Scene II

But then I saw no harm, and then I heard
Each syllable that breath made up between them.

I durst, my lord, to wager she is honest,
Lay down my soul at stake: if you think other,
Remove your thought; it doth abuse your bosom.
If any wretch have put this in your head,
Let heaven requite it with the serpent’s curse!
For, if she be not honest, chaste, and true,
There’s no man happy; the purest of their wives
Is foul as slander.

Bid her come hither: go. Exit Emilia.
She says enough; yet she’s a simple bawd
That cannot say as much. This is a subtle whore,
A closet lock and key of villainous secrets
And yet she’ll kneel and pray; I have seen her do’t.

Let me see your eyes;
Look in my face.

To Emilia. Some of your function, mistress;
Leave procreants alone and shut the door;
Cough, or cry “hem,” if any body come:
Your mystery, your mystery: nay, dispatch. Exit Emilia.

Upon my knees, what doth your speech import?
I understand a fury in your words.
But not the words.

Your wife, my lord; your true
And loyal wife.

Come, swear it, damn thyself
Lest, being like one of heaven, the devils themselves
Should fear to seize thee: therefore be double damn’d:
Swear thou art honest.

Alas the heavy day! Why do you weep?
Am I the motive of these tears, my lord?
If haply you my father do suspect
An instrument of this your calling back,
Lay not your blame on me: If you have lost him,
Why, I have lost him too.

Had it pleased heaven
To try me with affliction; had they rain’d
All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head.
Steep’d me in poverty to the very lips,
Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes,
I should have found in some place of my soul
A drop of patience: but, alas, to make me
A fixed figure for the time of scorn
To point his slow unmoving finger at!
Yet could I bear that too; well, very well:
But there, where I have garner’d up my heart,
Where either I must live, or bear no life;
The fountain from the which my current runs,
Or else dries up; to be discarded thence!
Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads
To knot and gender in! Turn thy complexion there,
Patience, thou young and rose-lipp’d cherubin⁠—
Ay, there, look grim as hell!

O, ay; as summer flies are in the shamblesa place where animals are slaughtered and meat is sold,
That quicken even with blowing. O thou weed,
Who art so lovely fair and smell’st so sweet
That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst ne’er been born!

Was this fair paper, this most goodly book,
Made to write “whore” upon? What committed!
Committed! O thou public commoner!
I should make very forges of my cheeks,
That would to cinders burn up modesty,
Did I but speak thy deeds. What committed!
Heaven stops the nose at it and the moon winks,
The bawdy wind that kisses all it meets
Is hush’d within the hollow mine of earth,
And will not hear it. What committed!
Impudent strumpet!

No, as I am a Christian:
If to preserve this vessel for my lord
From any other foul unlawful touch
Be not to be a strumpet, I am none.

I cry you mercy, then:
I took you for that cunning whore of Venice
That married with Othello. Raising his voice.
You, mistress,
That have the office opposite to Saint Peter,
And keep the gate of hell!

You, you, ay, you!
We have done our course; there’s money for your pains:
I pray you, turn the key and keep our counsel. Exit.

Alas, what does this gentleman conceive?
How do you, madam? how do you, my good lady?

I have none: do not talk to me, Emilia;
I cannot weep; nor answer have I none,
But what should go by water. Prithee, tonight
Lay on my bed my wedding sheets: remember;
And call thy husband hither.

’Tis meet I should be used so, very meet.
How have I been behaved, that he might stick
The small’st opinion on my least misuse?

What is your pleasure, madam?
How is’t with you?

I cannot tell. Those that do teach young babes
Do it with gentle means and easy tasks:
He might have chid me so; for, in good faith,
I am a child to chiding.

Alas, Iago, my lord hath so bewhored her.
Thrown such despite and heavy terms upon her,
As true hearts cannot bear.

He call’d her whore: a beggar in his drink
Could not have laid such terms upon his callat.

Hath she forsook so many noble matches,
Her father and her country and her friends,
To be call’d whore? would it not make one weep?

Beshrew him for’t!
How comes this trick upon him?

I will be hang’d, if some eternal villain,
Some busy and insinuating rogue,
Some cogging, cozeningcheating or deceiving slave, to get some office,
Have not devised this slander; I’ll be hang’d else.

A halter pardon him! and hell gnaw his bones!
Why should he call her whore? who keeps her company?
What place? what time? what form? what likelihood?
The Moor’s abused by some most villainous knave,
Some base notorious knave, some scurvy fellow.
O heaven, that such companions thou’ldst unfold,
And put in every honest hand a whip
To lash the rascals naked through the world
Even from the east to the west!

O, fie upon them! Some such squire he was
That turn’d your wit the seamy side without,
And made you to suspect me with the Moor.

O good Iago,
What shall I do to win my lord again?
Good friend, go to him; for, by this light of heaven,
I know not how I lost him. Here I kneel:
If e’er my will did trespass ’gainst his love,
Either in discourse of thought or actual deed,
Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense,
Delighted them in any other form;
Or that I do not yet, and ever did.
And ever will⁠—though he do shake me off
To beggarly divorcement⁠—love him dearly,
Comfort forswear me! Unkindness may do much;
And his unkindness may defeat my life,
But never taint my love. I cannot say “whore:”
It does abhor me now I speak the word;
To do the act that might the addition earn
Not the world’s mass of vanity could make me.

I pray you, be content; ’tis but his humour:
The business of the state does him offence,
And he does chide with you.

’Tis but so, I warrant. Trumpets within.
Hark, how these instruments summon to supper!
The messengers of Venice stay the meat;
Go in, and weep not; all things shall be well. Exeunt Desdemona and Emilia.