bolster
More than their own! What then? how then?
What shall I say? Where's satisfaction?
It is impossible you should see this,
Were they as prime as goats, as hot as
monkeys,
As salt as wolves in pride, and fools as gross
As ignorance made drunk. But yet, I say,
If imputation and strong circumstances,
Which lead directly to the door of truth,
Will give you satisfaction, you may have't.
OTHELLO
Give me a living reason she's disloyal.
IAGO
I do not like the office:
But, sith I am enter'd in this cause so far,
Prick'd to't by foolish honesty and love,
I will go on. I lay with Cassio lately;
And, being troubled with a raging tooth,
I could not sleep.
There are a kind of men so loose of soul,
That in their sleeps will mutter their affairs:
One of this kind is Cassio:
In sleep I heard him say 'Sweet Desdemona,
Let us be wary, let us hide our loves;'
And then, sir, would he gripe and wring my
hand,
Cry 'O sweet creature!' and then kiss me
hard,
As if he pluck'd up kisses by the roots
That grew upon my lips: then laid his leg
Over my thigh, and sigh'd, and kiss'd; and
then
Cried 'Cursed fate that gave thee to the
Moor!'
OTHELLO
O monstrous! monstrous!
IAGO
Nay, this was but his dream.
OTHELLO
But this denoted a foregone conclusion:
'Tis a shrewd doubt, though it be but a
dream.
IAGO
And this may help to thicken other proofs
That do demonstrate thinly.
OTHELLO
I'll tear her all to pieces.
IAGO
Nay, but be wise: yet we see nothing done;
She may be honest yet. Tell me but this,
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 to-day
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 cell!
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, blood, 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 Can any thing be made of this?
heaven, Clown
Kneels I know not where he lodges, and for me to
In the due reverence of a sacred vow devise a
I here engage my words. lodging and say he lies here or he lies there,
IAGO were
Do not rise yet. to lie in mine own throat.
Kneels DESDEMONA
Witness, you ever-burning lights above, Can you inquire him out, and be edified by
You elements that clip us round about, report?
Witness that here Iago doth give up Clown
The execution of his wit, hands, heart, I will catechise the world for him; that is,
To wrong'd Othello's service! Let him make
command, questions, and by them answer.
And to obey shall be in me remorse, DESDEMONA
What bloody business ever. Seek him, bid him come hither: tell him I
They rise have
OTHELLO moved my lord on his behalf, and hope all
I greet thy love, will be well.
Not with vain thanks, but with acceptance Clown
bounteous, To do this is within the compass of man's wit:
And will upon the instant put thee to't: and
Within these three days let me hear thee say therefore I will attempt the doing it.
That Cassio's not alive. Exit
IAGO DESDEMONA
My friend is dead; 'tis done at your request: Where should I lose that handkerchief,
But let her live. Emilia?
OTHELLO EMILIA
Damn her, lewd minx! O, damn her! I know not, madam.
Come, go with me apart; I will withdraw, DESDEMONA
To furnish me with some swift means of Believe me, I had rather have lost my purse
death Full of crusadoes: and, but my noble Moor
For the fair devil. Now art thou my Is true of mind and made of no such
lieutenant. baseness
IAGO As jealous creatures are, it were enough
I am your own for ever. To put him to ill thinking.
Exeunt EMILIA
SCENE IV. Before the castle. Is he not jealous?
Enter DESDEMONA, EMILIA, and Clown DESDEMONA
DESDEMONA Who, he? I think the sun where he was born
Do you know, sirrah, where Lieutenant Drew all such humours from him.
Cassio lies? EMILIA
Clown Look, where he comes.
I dare not say he lies any where. DESDEMONA
DESDEMONA I will not leave him now till Cassio
Why, man? Be call'd to him.
Clown Enter OTHELLO
He's a soldier, and for one to say a soldier How is't with you, my lord
lies, OTHELLO
is stabbing. Well, my good lady.
DESDEMONA Aside
Go to: where lodges he? O, hardness to dissemble!--
Clown How do you, Desdemona?
To tell you where he lodges, is to tell you DESDEMONA
where I lie. Well, my good lord.
DESDEMONA OTHELLO
Give me your hand: this hand is moist, my wive,
lady. To give it her. I did so: and take heed on't;
DESDEMONA Make it a darling like your precious eye;
It yet hath felt no age nor known no sorrow. To lose't or give't away were such perdition
OTHELLO As nothing else could match.
This argues fruitfulness and liberal heart: DESDEMONA
Hot, hot, and moist: this hand of yours Is't possible?
requires OTHELLO
A sequester from liberty, fasting and prayer, 'Tis true: there's magic in the web of it:
Much castigation, exercise devout; A sibyl, that had number'd in the world
For here's a young and sweating devil here, The sun to course two hundred compasses,
That commonly rebels. 'Tis a good hand, In her prophetic fury sew'd the work;
A frank one. The worms were hallow'd that did breed the
DESDEMONA silk;
You may, indeed, say so; And it was dyed in mummy which the skilful
For 'twas that hand that gave away my Conserved of maidens' hearts.
heart. DESDEMONA
OTHELLO Indeed! is't true?
A liberal hand: the hearts of old gave hands; OTHELLO
But our new heraldry is hands, not hearts. Most veritable; therefore look to't well.
DESDEMONA DESDEMONA
I cannot speak of this. Come now, your Then would to God that I had never seen't!
promise. OTHELLO
OTHELLO Ha! wherefore?
What promise, chuck? DESDEMONA
DESDEMONA Why do you speak so startingly and rash?
I have sent to bid Cassio come speak with OTHELLO
you. Is't lost? is't gone? speak, is it out
OTHELLO o' the way?
I have a salt and sorry rheum offends me; DESDEMONA
Lend me thy handkerchief. Heaven bless us!
DESDEMONA OTHELLO
Here, my lord. Say you?
OTHELLO DESDEMONA
That which I gave you. It is not lost; but what an if it were?
DESDEMONA OTHELLO
I have it not about me. How!
OTHELLO DESDEMONA
Not? I say, it is not lost.
DESDEMONA OTHELLO
No, indeed, my lord. Fetch't, let me see't.
OTHELLO DESDEMONA
That is a fault. Why, so I can, sir, but I will not now.
That handkerchief This is a trick to put me from my suit:
Did an Egyptian to my mother give; Pray you, let Cassio be received again.
She was a charmer, and could almost read OTHELLO
The thoughts of people: she told her, while Fetch me the handkerchief: my mind
she kept it, misgives.
'Twould make her amiable and subdue my DESDEMONA
father Come, come;
Entirely to her love, but if she lost it You'll never meet a more sufficient man.
Or made gift of it, my father's eye OTHELLO
Should hold her loathed and his spirits The handkerchief!
should hunt DESDEMONA
After new fancies: she, dying, gave it me;
And bid me, when my fate would have me I pray, talk me of Cassio.
OTHELLO
The handkerchief!
DESDEMONA
A man that all his time
Hath founded his good fortunes on your love,
Shared dangers with you,--
OTHELLO
The handkerchief!
DESDEMONA
In sooth, you are to blame.
OTHELLO
Away!
Exit
EMILIA
Is not this man jealous?
DESDEMONA
I ne'er saw this before.
Sure, there's some wonder in this
handkerchief:
I am most unhappy in the loss of it.
EMILIA
'Tis not a year or two shows us a man:
They are all but stomachs, and we all but
food;
To eat us hungerly, and when they are full,
They belch us. Look you, Cassio and my
husband!
Enter CASSIO and IAGO
IAGO
There is no other way; 'tis she must do't:
And, lo, the happiness! go, and importune
her.
DESDEMONA
How now, good Cassio! what's the news with
you?
CASSIO
Madam, my former suit: I do beseech you
That by your virtuous means I may again
Exist, and be a member of his love
Whom I with all the office of my heart
Entirely honour: I would not be delay'd.
If my offence be of such mortal kind
That nor my service past, nor present
sorrows,
Nor purposed merit in futurity,
Can ransom me into his love again,
But to know so must be my benefit;
So shall I clothe me in a forced content,
And shut myself up in some other course,
To fortune's alms.
DESDEMONA
Alas, thrice-gentle Cassio!
