ОTH. Hold, for your lives. IAGO. Hold, hoa! Lieutenant,-sir Montano,-gentlemen,- Hold the general speaks to you; hold, for shame! For Christian shame, put by this barbarous brawl: Speak, who began this? on thy love I charge thee. The world hath noted, and your name is great And spend your rich opinion, for the name While I spare speech, which something now offends me,- By me that's said or done amiss this night; Unless self-charity be sometimes a vice, And to defend ourselves it be a sin When violence assails us. My blood begins my safer guides to rule; And passion, having my best judgment collied ", a The quarto and folio both read "place of sense,"-clearly an error. Collied-blackened-discoloured. The quarto reads cooled, evidently a mistake. Assays to lead the way: If I once stir, Though he had twinn'd with me, both at a birth, I had rather have this tongue cut from my mouth, And Cassio following him with determin'd sword, The town might fall in fright: he, swift of foot, More of this matter cannot I report : But men are men: the best sometimes forget:- As men in rage strike those that wish them best, a Loose me. So both the original editions. In the modern editions it is invariably printed, lose me; the same word, certainly, but differently applied. By the employment of lose we destroy the force of "Though he had twinn'd with me." Malone reads,— "In night, and on the court of guard and safety." Steevens and he have a great controversy about it; Malone contending that court of guard is a proper technical expression. Enter DESDEMONA, attended. Look, if my gentle love be not rais'd up;— I'll make thee an example. DES. What is the matter, dear? Come away to bed. 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: 't is the soldiers' life To have their balmy slumbers wak'd with strife. IAGO. What, are you hurt, lieutenant? IAGO. Marry, heaven forbid! [Exeunt all but IAGO and CASSIO. CAS. Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.-My reputation, Iago, my reputation. IAGO. As I am an honest man I had 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 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 is 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 shadowb?-O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil! IAGO. What was he that you followed with your sword? What had he done to you? CAS. I know not. a Sense. The quarto reads offence. The sense of a wound is its sensibility. b This most expressive sentence, from drunk to shadow, is not found in the quarto of 1622. IAGO. Is 't possible? CAS. I remember a mass of things, but nothing distinctly; a quarrel, but nothing wherefore.-O that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! that we should, with joy, pleasance, revel, and applausea, 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. IAGO. Come, you are too severe a moraler: As the time, the place, and the condition of this country stands, I could heartily wish this had not befallen; 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 unbless'd, and the ingredient 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. CAS. I have well approved it, sir.-I drunk! IAGO. You, or any man living, may be drunk at a 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, 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. CAS. You advise me well. IAGO. 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. IAGO. You are in the right. Good night, lieutenant; I must to the watch. CAS. Good night, honest Iago. IAGO. And what's he then that says I play the villain? Probald to thinking, and indeed the course a The quarto reads, joy, revel, pleasure, and applause. Denotement was substituted by Theobald for devotement of the folio. Broken joint. The quarto, broil. [Exit CASSIO. • Probal-probable-an abbreviation not found in any other writer, we believe. In any honest suit; she's fram'd as fruitful As the free elements. And then for her To win the Moor,-were 't to renounce his baptism, His soul is so enfetter'd to her love, That she may make, unmake, do what she list, With his weak function. How am I then a villain, So will I turn her virtue into pitch; And out of her own goodness make the net That shall enmesh them all. How now, Roderigo? Enter 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 exceedingly well cudgelled; and, I think, the issue will be I shall have so much experience for my pains: and so, with no money at all, and a little more wit, return to Venice. IAGO. 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 witchcraft; And wit depends on dilatory time. Does 't not go well? Cassio hath beaten thee, And thou, by that small hurt, hast cashier'd Cassio: 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,- I'll set her on; |