LITMIR.BIZ

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      SCENE X

       Table of Contents

      [Enter Lodovico, Montano, Cassio carried in a chair, and Officers with Iago prisoner.]

      LODOVICO

       Where is this rash and most unfortunate man?

      OTHELLO

       That’s he that was Othello;—here I am.

      LODOVICO

       Where is that viper? bring the villain forth.

      OTHELLO

       I look down towards his feet;—but that’s a fable.—

       If that thou be’st a devil, I cannot kill thee.

       [Wounds Iago.]

      LODOVICO

       Wrench his sword from him.

      IAGO

       I bleed, sir, but not kill’d.

      OTHELLO

       I am not sorry neither: I’d have thee live;

       For, in my sense, ‘tis happiness to die.

      LODOVICO

       O thou Othello, that wert once so good,

       Fall’n in the practice of a damnèd slave,

       What shall be said to thee?

      OTHELLO

       Why, anything;

       An honourable murderer, if you will;

       For naught did I in hate, but all in honour.

      LODOVICO

       This wretch hath part confess’d his villany:

       Did you and he consent in Cassio’s death?

      OTHELLO

       Ay.

      CASSIO

       Dear general, I never gave you cause.

      OTHELLO

       I do believe it, and I ask your pardon.

       Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil

       Why he hath thus ensnar’d my soul and body?

      IAGO

       Demand me nothing: what you know, you know:

       From this time forth I never will speak word.

      LODOVICO

       What, not to pray?

      GRATIANO

       Torments will ope your lips.

      OTHELLO

       Well, thou dost best.

      LODOVICO

       Sir, you shall understand what hath befall’n,

       Which, as I think, you know not. Here is a letter

       Found in the pocket of the slain Roderigo,

       And here another: the one of them imports

       The death of Cassio to be undertook

       By Roderigo.

      OTHELLO

       O villain!

      CASSIO

       Most heathenish and most gross!

      LODOVICO

       Now here’s another discontented paper,

       Found in his pocket too; and this, it seems,

       Roderigo meant to have sent this damnèd villain;

       But that, belike, Iago in the interim

       Came in and satisfied him.

      OTHELLO

       O the pernicious caitiff!—

       How came you, Cassio, by that handkerchief

       That was my wife’s?

      CASSIO

       I found it in my chamber;

       And he himself confess’d but even now

       That there he dropp’d it for a special purpose

       Which wrought to his desire.

      OTHELLO

       O fool! fool! fool!

      CASSIO

       There is besides in Roderigo’s letter,—

       How he upbraids Iago, that he made him

       Brave me upon the watch; whereon it came

       That I was cast: and even but now he spake,

       After long seeming dead,—Iago hurt him,

       Iago set him on.

      LODOVICO

       You must forsake this room, and go with us:

       Your power and your command is taken off,

       And Cassio rules in Cyprus. For this slave,—

       If there be any cunning cruelty

       That can torment him much and hold him long,

       It shall be his. You shall close prisoner rest,

       Till that the nature of your fault be known

       To the Venetian state.—Come, bring away.

      OTHELLO

       Soft you; a word or two before you go.

       I have done the state some service, and they know’t.—

       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 unusèd to the melting mood,

       Drop tears as fast as the Arabian

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