My advocation is not now in tune;
My lord is not my lord; nor should I know
him,
Were he in favour as in humour alter'd.
So help me every spirit sanctified,
As I have spoken for you all my best
And stood within the blank of his displeasure
For my free speech! you must awhile be
patient:
What I can do I will; and more I will
Than for myself I dare: let that suffice you.
IAGO
Is my lord angry?
EMILIA
He went hence but now,
And certainly in strange unquietness.
IAGO
Can he be angry? I have seen the cannon,
When it hath blown his ranks into the air,
And, like the devil, from his very arm
Puff'd his own brother:--and can he be angry?
Something of moment then: I will go meet
him:
There's matter in't indeed, if he be angry.
DESDEMONA
I prithee, do so.
Exit IAGO
Something, sure, of state,
Either from Venice, or some unhatch'd
practise
Made demonstrable here in Cyprus to him,
Hath puddled his clear spirit: and in such
cases
Men's natures wrangle with inferior things,
Though great ones are their object. 'Tis even
so;
For let our finger ache, and it indues
Our other healthful members even to that
sense
Of pain: nay, we must think men are not
gods,
Nor of them look for such observances
As fit the bridal. Beshrew me much, Emilia,
I was, unhandsome warrior as I am,
Arraigning his unkindness with my soul;
But now I find I had suborn'd the witness,
And he's indicted falsely.
EMILIA
Pray heaven it be state-matters, as you
think,
And no conception nor no jealous toy
Concerning you.
DESDEMONA
Alas the day! I never gave him cause.
EMILIA
But jealous souls will not be answer'd so;
They are not ever jealous for the cause,
But jealous for they are jealous: 'tis a
monster
Begot upon itself, born on itself.
DESDEMONA As like enough it will--I'ld have it copied:
Heaven keep that monster from Othello's Take it, and do't; and leave me for this time.
mind! BIANCA
EMILIA Leave you! wherefore?
Lady, amen. CASSIO
DESDEMONA I do attend here on the general;
I will go seek him. Cassio, walk hereabout: And think it no addition, nor my wish,
If I do find him fit, I'll move your suit To have him see me woman'd.
And seek to effect it to my uttermost. BIANCA
CASSIO Why, I pray you?
I humbly thank your ladyship. CASSIO
Exeunt DESDEMONA and EMILIA Not that I love you not.
Enter BIANCA BIANCA
BIANCA But that you do not love me.
Save you, friend Cassio! I pray you, bring me on the way a little,
CASSIO And say if I shall see you soon at night.
What make you from home? CASSIO
How is it with you, my most fair Bianca? 'Tis but a little way that I can bring you;
I' faith, sweet love, I was coming to your For I attend here: but I'll see you soon.
house. BIANCA
BIANCA 'Tis very good; I must be circumstanced.
And I was going to your lodging, Cassio. Exeunt
What, keep a week away? seven days and ACT IV
nights? SCENE I. Cyprus. Before the castle.
Eight score eight hours? and lovers' absent Enter OTHELLO and IAGO
hours, IAGO
More tedious than the dial eight score times? Will you think so?
O weary reckoning! OTHELLO
CASSIO Think so, Iago!
Pardon me, Bianca: IAGO
I have this while with leaden thoughts been What,
press'd: To kiss in private?
But I shall, in a more continuate time, OTHELLO
Strike off this score of absence. Sweet An unauthorized kiss.
Bianca, IAGO
Giving her DESDEMONA's handkerchief Or to be naked with her friend in bed
Take me this work out. An hour or more, not meaning any harm?
BIANCA OTHELLO
O Cassio, whence came this? Naked in bed, Iago, and not mean harm!
This is some token from a newer friend: It is hypocrisy against the devil:
To the felt absence now I feel a cause: They that mean virtuously, and yet do so,
Is't come to this? Well, well. The devil their virtue tempts, and they tempt
CASSIO heaven.
Go to, woman! IAGO
Throw your vile guesses in the devil's teeth, So they do nothing, 'tis a venial slip:
From whence you have them. You are jealous But if I give my wife a handkerchief,--
now OTHELLO
That this is from some mistress, some What then?
remembrance: IAGO
No, in good troth, Bianca. Why, then, 'tis hers, my lord; and, being
BIANCA hers,
Why, whose is it? She may, I think, bestow't on any man.
CASSIO OTHELLO
I know not, sweet: I found it in my chamber. She is protectress of her honour too:
I like the work well: ere it be demanded-- May she give that?
IAGO
Her honour is an essence that's not seen; Falls in a trance
They have it very oft that have it not: IAGO
But, for the handkerchief,-- Work on,
OTHELLO My medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are
By heaven, I would most gladly have forgot caught;
it. And many worthy and chaste dames even
Thou said'st, it comes o'er my memory, thus,
As doth the raven o'er the infected house, All guiltless, meet reproach. What, ho! my
Boding to all--he had my handkerchief. lord!
IAGO My lord, I say! Othello!
Ay, what of that? Enter CASSIO
OTHELLO How now, Cassio!
That's not so good now. CASSIO
IAGO What's the matter?
What, IAGO
If I had said I had seen him do you wrong? My lord is fall'n into an epilepsy:
Or heard him say,--as knaves be such This is his second fit; he had one yesterday.
abroad, CASSIO
Who having, by their own importunate suit, Rub him about the temples.
Or voluntary dotage of some mistress, IAGO
Convinced or supplied them, cannot choose No, forbear;
But they must blab-- The lethargy must have his quiet course:
OTHELLO If not, he foams at mouth and by and by
Hath he said any thing? Breaks out to savage madness. Look he stirs:
IAGO Do you withdraw yourself a little while,
He hath, my lord; but be you well assured, He will recover straight: when he is gone,
No more than he'll unswear. I would on great occasion speak with you.
OTHELLO Exit CASSIO
What hath he said? How is it, general? have you not hurt your
IAGO head?
'Faith, that he did--I know not what he did. OTHELLO
OTHELLO Dost thou mock me?
What? what? IAGO
IAGO I mock you! no, by heaven.
Lie-- Would you would bear your fortune like a
OTHELLO man!
With her? OTHELLO
IAGO A horned man's a monster and a beast.
With her, on her; what you will. IAGO
OTHELLO There's many a beast then in a populous city,
Lie with her! lie on her! We say lie on her, And many a civil monster.
when OTHELLO
they belie her. Lie with her! that's fulsome. Did he confess it?
--Handkerchief--confessions--handkerchief!-- IAGO
To Good sir, be a man;
confess, and be hanged for his labour;--first, Think every bearded fellow that's but yoked
to be May draw with you: there's millions now alive
hanged, and then to confess.--I tremble at it. That nightly lie in those unproper beds
Nature would not invest herself in such Which they dare swear peculiar: your case is
shadowing better.
passion without some instruction. It is not O, 'tis the spite of hell, the fiend's arch-mock,
words To lip a wanton in a secure couch,
that shake me thus. Pish! Noses, ears, and And to suppose her chaste! No, let me know;
lips. And knowing what I am, I know what she
--Is't possible?--Confess--handkerchief!--O shall be.
devil!-- OTHELLO
O, thou art wise; 'tis certain. Alas, poor caitiff!
IAGO OTHELLO
Stand you awhile apart; Look, how he laughs already!
Confine yourself but in a patient list. IAGO
Whilst you were here o'erwhelmed with your I never knew woman love man so.
grief-- CASSIO
A passion most unsuiting such a man-- Alas, poor rogue! I think, i' faith, she loves
Cassio came hither: I shifted him away, me.
And laid good 'scuse upon your ecstasy, OTHELLO
Bade him anon return and here speak with Now he denies it faintly, and laughs it out.
me; IAGO
The which he promised. Do but encave Do you hear, Cassio?
yourself, OTHELLO
And mark the fleers, the gibes, and notable Now he importunes him
scorns, To tell it o'er: go to; well said, well said.
That dwell in every region of his face; IAGO
For I will make him tell the tale anew, She gives it out that you shall marry hey:
Where, how, how oft, how long ago, and Do you intend it?
when CASSIO
He hath, and is again to cope your wife: Ha, ha, ha!
I say, but mark his gesture. Marry, patience; OTHELLO
Or I shall say you are all in all in spleen, Do you triumph, Roman? do you triumph?
