My thrice-driven bed of down. I do agnize
A natural and prompt alacrity,

I find in hardness; and do undertake
This present war against the Ottomites.
Most humbly therefore bending to your state,
I crave fit difpofition for my wife,
Due reverence of place and exhibition,
With fuch accommodation and befort
As levels with her breeding.

Duke. Why, at her father's.

Bra. I will not have it fo.

->

Def. That I did love the Moor to live with him,
My down-right violence and ftorm of fortunes.
May trumpet to the world. My heart's subdu’d
Ev'n to the very quality of my lord;

I saw Othello's visage in his mind,
And to his honours and his valiant parts
Did I my foul and fortunes confecrate.
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 fhall fupport

By his dear absence. Let me go with him.

Oth. Your voices, lords; befeech you, let her will Have a free way. I therefore beg it not.

i character.

To please the palate of my appetite;
Nor to comply with heat the young affects,
In my defunct and proper fatisfaction;
But to be free and bounteous to her mind.
And heav'n defend your good fouls, that you think
I will your ferious and great business scant

When she is with me----- No, when light-wing'd toys
Of feather'd Cupid, foil with wanton dulness

k

My fpeculative and offic'd inftruments,

That my difports 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. Be it as you shall privately determine,

Or for her stay or going; th' affair cries haste;
And speed must answer. You must hence to-night..
Def. To-night, my lord, to-night?

Oth. With all my heart.

Duke. At nine i'th' morning here we'll meet again. Othello, leave fome officer behind,

And he fhall our commiffion bring to you;

And fuch things elfe of quality and respect:

As doth import you.

Oth. Please your grace, my Ancient;

(A man he is of honesty and truft,)

To his conveyance I affign my wife,

With what elfe needful your good grace shall think

To be fent after me.

Duke. Let it be so;

Good-night to every one.

And noble Signior,

If virtue no delighted beauty lack,

Your fon-in-law is far more fair than black.

Sen. Adieu, brave Moor, ufe Defdemona well.

k feel.

added from the first edition.

Bra:

Bra. Look to her, Moor, if thou haft eyes to fee;

She has deceiv'd her father, and may thee.

Oth. My life upon her faith. Honest Jago,
My Desdemona muft I leave to thee;

I pr'ythee let thy wife attend on her;
And bring her after in the best advantage.
Come, Desdemona, I have but an hour
Of love, of worldly matter, and direction
To speak with thee. We must obey the time.

SCENE

[Exit

[Exeunt.

X.

Jago. Why, go to bed and fleep.

Rod. I will incontinently drown my self.

Jago. If thou doft, I shall never love thee after. Why, thou filly gentleman!

Rod. It is filliness to live, when to live is a torment; and then have we a prescription to dye, when death is our physician.

Jago. O villanous! I have look'd upon the world for four times seven years, and fince I could diftinguish betwixt a benefit and an injury, I never found man that knew how to love himself. Ere I would fay, I would drown my felf for the love of a Guinney-hen, I would change my humanity with a baboon.

Rod. What fhould I do? I confefs it is my fhame to be fo fond, but it is not in my virtue to amend it.

thus.

Jago. Virtue? a fig, 'tis in our felves that we are thus or Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardiners. So that if we will plant nettles, or fow lettice; set hyffop, and weed up thyme, fupply it with one gender of herbs,

or

or distract it with many; either have it steril with idleness, or manured with induftry; why the power and corrigible authority of this lyes in our will. If the ballance of our lives had not one scale of reason to poise another of fenfuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us to moft preposterous conclufions. But we have reafon, to cool our raging motions, our carnal ftings, our unbitted lufts; whereof I take this that you call love, to be a fect, or fyen.

Rod. It cannot be.

Jago. It is meerly a luft of the blood, and a permiffion of the will. Come, be a man: drown thy felf? drown cats and blind puppies. I have profeft me thy friend, and I confess me knit to thy deferving, with cables of perdurable toughness. I could never better steed thee than now. Put mony in thy purse; follow thou these wars, † defeat thy favour with an ufurped beard; I say, put mony in thy purfe. It cannot be that Desdemona fhould long continue her love to the Moor put mony in thy purse nor he his to her. It was a violent commencement in her, and thou shalt see an answerable fequeftration, ----- but put mony in thy purse. - These Moors are changeable in their wills ; ----fill thy purse with mony. The food that to him now is as lufcious as locufts, fhall fhortly be as bitter as coloquintida. She must change for youth; when he is fated with his body, fhe will find the errors of her choice ----- Therefore put mony in thy purfe- If thou wilt needs damn thy felf, do it a more delicate way than drowning. Make all the Make all the mony thou canst. If fanctimony and a frail vow, betwixt an erring Barbarian and a fuper- fubtle Venetian, be not too hard for my wits, and all the tribe of hell, thou fhalt enjoy her; therefore make mony. A pox of drowning thy felf, it is clean out of the way. Seek thou rather to be hang'd in compaffing thy joy, than to be drown'd and go without her.

Rod. Wilt thou be faft to my hopes, if I depend on the iffue? VOL. VI. Rrr Jago. tie. difgrace thy features and make thy fair countenance grim with a falfe beard.

Jago. Thou art fure of me.---Go, make mony. ---I have told thee often, and I re-tell thee again and again, I hate the Moor. My cause is hearted; thine hath no less reason. Let us be conjunctive in our revenge against him. If thou canft cuckold him, thou doft thy felf a pleafure, me a sport. There are many events in the womb of time, which will be delivered. Traverse,

go, provide thy mony.

Adieu.

We will have more of this to-morrow.

Rod. Where fhall we meet i'th' morning?

Jago. At my lodging.

Rod. I'll be with thee betimes.

Jago. Go to, farewel. Do you hear, Rodorigo!

Rod. I'll fell all my land.

SCEN E XI.

Manet Jago.

Jago. Thus do I ever make my fool my purse;
For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane,
If I fhould time expend with such a swain,
But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor,
And it is thought abroad, that 'twixt my sheets
He has done my office. I know not if't be true-----
But I, for meer suspicion in that kind,
Will do, as if for furety. He holds me well-
The better shall my purpose work on him;
Caffio's a proper man: let me fee now,
To get this place, and to plume up my will

A double knavery ----- How? how? ----- let's fee
After fome time, t'abuse Othello's ears,

That he is too familiar with his wife.

He hath a person, and a smooth dispose

To be fufpected; fram'd to make women false,

[Exit.

The