LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

Desdemona, I have but an hour

      Of love, of worldly matters and direction,

      To spend with thee: we must obey the time.

      [Exeunt Othello and Desdemona.]

      RODERIGO

      Iago, —

      IAGO

      What say'st thou, noble heart?

      RODERIGO

      What will I do, thinkest thou?

      IAGO

      Why, go to bed and sleep.

      RODERIGO

      I will incontinently drown myself.

      IAGO

      If thou dost, I shall never love thee after. Why, thou silly gentleman!

      RODERIGO

      It is silliness to live when to live is torment; and then have we a prescription to die when death is our physician.

      IAGO

      O villainous! I have looked upon the world for four times seven years, and since I could distinguish betwixt a benefit and an injury, I never found man that knew how to love himself. Ere I would say I would drown myself for the love of a Guinea-hen, I would change my humanity with a baboon.

      RODERIGO

      What should I do? I confess it is my shame to be so fond, but it is not in my virtue to amend it.

      IAGO

      Virtue! a fig! 'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners; so that if we will plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with many, either to have it sterile with idleness or manured with industry; why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills. If the balance of our lives had not one scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us to most preposterous conclusions: But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts; whereof I take this, that you call love, to be a sect or scion.

      RODERIGO

      It cannot be.

      IAGO

      It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the will. Come, be a man: drown thyself! drown cats and blind puppies. I have professed me thy friend, and I confess me knit to thy deserving with cables of perdurable toughness; I could never better stead thee than now. Put money in thy purse; follow thou the wars; defeat thy favour with an usurped beard; I say, put money in thy purse. It cannot be that Desdemona should long continue her love to the Moor, – put money in thy purse, – nor he his to her: it was a violent commencement, and thou shalt see an answerable sequestration; – put but money in thy purse. – These Moors are changeable in their wills: – fill thy purse with money: the food that to him now is as luscious as locusts shall be to him shortly as acerb as the coloquintida. She must change for youth: when she is sated with his body, she will find the error of her choice: she must have change, she must: therefore put money in thy purse. – If thou wilt needs damn thyself, do it a more delicate way than drowning. Make all the money thou canst; if sanctimony and a frail vow betwixt an erring barbarian and a supersubtle Venetian be not too hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell, thou shalt enjoy her; therefore make money. A pox of drowning thyself! it is clean out of the way: seek thou rather to be hanged in compassing thy joy than to be drowned and go without her.

      RODERIGO

      Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend on the issue?

      IAGO

      Thou art sure of me: – go, make money: – 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 canst cuckold him, thou dost thyself a pleasure, me a sport. There are many events in the womb of time which will be delivered. Traverse; go; provide thy money. We will have more of this to-morrow. Adieu.

      RODERIGO

      Where shall we meet i' the morning?

      IAGO

      At my lodging.

      RODERIGO

      I'll be with thee betimes.

      IAGO

      Go to; farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo?

      RODERIGO

      What say you?

      IAGO

      No more of drowning, do you hear?

      RODERIGO

      I am changed: I'll go sell all my land.

      [Exit.]

      IAGO

      Thus do I ever make my fool my purse;

      For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane

      If I would time expend with such a snipe

      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 mere suspicion in that kind,

      Will do as if for surety. He holds me well,

      The better shall my purpose work on him.

      Cassio's a proper man: let me see now;

      To get his place, and to plume up my will

      In double knavery, – How, how? – Let's see: —

      After some time, to abuse Othello's ear

      That he is too familiar with his wife: —

      He hath a person, and a smooth dispose,

      To be suspected; fram'd to make women false.

      The Moor is of a free and open nature,

      That thinks men honest that but seem to be so;

      And will as tenderly be led by the nose

      As asses are.

      I have't; – it is engender'd: – hell and night

      Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.

      [Exit.]

      ACT II

      SCENE I. A seaport in Cyprus. A Platform

      [Enter Montano and two Gentlemen.]

      MONTANO

      What from the cape can you discern at sea?

      FIRST GENTLEMAN

      Nothing at all: it is a high-wrought flood;

      I cannot, 'twixt the heaven and the main,

      Descry a sail.

      MONTANO

      Methinks the wind hath spoke aloud at land;

      A fuller blast ne'er shook our battlements:

      If it hath ruffian'd so upon the sea,

      What ribs of oak, when mountains melt on them,

      Can hold the mortise? What shall we hear of this?

      SECOND GENTLEMAN

      A segregation of the Turkish fleet:

      For do but stand upon the foaming shore,

      The chidden billow seems to pelt the clouds;

      The

Скачать книгу