And nothing of a man. CASSIO
OTHELLO I marry her! what? a customer! Prithee, bear
Dost thou hear, Iago? some
I will be found most cunning in my patience; charity to my wit: do not think it so
But--dost thou hear?--most bloody. unwholesome.
IAGO Ha, ha, ha!
That's not amiss; OTHELLO
But yet keep time in all. Will you withdraw? So, so, so, so: they laugh that win.
OTHELLO retires IAGO
Now will I question Cassio of Bianca, 'Faith, the cry goes that you shall marry her.
A housewife that by selling her desires CASSIO
Buys herself bread and clothes: it is a Prithee, say true.
creature IAGO
That dotes on Cassio; as 'tis the strumpet's I am a very villain else.
plague OTHELLO
To beguile many and be beguiled by one: Have you scored me? Well.
He, when he hears of her, cannot refrain CASSIO
From the excess of laughter. Here he comes: This is the monkey's own giving out: she is
Re-enter CASSIO persuaded I will marry her, out of her own
As he shall smile, Othello shall go mad; love and
And his unbookish jealousy must construe flattery, not out of my promise.
Poor Cassio's smiles, gestures and light OTHELLO
behavior, Iago beckons me; now he begins the story.
Quite in the wrong. How do you now, CASSIO
lieutenant? She was here even now; she haunts me in
CASSIO every place.
The worser that you give me the addition I was the other day talking on the sea-bank
Whose want even kills me. with
IAGO certain Venetians; and thither comes the
Ply Desdemona well, and you are sure on't. bauble,
Speaking lower and, by this hand, she falls me thus about
Now, if this suit lay in Bianco's power, my neck--
How quickly should you speed! OTHELLO
CASSIO
Crying 'O dear Cassio!' as it were: his gesture Well, I may chance to see you; for I would
imports it. very fain
CASSIO speak with you.
So hangs, and lolls, and weeps upon me; so CASSIO
hales, Prithee, come; will you?
and pulls me: ha, ha, ha! IAGO
OTHELLO Go to; say no more.
Now he tells how she plucked him to my Exit CASSIO
chamber. O, OTHELLO
I see that nose of yours, but not that dog I [Advancing] How shall I murder him, Iago?
shall IAGO
throw it to. Did you perceive how he laughed at his vice?
CASSIO OTHELLO
Well, I must leave her company. O Iago!
IAGO IAGO
Before me! look, where she comes. And did you see the handkerchief?
CASSIO OTHELLO
'Tis such another fitchew! marry a perfumed Was that mine?
one. IAGO
Enter BIANCA Yours by this hand: and to see how he prizes
What do you mean by this haunting of me? the
BIANCA foolish woman your wife! she gave it him,
Let the devil and his dam haunt you! What and he
did you hath given it his whore.
mean by that same handkerchief you gave OTHELLO
me even now? I would have him nine years a-killing.
I was a fine fool to take it. I must take out the A fine woman! a fair woman! a sweet
work?--A likely piece of work, that you should woman!
find IAGO
it in your chamber, and not know who left it Nay, you must forget that.
there! OTHELLO
This is some minx's token, and I must take Ay, let her rot, and perish, and be damned
out the to-night;
work? There; give it your hobby-horse: for she shall not live: no, my heart is turned
wheresoever to
you had it, I'll take out no work on't. stone; I strike it, and it hurts my hand. O, the
CASSIO world hath not a sweeter creature: she might
How now, my sweet Bianca! how now! how lie by
now! an emperor's side and command him tasks.
OTHELLO IAGO
By heaven, that should be my handkerchief! Nay, that's not your way.
BIANCA OTHELLO
An you'll come to supper to-night, you may; Hang her! I do but say what she is: so
an you delicate
will not, come when you are next prepared with her needle: an admirable musician: O!
for. she
Exit will sing the savageness out of a bear: of so
IAGO high
After her, after her. and plenteous wit and invention:--
CASSIO IAGO
'Faith, I must; she'll rail in the street else. She's the worse for all this.
IAGO OTHELLO
Will you sup there? O, a thousand thousand times: and then, of
CASSIO so
'Faith, I intend so. gentle a condition!
IAGO IAGO
Ay, too gentle. I am very glad to see you, signior
OTHELLO Welcome to Cyprus.
Nay, that's certain: but yet the pity of it, LODOVICO
Iago! I thank you. How does Lieutenant Cassio?
O Iago, the pity of it, Iago! IAGO
IAGO Lives, sir.
If you are so fond over her iniquity, give her DESDEMONA
patent to offend; for, if it touch not you, it Cousin, there's fall'n between him and my
comes lord
near nobody. An unkind breach: but you shall make all
OTHELLO well.
I will chop her into messes: cuckold me! OTHELLO
IAGO Are you sure of that?
O, 'tis foul in her. DESDEMONA
OTHELLO My lord?
With mine officer! OTHELLO
IAGO [Reads] 'This fail you not to do, as you will--'
That's fouler. LODOVICO
OTHELLO He did not call; he's busy in the paper.
Get me some poison, Iago; this night: I'll not Is there division 'twixt my lord and Cassio?
expostulate with her, lest her body and DESDEMONA
beauty A most unhappy one: I would do much
unprovide my mind again: this night, Iago. To atone them, for the love I bear to Cassio.
IAGO OTHELLO
Do it not with poison, strangle her in her bed, Fire and brimstone!
even DESDEMONA
the bed she hath contaminated. My lord?
OTHELLO OTHELLO
Good, good: the justice of it pleases: very Are you wise?
good. DESDEMONA
IAGO What, is he angry?
And for Cassio, let me be his undertaker: you LODOVICO
shall hear more by midnight. May be the letter moved him;
OTHELLO For, as I think, they do command him home,
Excellent good. Deputing Cassio in his government.
A trumpet within DESDEMONA
What trumpet is that same? Trust me, I am glad on't.
IAGO OTHELLO
Something from Venice, sure. 'Tis Lodovico Indeed!
Come from the duke: and, see, your wife is DESDEMONA
with him. My lord?
Enter LODOVICO, DESDEMONA, and OTHELLO
Attendants I am glad to see you mad.
LODOVICO DESDEMONA
Save you, worthy general! Why, sweet Othello,--
OTHELLO OTHELLO
With all my heart, sir. [Striking her] Devil!
LODOVICO DESDEMONA
The duke and senators of Venice greet you. I have not deserved this.
Gives him a letter LODOVICO
OTHELLO My lord, this would not be believed in Venice,
I kiss the instrument of their pleasures. Though I should swear I saw't: 'tis very
Opens the letter, and reads much:
DESDEMONA Make her amends; she weeps.
And what's the news, good cousin Lodovico? OTHELLO
IAGO
O devil, devil! 'Faith, that was not so well; yet would I knew
If that the earth could teem with woman's That stroke would prove the worst!
tears, LODOVICO
Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile. Is it his use?
Out of my sight! Or did the letters work upon his blood,
DESDEMONA And new-create this fault?
I will not stay to offend you. IAGO
Going Alas, alas!
LODOVICO It is not honesty in me to speak
Truly, an obedient lady: What I have seen and known. You shall
I do beseech your lordship, call her back. observe him,
OTHELLO And his own courses will denote him so
Mistress! That I may save my speech: do but go after,
DESDEMONA And mark how he continues.
My lord? LODOVICO
OTHELLO I am sorry that I am deceived in him.
What would you with her, sir? Exeunt
LODOVICO SCENE II. A room in the castle.
Who, I, my lord? Enter OTHELLO and EMILIA
OTHELLO OTHELLO
Ay; you did wish that I would make her turn: You have seen nothing then?
Sir, she can turn, and turn, and yet go on, EMILIA
And turn again; and she can weep, sir, weep; Nor ever heard, nor ever did suspect.
And she's obedient, as you say, obedient, OTHELLO
Very obedient. Proceed you in your tears. Yes, you have seen Cassio and she together.
Concerning this, sir,--O well-painted EMILIA
passion!-- But then I saw no harm, and then I heard
I am commanded home. Get you away; Each syllable that breath made up between
I'll send for you anon. Sir, I obey the them.
mandate, OTHELLO
And will return to Venice. Hence, avaunt! What, did they never whisper?
