Is't possible? Confess? Handkerchief? O devil!

 

Falls in a trance.

 

IAGO.

Work on,

My medicine, [work]! Thus credulous fools are caught,

And many worthy and chaste dames even thus

(All guiltless) meet reproach. – What ho! my lord!

My lord, I say! Othello!

 

Enter Cassio.

 

How now, Cassio?

CAS.

What's the matter?

IAGO.

My lord is fall'n into an epilepsy.

This is his second fit; he had one yesterday.

CAS.

Rub him about the temples.

IAGO.

[No, forbear,]

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.

 

[Exit Cassio.]

 

How is it, general? Have you not hurt your head?

OTH.

Dost thou mock me?

IAGO.

I mock you not, by heaven.

Would you would bear your fortune like a man!

OTH.

A horned man's a monster and a beast.

IAGO.

There's many a beast then in a populous city,

And many a civil monster.

OTH.

Did he confess it?

IAGO.

Good sir, be a man;

Think every bearded fellow that's but yok'd

May draw with you. There's millions now alive

That nightly lie in those unproper beds

Which they dare swear peculiar; your case is better.

O, 'tis the spite of hell, the fiend's arch-mock,

To lip a wanton in a secure couch,

And to suppose her chaste! No, let me know,

And knowing what I am, I know what she shall be.

OTH.

O, thou art wise; 'tis certain.

IAGO.

Stand you a while apart,

Confine yourself but in a patient list.

Whilst you were here o'erwhelmed with your grief

(A passion most [unsuiting] such a man),

Cassio came hither. I shifted him away,

And laid good 'scuses upon your ecstasy;

Bade him anon return and here speak with me,

The which he promis'd. Do but encave yourself,

And mark the fleers, the gibes, and notable scorns

That dwell in every region of his face,

For I will make him tell the tale anew:

Where, how, how oft, how long ago, and when

He hath, and is again to cope your wife.

I say, but mark his gesture. Marry, patience,

Or I shall say y' are all in all in spleen,

And nothing of a man.

OTH.

Dost thou hear, Iago,

I will be found most cunning in my patience;

But (dost thou hear) most bloody.

IAGO.

That's not amiss,

But yet keep time in all. Will you withdraw?

 

[Othello withdraws.]

Now will I question Cassio of Bianca,

A huswife that by selling her desires

Buys herself bread and [clothes]. It is a creature

That dotes on Cassio (as 'tis the strumpet's plague

To beguile many and be beguil'd by one);

He, when he hears of her, cannot restrain

From the excess of laughter. Here he comes.

 

Enter Cassio.

 

As he shall smile, Othello shall go mad;

And his unbookish jealousy must [conster]

Poor Cassio's smiles, gestures, and light behaviors

Quite in the wrong. How do you [now], lieutenant?

CAS.

The worser that you give me the addition

Whose want even kills me.

IAGO.

Ply Desdemona well, and you are sure on't.

 

[Speaking lower.]

 

Now, if this suit lay in Bianca's [pow'r],

How quickly should you speed!

CAS.

Alas, poor caitiff!

OTH.

Look how he laughs already!

IAGO.

I never knew woman love man so.

CAS.

Alas, poor rogue, I think, [i' faith], she loves me.

OTH.

Now he denies it faintly, and laughs it out.

IAGO.

Do you hear, Cassio?

OTH.

Now he importunes him

To tell it o'er. Go to, well said, well said.

IAGO.

She gives it out that you shall marry her.

Do you intend it?

CAS.

Ha, ha, ha!

OTH.

Do [you] triumph, Roman? do you triumph?

CAS. I marry [her]! What? a customer! Prithee bear some charity to my wit, do not think it so unwholesome. Ha, ha, ha!

OTH. So, so, so, so; they laugh that wins.

IAGO. [Faith], the cry goes that you marry her.

CAS. Prithee say true.

IAGO. I am a very villain else.

OTH. Have you scor'd me? Well.

CAS. This is the monkey's own giving out. She is persuaded I will marry her, out of her own love and flattery, not out of my promise.

OTH. Iago [beckons] me; now he begins the story.

CAS. She was here even now; she haunts me in every place. I was the other day talking on the sea-bank with certain Venetians, and thither comes the bauble, and [by this hand,] falls me thus about my neck –

OTH. Crying, »O dear Cassio!« as it were; his gesture imports it.

CAS.