More tedious than the dial eight score times?
Othello's Disordered Mind described.
The lethargy must have his quiet course; If not, he foams at mouth; and, by and by, Breaks out to savage madness. Look, he stirs : Do you withdraw yourself a little while, He will recover straight; when he is gone, I would on great occasion speak with you.
If that the earth could teem with woman's tears, Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.
Scene between Othello and Desdemona.
DESDEMONA. Alas, the heavy day!-Why do you weep?
Am I the occasion of these tears, my lord?
If, haply, you my father do suspect,
An instrument of this your calling back,
Lay not your blame on me; if you have lost him, Why, I have lost him too.
Had it pleas'd Heaven To try me with affliction; had he rain'd All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head; Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips;
Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes; I should have found in some part of my soul A drop of patience: but, alas! to make me A fixed figure, for the hand of scorn To point his slow unmoving finger at,-
Yet I could bear that too; well, very well: But there, where I have garner'd up my heart; Where either I must live, or bear no life;
The fountain from the which my current runs, Or else dries up; to be discarded thence! Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads
To knot and gender in !-Turn thy complexion there! Patience, thou young and rose-lipp'd cherubim ; Ay, there, look grim as hell!
Emilia's Indignation against Slanderers.
I will be hang'd, if some eternal villain, Some busy and insinuating rogue,
Some cogging cozening slave, to get some office, Hath not devis'd this slander; I'll be hanged else.
The Moor's abus'd by some most villanous knave, Some base notorious knave, some scurvy fellow :- O heaven, that such companions* thou'dst unfold, And put in every honest hand a whip,
To lash the rascals naked through the world, Even from the east to the west!
Desdemona's Presentiment of her Death.
My mother had a maid call'd-Barbara ; She was in love; and he, she lov'd, prov'd mad, And did forsake her: she had a song of—" willow," An old thing 'twas, but it express'd her fortune, And she died singing it: That song, to-night, Will not go from my mind; I have much to do, But to go hang my head all at one side, And sing it like poor Barbara.
Othello's Scene with Desdemona in the Bed-chamber before he kills her.
It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul,— Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!- It is the cause.-Yet I'll not shed her blood: Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow, And smooth as monumental alabaster. Yet she must die, else she'll betray more men. Put out the light, and then-put out the light! If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, I can again thy former light restore, Should I repent me: but once put out thine, Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature, I know not where is that Promethean heat,
That can thy light relume. When I have pluck'd thy
I cannot give it vital growth again,
It needs must wither:-I'll smell it on the tree.
O balmy breath, that dost almost persuade Justice to break her sword !-One more, one more.— Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee, And love thee after.-One more, and this the last : So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep,
But they are cruel tears: this sorrow's heavenly: It strikes where it doth love.
Othello's Perplexity after the Murder.
Yes! 'tis Emilia :-by and by.
'Tis like she comes to speak of Cassio's death; The noise was high.-Ha! no more moving?
Still as the grave. Shall she come in? Were't good? I think she stirs again :-No.-What's the best? If she come in, she'll sure speak to my wife: My wife! my wife! what wife?—I have no wife : O, insupportable! O heavy hour!
Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse
Of sun and moon: and that the affrighted globe Should yawn at alteration.
Othello's Love for Desdemona.
If heaven would make me such another world Of one entire and perfect chrysolite,*
I'd not have sold her for it.
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.
At our account hereafter.
Othello's Speech before he Kills himself.
a word or two before you go.
I have done the state some service, and they know it; 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 Judean, threw a pearl away,
Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdu'd eyes, Albeit unus'd 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 traduc'd the state, I took by the throat the circumcised dog, And smote him—thus.
Ludovico's Denunciation of Iago.
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 to 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.
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