Exit DESDEMONA EMILIA
Cassio shall have my place. And, sir, tonight, Never, my lord.
I do entreat that we may sup together: OTHELLO
You are welcome, sir, to Cyprus.--Goats and Nor send you out o' the way?
monkeys! EMILIA
Exit Never.
LODOVICO OTHELLO
Is this the noble Moor whom our full senate To fetch her fan, her gloves, her mask, nor
Call all in all sufficient? Is this the nature nothing?
Whom passion could not shake? whose solid EMILIA
virtue Never, my lord.
The shot of accident, nor dart of chance, OTHELLO
Could neither graze nor pierce? That's strange.
IAGO EMILIA
He is much changed. I durst, my lord, to wager she is honest,
LODOVICO Lay down my soul at stake: if you think
Are his wits safe? is he not light of brain? other,
IAGO Remove your thought; it doth abuse your
He's that he is: I may not breathe my bosom.
censure If any wretch have put this in your head,
What he might be: if what he might he is not, Let heaven requite it with the serpent's
I would to heaven he were! curse!
LODOVICO For, if she be not honest, chaste, and true,
What, strike his wife! There's no man happy; the purest of their
IAGO
wives DESDEMONA
Is foul as slander. Alas the heavy day! Why do you weep?
OTHELLO Am I the motive of these tears, my lord?
Bid her come hither: go. If haply you my father do suspect
Exit EMILIA An instrument of this your calling back,
She says enough; yet she's a simple bawd Lay not your blame on me: If you have lost
That cannot say as much. This is a subtle him,
whore, Why, I have lost him too.
A closet lock and key of villanous secrets OTHELLO
And yet she'll kneel and pray; I have seen Had it pleased heaven
her do't. To try me with affliction; had they rain'd
Enter DESDEMONA with EMILIA All kinds of sores and shames on my bare
DESDEMONA head.
My lord, what is your will? Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips,
OTHELLO Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes,
Pray, chuck, come hither. I should have found in some place of my soul
DESDEMONA A drop of patience: but, alas, to make me
What is your pleasure? A fixed figure for the time of scorn
OTHELLO To point his slow unmoving finger at!
Let me see your eyes; Yet could I bear that too; well, very well:
Look in my face. But there, where I have garner'd up my
DESDEMONA heart,
What horrible fancy's this? Where either I must live, or bear no life;
OTHELLO The fountain from the which my current runs,
[To EMILIA] Some of your function, mistress; Or else dries up; to be discarded thence!
Leave procreants alone and shut the door; Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads
Cough, or cry 'hem,' if any body come: To knot and gender in! Turn thy complexion
Your mystery, your mystery: nay, dispatch. there,
Exit EMILIA Patience, thou young and rose-lipp'd
DESDEMONA cherubin,--
Upon my knees, what doth your speech Ay, there, look grim as hell!
import? DESDEMONA
I understand a fury in your words. I hope my noble lord esteems me honest.
But not the words. OTHELLO
OTHELLO O, ay; as summer flies are in the shambles,
Why, what art thou? That quicken even with blowing. O thou
DESDEMONA weed,
Your wife, my lord; your true Who art so lovely fair and smell'st so sweet
And loyal wife. That the sense aches at thee, would thou
OTHELLO hadst
Come, swear it, damn thyself ne'er been born!
Lest, being like one of heaven, the devils DESDEMONA
themselves Alas, what ignorant sin have I committed?
Should fear to seize thee: therefore be OTHELLO
double damn'd: Was this fair paper, this most goodly book,
Swear thou art honest. Made to write 'whore' upon? What
DESDEMONA committed!
Heaven doth truly know it. Committed! O thou public commoner!
OTHELLO I should make very forges of my cheeks,
Heaven truly knows that thou art false as That would to cinders burn up modesty,
hell. Did I but speak thy deeds. What committed!
DESDEMONA Heaven stops the nose at it and the moon
To whom, my lord? with whom? how am I winks,
false? The bawdy wind that kisses all it meets
OTHELLO Is hush'd within the hollow mine of earth,
O Desdemona! away! away! away!
And will not hear it. What committed! remember;
Impudent strumpet! And call thy husband hither.
DESDEMONA EMILIA
By heaven, you do me wrong. Here's a change indeed!
OTHELLO Exit
Are you not a strumpet? DESDEMONA
DESDEMONA 'Tis meet I should be used so, very meet.
No, as I am a Christian: How have I been behaved, that he might
If to preserve this vessel for my lord stick
From any other foul unlawful touch The small'st opinion on my least misuse?
Be not to be a strumpet, I am none. Re-enter EMILIA with IAGO
OTHELLO IAGO
What, not a whore? What is your pleasure, madam?
DESDEMONA How is't with you?
No, as I shall be saved. DESDEMONA
OTHELLO I cannot tell. Those that do teach young
Is't possible? babes
DESDEMONA Do it with gentle means and easy tasks:
O, heaven forgive us! He might have chid me so; for, in good faith,
OTHELLO I am a child to chiding.
I cry you mercy, then: IAGO
I took you for that cunning whore of Venice What's the matter, lady?
That married with Othello. EMILIA
Raising his voice Alas, Iago, my lord hath so bewhored her.
You, mistress, Thrown such despite and heavy terms upon
That have the office opposite to Saint Peter, her,
And keep the gate of hell! As true hearts cannot bear.
Re-enter EMILIA DESDEMONA
You, you, ay, you! Am I that name, Iago?
We have done our course; there's money for IAGO
your pains: What name, fair lady?
I pray you, turn the key and keep our DESDEMONA
counsel. Such as she says my lord did say I was.
Exit EMILIA
EMILIA He call'd her whore: a beggar in his drink
Alas, what does this gentleman conceive? Could not have laid such terms upon his
How do you, madam? how do you, my good callat.
lady? IAGO
DESDEMONA Why did he so?
'Faith, half asleep. DESDEMONA
EMILIA I do not know; I am sure I am none such.
Good madam, what's the matter with my IAGO
lord? Do not weep, do not weep. Alas the day!
DESDEMONA EMILIA
With who? Hath she forsook so many noble matches,
EMILIA Her father and her country and her friends,
Why, with my lord, madam. To be call'd whore? would it not make one
DESDEMONA weep?
Who is thy lord? DESDEMONA
EMILIA It is my wretched fortune.
He that is yours, sweet lady. IAGO
DESDEMONA Beshrew him for't!
I have none: do not talk to me, Emilia; How comes this trick upon him?
I cannot weep; nor answer have I none, DESDEMONA
But what should go by water. Prithee, tonight Nay, heaven doth know.
Lay on my bed my wedding sheets: EMILIA
I will be hang'd, if some eternal villain, I pray you, be content; 'tis but his humour:
Some busy and insinuating rogue, The business of the state does him offence,
Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some And he does chide with you.
office, DESDEMONA
Have not devised this slander; I'll be hang'd If 'twere no other--
else. IAGO
IAGO 'Tis but so, I warrant.
Fie, there is no such man; it is impossible. Trumpets within
DESDEMONA Hark, how these instruments summon to
If any such there be, heaven pardon him! supper!
EMILIA The messengers of Venice stay the meat;
A halter pardon him! and hell gnaw his Go in, and weep not; all things shall be well.
bones! Exeunt DESDEMONA and EMILIA
Why should he call her whore? who keeps Enter RODERIGO
her company? How now, Roderigo!
What place? what time? what form? what RODERIGO
likelihood? I do not find that thou dealest justly with me.
The Moor's abused by some most villanous IAGO
knave, What in the contrary?
Some base notorious knave, some scurvy RODERIGO
fellow. Every day thou daffest me with some device,
O heaven, that such companions thou'ldst Iago;
unfold, and rather, as it seems to me now, keepest
And put in every honest hand a whip from me
To lash the rascals naked through the world all conveniency than suppliest me with the
Even from the east to the west! least
IAGO advantage of hope. I will indeed no longer
Speak within door. endure
EMILIA it, nor am I yet persuaded to put up in peace
O, fie upon them! Some such squire he was what
That turn'd your wit the seamy side without, already I have foolishly suffered.
And made you to suspect me with the Moor. IAGO
IAGO Will you hear me, Roderigo?
