Des.

Re-enter Desdemona, attended.
Look, if my gentle love be not raised up!
I'll make thee an example.

What's the matter?

Oth. All's well now, sweeting; come away to bed, 250 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.

lago. What, are you hurt, lieutenant ?

Cas. Ay, past all surgery.

lago. Marry, heaven forbid !

Cas. Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have 260 lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation, Iago, my reputation!

lago. As I am an honest man, I thought you had received some bodily wound; there is more sense in that than in reputation. Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit and lost without deserving: you have lost no reputation at all, unless you repute yourself such a loser. What, man! there are ways 270 to recover the general again: you are but now cast in his mood, a punishment more in policy than in malice; even so as one would beat his offenceless dog to affright an imperious lion : sue to him again, and he's yours.

Cas. I will rather sue to be despised than to deceive so good a commander with so slight, so drunken, and so indiscreet an officer. Drunk? and speak parrot? and squabble? swagger? swear? and discourse fustian with one's own shadow? O 280 thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil ! lago. What was he that you followed with your sword? What had he done to you?

Cas. I know not. lago. Is 't possible ?

Cas. I remember a mass of things, but nothing distinctly; a quarrel, but nothing wherefore. Ο God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! that we 290 should, with joy, pleasance, revel and applause, transform ourselves into beasts!

Iago. Why, but you are now well enough: how came you thus recovered?

Cas. It hath pleased the devil drunkenness to give place to the devil wrath: one unperfectness shows me another, to make me frankly despise myself.

lago. Come, you are too severe a moraler: as the

time, the place, and the condition of this country 300
stands, I could heartily wish this had not be-
fallen; but since it is as it is, mend it for your
own good.

Cas. I will ask him for my place again; he shall
tell me I am a drunkard! Had I as many
mouths as Hydra, such an answer would stop
them all. To be now a sensible man, by and

by a fool, and presently a beast! O strange !
Every inordinate cup is unblest, and the in-
gredient is a devil.

Iago. Come, come, good wine is a good familiar
creature, if it be well used: exclaim no more
against it. And, good lieutenant, I think you
think I love you.

310

Cas. I have well approved it, sir. I drunk! lago. You or any man living may be drunk at some time, man. I'll tell you what you shall do. Our general's wife is now the general. I may say so in this respect, for that he hath devoted and given up himself to the contemplation, mark 320 and denotement of her parts and graces: confess yourself freely to her; importune her help to put you in your place again: she is of so free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition, she holds it a vice in her goodness not to do more than she is requested: this broken joint between you and her husband entreat her to splinter; and, my fortunes against any lay worth naming, this crack of your love shall grow stronger than it was before.

330

Cas. You advise me well.

lago. I protest, in the sincerity of love and honest

kindness.

Cas. 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 check me here.

lago. You are in the right. Good night, lieutenant;

I must to the watch.

Cas. Good night, honest Iago.

[Exit. 340

lago. 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,

350

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,

360

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.

Enter Roderigo.

How now, Roderigo!

Rod. 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 370
exceedingly well cudgelled; and I think the
issue will be, I shall have so much experi-
ence for my pains; and so, with no money at
all and a little more wit, return again to
Venice.

lago. 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 witch-
craft,

And wit depends on dilatory time.
Does't not go well? Cassio hath beaten thee, 380
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 Rod.] Two things are to

be done :

My wife must move for Cassio to her mistress;
I'll set her on;

390

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.