Othello. William Shakespeare

greeting to the citadel:

       This likewise is a friend.

       CASSIO

       See for the news.

       [Exit Gentleman.]

       Good ancient, you are welcome:—[To Emilia.] Welcome, mistress:—

       Let it not gall your patience, good Iago,

       That I extend my manners; ‘tis my breeding

       That gives me this bold show of courtesy.

       [Kissing her.]

       IAGO

       Sir, would she give you so much of her lips

       As of her tongue she oft bestows on me,

       You’d have enough.

       DESDEMONA

       Alas, she has no speech.

       IAGO

       In faith, too much;

       I find it still when I have list to sleep:

       Marry, before your ladyship, I grant,

       She puts her tongue a little in her heart,

       And chides with thinking.

       EMILIA

       You have little cause to say so.

       IAGO

       Come on, come on; you are pictures out of doors,

       Bells in your parlours, wild cats in your kitchens,

       Saints in your injuries, devils being offended,

       Players in your housewifery, and housewives in your beds.

       DESDEMONA

       O, fie upon thee, slanderer!

       IAGO

       Nay, it is true, or else I am a Turk:

       You rise to play, and go to bed to work.

       EMILIA

       You shall not write my praise.

       IAGO

       No, let me not.

       DESDEMONA

       What wouldst thou write of me, if thou shouldst praise me?

       IAGO

       O gentle lady, do not put me to’t;

       For I am nothing if not critical.

       DESDEMONA

       Come on, assay—There’s one gone to the harbor?

       IAGO

       Ay, madam.

       DESDEMONA

       I am not merry; but I do beguile

       The thing I am, by seeming otherwise.—

       Come, how wouldst thou praise me?

       IAGO

       I am about it; but, indeed, my invention

       Comes from my pate as birdlime does from frize,—

       It plucks out brains and all: but my Muse labours,

       And thus she is deliver’d.

       If she be fair and wise,—fairness and wit,

       The one’s for use, the other useth it.

       DESDEMONA

       Well prais’d! How if she be black and witty?

       IAGO

       If she be black, and thereto have a wit,

       She’ll find a white that shall her blackness fit.

       DESDEMONA

       Worse and worse.

       EMILIA

       How if fair and foolish?

       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 laboring 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