You are a fool; go to. RODERIGO
DESDEMONA 'Faith, I have heard too much, for your words
O good Iago, and
What shall I do to win my lord again? performances are no kin together.
Good friend, go to him; for, by this light of IAGO
heaven, You charge me most unjustly.
I know not how I lost him. Here I kneel: RODERIGO
If e'er my will did trespass 'gainst his love, With nought but truth. I have wasted myself
Either in discourse of thought or actual deed, out of
Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense, my means. The jewels you have had from me
Delighted them in any other form; to
Or that I do not yet, and ever did. deliver to Desdemona would half have
And ever will--though he do shake me off corrupted a
To beggarly divorcement--love him dearly, votarist: you have told me she hath received
Comfort forswear me! Unkindness may do them
much; and returned me expectations and comforts
And his unkindness may defeat my life, of sudden
But never taint my love. I cannot say 'whore:' respect and acquaintance, but I find none.
It does abhor me now I speak the word; IAGO
To do the act that might the addition earn Well; go to; very well.
Not the world's mass of vanity could make RODERIGO
me. Very well! go to! I cannot go to, man; nor 'tis
IAGO not very well: nay, I think it is scurvy, and
begin O, no; he goes into Mauritania and takes
to find myself fobbed in it. away with
IAGO him the fair Desdemona, unless his abode be
Very well. lingered here by some accident: wherein
RODERIGO none can be
I tell you 'tis not very well. I will make myself so determinate as the removing of Cassio.
known to Desdemona: if she will return me RODERIGO
my How do you mean, removing of him?
jewels, I will give over my suit and repent my IAGO
unlawful solicitation; if not, assure yourself I Why, by making him uncapable of Othello's
will seek satisfaction of you. place;
IAGO knocking out his brains.
You have said now. RODERIGO
RODERIGO And that you would have me to do?
Ay, and said nothing but what I protest IAGO
intendment of doing. Ay, if you dare do yourself a profit and a
IAGO right.
Why, now I see there's mettle in thee, and He sups to-night with a harlotry, and thither
even from will I
this instant to build on thee a better opinion go to him: he knows not yet of his horrorable
than fortune. If you will watch his going thence,
ever before. Give me thy hand, Roderigo: which
thou hast I will fashion to fall out between twelve and
taken against me a most just exception; but one,
yet, I you may take him at your pleasure: I will be
protest, I have dealt most directly in thy near
affair. to second your attempt, and he shall fall
RODERIGO between
It hath not appeared. us. Come, stand not amazed at it, but go
IAGO along with
I grant indeed it hath not appeared, and your me; I will show you such a necessity in his
suspicion is not without wit and judgment. death
But, that you shall think yourself bound to put it
Roderigo, if thou hast that in thee indeed, on
which I him. It is now high suppertime, and the night
have greater reason to believe now than grows
ever, I mean to waste: about it.
purpose, courage and valour, this night show RODERIGO
it: if I will hear further reason for this.
thou the next night following enjoy not IAGO
Desdemona, And you shall be satisfied.
take me from this world with treachery and Exeunt
devise SCENE III. Another room In the castle.
engines for my life. Enter OTHELLO, LODOVICO, DESDEMONA,
RODERIGO EMILIA and Attendants
Well, what is it? is it within reason and LODOVICO
compass? I do beseech you, sir, trouble yourself no
IAGO further.
Sir, there is especial commission come from OTHELLO
Venice O, pardon me: 'twill do me good to walk.
to depute Cassio in Othello's place. LODOVICO
RODERIGO Madam, good night; I humbly thank your
Is that true? why, then Othello and ladyship.
Desdemona DESDEMONA
return again to Venice. Your honour is most welcome.
IAGO OTHELLO
Will you walk, sir? EMILIA
O,--Desdemona,-- Shall I go fetch your night-gown?
DESDEMONA DESDEMONA
My lord? No, unpin me here.
OTHELLO This Lodovico is a proper man.
Get you to bed on the instant; I will be EMILIA
returned A very handsome man.
forthwith: dismiss your attendant there: look DESDEMONA
it be done. He speaks well.
DESDEMONA EMILIA
I will, my lord. I know a lady in Venice would have walked
Exeunt OTHELLO, LODOVICO, and Attendants barefoot
EMILIA to Palestine for a touch of his nether lip.
How goes it now? he looks gentler than he DESDEMONA
did. [Singing] The poor soul sat sighing by a
DESDEMONA sycamore tree,
He says he will return incontinent: Sing all a green willow:
He hath commanded me to go to bed, Her hand on her bosom, her head on her
And bade me to dismiss you. knee,
EMILIA Sing willow, willow, willow:
Dismiss me! The fresh streams ran by her, and murmur'd
DESDEMONA her moans;
It was his bidding: therefore, good Emilia,. Sing willow, willow, willow;
Give me my nightly wearing, and adieu: Her salt tears fell from her, and soften'd the
We must not now displease him. stones;
EMILIA Lay by these:--
I would you had never seen him! Singing
DESDEMONA Sing willow, willow, willow;
So would not I my love doth so approve him, Prithee, hie thee; he'll come anon:--
That even his stubbornness, his cheques, his Singing
frowns-- Sing all a green willow must be my garland.
Prithee, unpin me,--have grace and favour in Let nobody blame him; his scorn I approve,-
them. Nay, that's not next.--Hark! who is't that
EMILIA knocks?
I have laid those sheets you bade me on the EMILIA
bed. It's the wind.
DESDEMONA DESDEMONA
All's one. Good faith, how foolish are our [Singing] I call'd my love false love; but what
minds! said he then?
If I do die before thee prithee, shroud me Sing willow, willow, willow:
In one of those same sheets. If I court moe women, you'll couch with moe
EMILIA men!
Come, come you talk. So, get thee gone; good night Ate eyes do
DESDEMONA itch;
My mother had a maid call'd Barbara: Doth that bode weeping?
She was in love, and he she loved proved EMILIA
mad 'Tis neither here nor there.
And did forsake her: she had a song of DESDEMONA
'willow;' I have heard it said so. O, these men, these
An old thing 'twas, but it express'd her men!
fortune, Dost thou in conscience think,--tell me,
And she died singing it: that song to-night Emilia,--
Will not go from my mind; I have much to do, That there be women do abuse their
But to go hang my head all at one side, husbands
And sing it like poor Barbara. Prithee, In such gross kind?
dispatch. EMILIA
There be some such, no question.
DESDEMONA
Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the
world?
EMILIA
Why, would not you?
DESDEMONA
No, by this heavenly light!
EMILIA
Nor I neither by this heavenly light;
I might do't as well i' the dark.
DESDEMONA
Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the
world?
EMILIA
The world's a huge thing: it is a great price.
For a small vice.
DESDEMONA
In troth, I think thou wouldst not.
EMILIA
In troth, I think I should; and undo't when I
had
done. Marry, I would not do such a thing for a
joint-ring, nor for measures of lawn, nor for
gowns, petticoats, nor caps, nor any petty
exhibition; but for the whole world,--why,
who would
not make her husband a cuckold to make
him a
monarch? I should venture purgatory for't.
DESDEMONA
Beshrew me, if I would do such a wrong
For the whole world.
EMILIA
Why the wrong is but a wrong i' the world:
and
having the world for your labour, tis a wrong
in your
own world, and you might quickly make it
right.
DESDEMONA
I do not think there is any such woman.
EMILIA
Yes, a dozen; and as many to the vantage as
would
store the world they played for.
But I do think it is their husbands' faults
If wives do fall: say that they slack their
duties,
And pour our treasures into foreign laps,
Or else break out in peevish jealousies,
Throwing restraint upon us; or say they strike
us,
Or scant our former having in despite;
Why, we have galls, and though we have
some grace,
Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands
know
Their wives have sense like them: they see
and smell
And have their palates both for sweet and
sour,
As husbands have. What is it that they do
When they change us for others? Is it sport?
I think it is: and doth affection breed it?
I think it doth: is't frailty that thus errs?
It is so too: and have not we affections,
Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?
Then let them use us well: else let them
know,
The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.
DESDEMONA
Good night, good night: heaven me such
uses send,
Not to pick bad from bad, but by bad mend!
Exeunt
ACT V
SCENE I. Cyprus. A street.
Enter IAGO and RODERIGO
IAGO
Here, stand behind this bulk; straight will he
come:
Wear thy good rapier bare, and put it home:
Quick, quick; fear nothing; I'll be at thy
elbow:
It makes us, or it mars us; think on that,
And fix most firm thy resolution.
RODERIGO
Be near at hand; I may miscarry in't.
IAGO
Here, at thy hand: be bold, and take thy
stand.
Retires
RODERIGO
I have no great devotion to the deed;
And yet he hath given me satisfying reasons:
'Tis but a man gone. Forth, my sword: he
dies.
IAGO
I have rubb'd this young quat almost to the
sense,
And he grows angry. Now, whether he kill
Cassio,
Or Cassio him, or each do kill the other,
Every way makes my gain: live Roderigo,
He calls me to a restitution large
Of gold and jewels that I bobb'd from him,
As gifts to Desdemona;
It must not be: if Cassio do remain,
He hath a daily beauty in his life
That makes me ugly; and, besides, the Moor
May unfold me to him; there stand I in much
peril: unsafe
No, he must die. But so: I hear him coming. To come in to the cry without more help.
Enter CASSIO RODERIGO
RODERIGO Nobody come? then shall I bleed to death.
I know his gait, 'tis he.--Villain, thou diest! LODOVICO
Makes a pass at CASSIO Hark!
CASSIO Re-enter IAGO, with a light
That thrust had been mine enemy indeed, GRATIANO
But that my coat is better than thou know'st Here's one comes in his shirt, with light and
I will make proof of thine. weapons.
Draws, and wounds RODERIGO IAGO
RODERIGO Who's there? whose noise is this that ones on
O, I am slain! murder?
IAGO from behind wounds CASSIO in the leg, LODOVICO
and exit We do not know.
CASSIO IAGO
I am maim'd for ever. Help, ho! murder! Did not you hear a cry?
murder! CASSIO
Falls Here, here! for heaven's sake, help me!
Enter OTHELLO IAGO
OTHELLO What's the matter?
The voice of Cassio: Iago keeps his word. GRATIANO
RODERIGO This is Othello's ancient, as I take it.
O, villain that I am! LODOVICO
OTHELLO The same indeed; a very valiant fellow.
It is even so. IAGO
CASSIO What are you here that cry so grievously?
O, help, ho! light! a surgeon! CASSIO
OTHELLO Iago? O, I am spoil'd, undone by villains!
'Tis he:--O brave Iago, honest and just, Give me some help.
That hast such noble sense of thy friend's IAGO
wrong! O me, lieutenant! what villains have done
Thou teachest me. Minion, your dear lies this?
dead, CASSIO
And your unblest fate hies: strumpet, I come. I think that one of them is hereabout,
Forth of my heart those charms, thine eyes, And cannot make away.
are blotted; IAGO
Thy bed, lust-stain'd, shall with lust's blood O treacherous villains!
be spotted. What are you there? come in, and give some
Exit help.
Enter LODOVICO and GRATIANO To LODOVICO and GRATIANO
CASSIO RODERIGO
What, ho! no watch? no passage? murder! O, help me here!
murder! CASSIO
GRATIANO That's one of them.
'Tis some mischance; the cry is very direful. IAGO
CASSIO O murderous slave! O villain!
O, help! Stabs RODERIGO
LODOVICO RODERIGO
Hark! O damn'd Iago! O inhuman dog!
RODERIGO IAGO
O wretched villain! Kill men i' the dark!--Where be these bloody
LODOVICO thieves?--
Two or three groan: it is a heavy night: How silent is this town!--Ho! murder!
These may be counterfeits: let's think't murder!--
What may you be? are you of good or evil?
LODOVICO Signior Gratiano? I cry you gentle pardon;
As you shall prove us, praise us. These bloody accidents must excuse my
IAGO manners,
Signior Lodovico? That so neglected you.
LODOVICO GRATIANO
He, sir. I am glad to see you.
IAGO IAGO
I cry you mercy. Here's Cassio hurt by How do you, Cassio? O, a chair, a chair!
villains. GRATIANO
GRATIANO Roderigo!
Cassio! IAGO
IAGO He, he 'tis he.
How is't, brother! A chair brought in
CASSIO O, that's well said; the chair!
My leg is cut in two. GRATIANO
IAGO Some good man bear him carefully from
Marry, heaven forbid! hence;
Light, gentlemen; I'll bind it with my shirt. I'll fetch the general's surgeon.
Enter BIANCA To BIANCA
BIANCA For you, mistress,
What is the matter, ho? who is't that cried? Save you your labour. He that lies slain
IAGO here, Cassio,
Who is't that cried! Was my dear friend: what malice was
BIANCA between you?
O my dear Cassio! my sweet Cassio! O CASSIO
Cassio, None in the world; nor do I know the man.
Cassio, Cassio! IAGO
IAGO [To BIANCA] What, look you pale? O, bear
O notable strumpet! Cassio, may you suspect him out
Who they should be that have thus many led o' the air.
you? CASSIO and RODERIGO are borne off
CASSIO Stay you, good gentlemen. Look you pale,
No. mistress?
GRATIANO Do you perceive the gastness of her eye?
I am to find you thus: I have been to seek Nay, if you stare, we shall hear more anon.
you. Behold her well; I pray you, look upon her:
IAGO Do you see, gentlemen? nay, guiltiness will
Lend me a garter. So. O, for a chair, speak,
To bear him easily hence! Though tongues were out of use.
BIANCA Enter EMILIA
Alas, he faints! O Cassio, Cassio, Cassio! EMILIA
IAGO 'Las, what's the matter? what's the matter,
Gentlemen all, I do suspect this trash husband?
To be a party in this injury. IAGO
Patience awhile, good Cassio. Come, come; Cassio hath here been set on in the dark
Lend me a light. Know we this face or no? By Roderigo and fellows that are scaped:
Alas my friend and my dear countryman He's almost slain, and Roderigo dead.
Roderigo! no:--yes, sure: O heaven! Roderigo. EMILIA
GRATIANO Alas, good gentleman! alas, good Cassio!
What, of Venice? IAGO
IAGO This is the fruit of whoring. Prithee, Emilia,
Even he, sir; did you know him? Go know of Cassio where he supp'd to-night.
GRATIANO To BIANCA
Know him! ay. What, do you shake at that?
IAGO BIANCA
He supp'd at my house; but I therefore shake heavenly;
not. It strikes where it doth love. She wakes.
IAGO DESDEMONA
O, did he so? I charge you, go with me. Who's there? Othello?
EMILIA OTHELLO
Fie, fie upon thee, strumpet! Ay. Desdemona.
BIANCA DESDEMONA
I am no strumpet; but of life as honest Will you come to bed, my lord?
As you that thus abuse me. OTHELLO
EMILIA Have you pray'd to-night, Desdemona?
As I! foh! fie upon thee! DESDEMONA
IAGO Ay, my lord.
Kind gentlemen, let's go see poor Cassio OTHELLO
dress'd. If you bethink yourself of any crime
Come, mistress, you must tell's another tale. Unreconciled as yet to heaven and grace,
Emilia run you to the citadel, Solicit for it straight.
And tell my lord and lady what hath happ'd. DESDEMONA
Will you go on? I pray. Alas, my lord, what do you mean by that?
Aside OTHELLO
This is the night Well, do it, and be brief; I will walk by:
That either makes me or fordoes me quite. I would not kill thy unprepared spirit;
Exeunt No; heaven forfend! I would not kill thy soul.
SCENE II. A bedchamber in the castle: DESDEMONA
DESDEMONA in bed asleep; Talk you of killing?
a light burning. OTHELLO
Enter OTHELLO Ay, I do.
OTHELLO DESDEMONA
It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul,-- Then heaven
Let me not name it to you, you chaste Have mercy on me!
stars!-- OTHELLO
It is the cause. Yet I'll not shed her blood; Amen, with all my heart!
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow, DESDEMONA
And smooth as monumental alabaster. If you say so, I hope you will not kill me.
Yet she must die, else she'll betray more OTHELLO
men. Hum!
Put out the light, and then put out the light: DESDEMONA
If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, And yet I fear you; for you are fatal then
I can again thy former light restore, When your eyes roll so: why I should fear I
Should I repent me: but once put out thy know not,
light, Since guiltiness I know not; but yet I feel I
Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature, fear.
I know not where is that Promethean heat OTHELLO
That can thy light relume. When I have Think on thy sins.
pluck'd the rose, DESDEMONA
I cannot give it vital growth again. They are loves I bear to you.
It must needs wither: I'll smell it on the tree. OTHELLO
Kissing her Ay, and for that thou diest.
Ah balmy breath, that dost almost persuade DESDEMONA
Justice to break her sword! One more, one That death's unnatural that kills for loving.
more. Alas, why gnaw you so your nether lip?
Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill Some bloody passion shakes your very
thee, frame:
And love thee after. One more, and this the These are portents; but yet I hope, I hope,
last: They do not point on me.
So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep, OTHELLO
But they are cruel tears: this sorrow's Peace, and be still!
DESDEMONA No, his mouth is stopp'd;
I will so. What's the matter? Honest Iago hath ta'en order for't.
OTHELLO DESDEMONA
That handkerchief which I so loved and gave O! my fear interprets: what, is he dead?
thee OTHELLO
Thou gavest to Cassio. Had all his hairs been lives, my great
DESDEMONA revenge
No, by my life and soul! Had stomach for them all.
Send for the man, and ask him. DESDEMONA
OTHELLO Alas! he is betray'd and I undone.
Sweet soul, take heed, OTHELLO
Take heed of perjury; thou art on thy Out, strumpet! weep'st thou for him to my
deathbed. face?
DESDEMONA DESDEMONA
Ay, but not yet to die. O, banish me, my lord, but kill me not!
OTHELLO OTHELLO
Yes, presently: Down, strumpet!
Therefore confess thee freely of thy sin; DESDEMONA
For to deny each article with oath Kill me to-morrow: let me live to-night!
Cannot remove nor choke the strong OTHELLO
conception Nay, if you strive--
That I do groan withal. Thou art to die. DESDEMONA
DESDEMONA But half an hour!
Then Lord have mercy on me! OTHELLO
OTHELLO Being done, there is no pause.
I say, amen. DESDEMONA
DESDEMONA But while I say one prayer!
And have you mercy too! I never did OTHELLO
Offend you in my life; never loved Cassio It is too late.
But with such general warranty of heaven He stifles her
As I might love: I never gave him token. EMILIA
OTHELLO [Within] My lord , my lord! what, ho! my lord,
By heaven, I saw my handkerchief in's hand. my lord!
O perjured woman! thou dost stone my OTHELLO
heart, What noise is this? Not dead? not yet quite
And makest me call what I intend to do dead?
A murder, which I thought a sacrifice: I that am cruel am yet merciful;
I saw the handkerchief. I would not have thee linger in thy pain: So,
DESDEMONA so.
He found it then; EMILIA
I never gave it him: send for him hither; [Within] What, ho! my lord, my lord!
Let him confess a truth. OTHELLO
OTHELLO Who's there?
He hath confess'd. EMILIA
DESDEMONA [Within] O, good my lord, I would speak a
What, my lord? word with you!
OTHELLO OTHELLO
That he hath used thee. Yes: 'tis Emilia. By and by. She's dead.
DESDEMONA 'Tis like she comes to speak of Cassio's
How? unlawfully? death.--
OTHELLO The noise was here. Ha! no more moving?
Ay. Still as the grave. Shall she come in? were't
DESDEMONA good?--
He will not say so. I think she stirs again:--no. What's best to
OTHELLO do?
If she come in, she'll sure speak to my wife:
My wife! my wife! what wife? I have no wife. OTHELLO
O insupportable! O heavy hour! Why, how should she be murder'd?
Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse EMILIA
Of sun and moon, and that the affrighted Alas, who knows?
globe OTHELLO
Should yawn at alteration. You heard her say herself, it was not I.
EMILIA EMILIA
[Within] I do beseech you She said so: I must needs report the truth.
That I may speak with you, O, good my lord! OTHELLO
OTHELLO She's, like a liar, gone to burning hell:
I had forgot thee: O, come in, Emilia; 'Twas I that kill'd her.
Soft; by and by. Let me the curtains draw. EMILIA
Where art thou? O, the more angel she,
Unlocks the door And you the blacker devil!
Enter EMILIA OTHELLO
What's the matter with thee now? She turn'd to folly, and she was a whore.
EMILIA EMILIA
O, my good lord, yonder's foul murders done! Thou dost belie her, and thou art a devil.
OTHELLO OTHELLO
What, now? She was false as water.
EMILIA EMILIA
But now, my lord. Thou art rash as fire, to say
OTHELLO That she was false: O, she was heavenly
It is the very error of the moon; true!
She comes more nearer earth than she was OTHELLO
wont, Cassio did top her; ask thy husband else.
And makes men mad. O, I were damn'd beneath all depth in hell,
EMILIA But that I did proceed upon just grounds
Cassio, my lord, hath kill'd a young Venetian To this extremity. Thy husband knew it all.
Call'd Roderigo. EMILIA
OTHELLO My husband!
Roderigo kill'd! OTHELLO
And Cassio kill'd! Thy husband.
EMILIA EMILIA
No, Cassio is not kill'd. That she was false to wedlock?
OTHELLO OTHELLO
Not Cassio kill'd! then murder's out of tune, Ay, with Cassio. Nay, had she been true,
And sweet revenge grows harsh. If heaven would make me such another world
DESDEMONA Of one entire and Perfect chrysolite,
O, falsely, falsely murder'd! I'ld not have sold her for it.
EMILIA EMILIA
Alas, what cry is that? My husband!
OTHELLO OTHELLO
That! what? Ay, 'twas he that told me first:
EMILIA An honest man he is, and hates the slime
Out, and alas! that was my lady's voice. That sticks on filthy deeds.
Help! help, ho! help! O lady, speak again! EMILIA
Sweet Desdemona! O sweet mistress, speak! My husband!
DESDEMONA OTHELLO
A guiltless death I die. What needs this iteration, woman? I say thy
EMILIA husband.
O, who hath done this deed? EMILIA
DESDEMONA O mistress, villany hath made mocks with
Nobody; I myself. Farewell love,
Commend me to my kind lord: O, farewell! My husband say that she was false!
Dies OTHELLO
He, woman; IAGO
I say thy husband: dost understand the With Cassio, mistress. Go to, charm your
word? tongue.
My friend, thy husband, honest, honest Iago. EMILIA
EMILIA I will not charm my tongue; I am bound to
If he say so, may his pernicious soul speak:
Rot half a grain a day! he lies to the heart: My mistress here lies murder'd in her bed,--
She was too fond of her most filthy bargain. All
OTHELLO O heavens forfend!
Ha! EMILIA
EMILIA And your reports have set the murder on.
Do thy worst: OTHELLO
This deed of thine is no more worthy heaven Nay, stare not, masters: it is true, indeed.
Than thou wast worthy her. GRATIANO
OTHELLO 'Tis a strange truth.
Peace, you were best. MONTANO
EMILIA O monstrous act!
Thou hast not half that power to do me harm EMILIA
As I have to be hurt. O gull! O dolt! Villany, villany, villany!
As ignorant as dirt! thou hast done a deed-- I think upon't, I think: I smell't: O villany!--
I care not for thy sword; I'll make thee I thought so then:--I'll kill myself for grief:--
known, O villany, villany!
Though I lost twenty lives.--Help! help, ho! IAGO
help! What, are you mad? I charge you, get you
The Moor hath kill'd my mistress! Murder! home.
murder! EMILIA
Enter MONTANO, GRATIANO, IAGO, and Good gentlemen, let me have leave to
others speak:
MONTANO 'Tis proper I obey him, but not now.
What is the matter? How now, general! Perchance, Iago, I will ne'er go home.
EMILIA OTHELLO
O, are you come, Iago? you have done well, O! O! O!
That men must lay their murders on your He falls on the bed
neck. EMILIA
GRATIANO Nay, lay thee down and roar;
What is the matter? For thou hast kill'd the sweetest innocent
EMILIA That e'er did lift up eye.
Disprove this villain, if thou be'st a man: OTHELLO
He says thou told'st him that his wife was [Rising] O, she was foul!
false: I scarce did know you, uncle: there lies your
I know thou didst not, thou'rt not such a niece,
villain: Whose breath, indeed, these hands have
Speak, for my heart is full. newly stopp'd:
IAGO I know this act shows horrible and grim.
I told him what I thought, and told no more GRATIANO
Than what he found himself was apt and Poor Desdemona! I am glad thy father's
true. dead:
EMILIA Thy match was mortal to him, and pure grief
But did you ever tell him she was false? Shore his old thread in twain: did he live
IAGO now,
I did. This sight would make him do a desperate
EMILIA turn,
You told a lie, an odious, damned lie; Yea, curse his better angel from his side,
Upon my soul, a lie, a wicked lie. And fall to reprobation.
She false with Cassio!--did you say with OTHELLO
Cassio?
'Tis pitiful; but yet Iago knows
That she with Cassio hath the act of shame
A thousand times committed; Cassio
confess'd it:
And she did gratify his amorous works
With that recognizance and pledge of love
Which I first gave her; I saw it in his hand:
It was a handkerchief, an antique token
My father gave my mother.
EMILIA
O heaven! O heavenly powers!
IAGO
Come, hold your peace.
EMILIA
'Twill out, 'twill out: I peace!
No, I will speak as liberal as the north:
Let heaven and men and devils, let them all,
All, all, cry shame against me, yet I'll speak.
IAGO
Be wise, and get you home.
EMILIA
I will not.
IAGO offers to stab EMILIA
GRATIANO
Fie!
Your sword upon a woman?
EMILIA
O thou dull Moor! that handkerchief thou
speak'st of
I found by fortune and did give my husband;
For often, with a solemn earnestness,
More than indeed belong'd to such a trifle,
He begg'd of me to steal it.
IAGO
Villanous whore!
EMILIA
She give it Cassio! no, alas! I found it,
And I did give't my husband.
IAGO
Filth, thou liest!
EMILIA
By heaven, I do not, I do not, gentlemen.
O murderous coxcomb! what should such a
fool
Do with so good a woman?
OTHELLO
Are there no stones in heaven
But what serve for the thunder?--Precious
villain!
He runs at IAGO IAGO, from behind, stabs
EMILIA, and exit
GRATIANO
The woman falls; sure, he hath kill'd his wife.
EMILIA
Ay, ay: O, lay me by my mistress' side.
GRATIANO
He's gone, but his wife's kill'd.
MONTANO
'Tis a notorious villain. Take you this weapon,
Which I have here recover'd from the Moor:
Come, guard the door without; let him not
pass,
But kill him rather. I'll after that same villain,
For 'tis a damned slave.
Exeunt MONTANO and GRATIANO
OTHELLO
I am not valiant neither,
But ever puny whipster gets my sword:
But why should honour outlive honesty?
Let it go all.
EMILIA
What did thy song bode, lady?
Hark, canst thou hear me? I will play the
swan.
And die in music.
Singing
Willow, willow, willow,--
Moor, she was chaste; she loved thee, cruel
Moor;
So come my soul to bliss, as I speak true;
So speaking as I think, I die, I die.
Dies
OTHELLO
I have another weapon in this chamber;
It is a sword of Spain, the ice-brook's
temper:--
O, here it is. Uncle, I must come forth.
GRATIANO
[Within] If thou attempt it, it will cost thee
dear:
Thou hast no weapon, and perforce must
suffer.
OTHELLO
Look in upon me then and speak with me,
Or, naked as I am, I will assault thee.
Re-enter GRATIANO
GRATIANO
What is the matter?
OTHELLO
Behold, I have a weapon;
A better never did itself sustain
Upon a soldier's thigh: I have seen the day,
That, with this little arm and this good sword,
I have made my way through more
impediments
Than twenty times your stop: but, O vain
boast!
Who can control his fate? 'tis not so now.
Be not afraid, though you do see me
weapon'd;
Here is my journey's end, here is my butt,
And very sea-mark of my utmost sail.
Do you go back dismay'd? 'tis a lost fear;
Man but a rush against Othello's breast,
And he retires. Where should Othello go?
Now, how dost thou look now? O ill-starr'd
wench!
Pale as thy smock! when we shall meet at
compt,
This look of thine will hurl my soul from
heaven,
And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my
girl!
Even like thy chastity. O cursed slave!
Whip me, ye devils,
From the possession of this heavenly sight!
Blow me about in winds! roast me in sulphur!
Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!
O Desdemona! Desdemona! dead!
Oh! Oh! Oh!
Enter LODOVICO. MONTANO, CASSIO carried
in a chair, and Officers with IAGO, prisoner
LODOVICO
Where is this rash and most unfortunate
man?
OTHELLO
That's he that was Othello: here I am.
LODOVICO
Where is that viper? bring the villain forth.
OTHELLO
I look down towards his feet; but that's a
fable.
If that thou best a devil, I cannot kill thee.
Wounds IAGO
LODOVICO
Wrench his sword from him.
IAGO
I bleed, sir; but not kill'd.
OTHELLO
I am not sorry neither: I'ld have thee live;
For, in my sense, 'tis happiness to die.
LODOVICO
O thou Othello, thou wert once so good,
Fall'n in the practise of a damned slave,
What shall be said to thee?
OTHELLO
Why, any thing:
An honourable murderer, if you will;
For nought I did in hate, but all in honour.
LODOVICO
This wretch hath part confess'd his villany:
Did you and he consent in Cassio's death?
OTHELLO
Ay.
CASSIO
Dear general, I never gave you cause.
OTHELLO
I do believe it, and I ask your pardon.
Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil
Why he hath thus ensnared my soul and
body?
IAGO
Demand me nothing: what you know, you
know:
From this time forth I never will speak word.
LODOVICO
What, not to pray?
GRATIANO
Torments will ope your lips.
OTHELLO
Well, thou dost best.
LODOVICO
Sir, you shall understand what hath befall'n,
Which, as I think, you know not. Here is a
letter
Found in the pocket of the slain Roderigo;
And here another: the one of them imports
The death of Cassio to be undertook
By Roderigo.
OTHELLO
O villain!
CASSIO
Most heathenish and most gross!
LODOVICO
Now here's another discontented paper,
Found in his pocket too; and this, it seems,
Roderigo meant to have sent this damned
villain;
But that belike Iago in the interim
Came in and satisfied him.
OTHELLO
O the pernicious caitiff!
How came you, Cassio, by that handkerchief
That was my wife's?
CASSIO
I found it in my chamber:
And he himself confess'd but even now
That there he dropp'd it for a special purpose
Which wrought to his desire.
OTHELLO
O fool! fool! fool!
CASSIO
There is besides in Roderigo's letter,
How he upbraids Iago, that he made him
Brave me upon the watch; whereon it came
That I was cast: and even but now he spake,
After long seeming dead, Iago hurt him,
Iago set him on.
LODOVICO
You must forsake this room, and go with us:
Your power and your command is taken off,
And Cassio rules in Cyprus. For this slave,
If there be any cunning cruelty
That can torment him much and hold him
long,
It shall be his. You shall close prisoner rest,
Till that the nature of your fault be known
To the Venetian state. Come, bring him away.
OTHELLO
Soft you; a word or two before you go.
I have done the state some service, and they
know't.
No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice: then must you
speak
Of one that loved not wisely but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought
Perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe; of one whose
subdued eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinal gum. Set you down this;
And say besides, that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk
Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,
I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
And smote him, thus.
Stabs himself
LODOVICO
O bloody period!
GRATIANO
All that's spoke is marr'd.
OTHELLO
I kiss'd thee ere I kill'd thee: no way but this;
Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.
Falls on the bed, and dies
CASSIO
This did I fear, but thought he had no
weapon;
For he was great of heart.
LODOVICO
[To IAGO] O Spartan dog,
More fell than anguish, hunger, or the sea!
Look on the tragic loading of this bed;
This is thy work: the object poisons sight;
Let it be hid. Gratiano, keep the house,
And seize upon the fortunes of the Moor,
For they succeed on you. To you, lord
governor,
Remains the censure of this hellish villain;
The time, the place, the torture: O, enforce
it!
Myself will straight aboard: and to the state
This heavy act with heavy heart relate.