Rod. I will incontinently drown myself. Iago. Well, if thou dost, I shall never love thee after it. Why, thou silly gentleman! Rod. It is silliness to live, when to live is a 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 between a benefit and an injury, I never found a 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. Rod. What should I do? I confess, it is my shame to be so fond; but it is not in virtue to amend it. Iago. Virtue? a fig! 'tis in ourselves, that we are thus, or thus. Our bodies are our 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 steril 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. Rod. 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 these wars; defeat thy favours with an usurped beard; I say, put money in thy purse. It cannot be, that Desdemona 4a Guinea-hen,] A Guinea-hen was anciently the cant term for a prostitute. STEEVENS. -8 ra sect,] What more modern gardeners call a cutting.-STEEVENS. defeat thy favour-] i. e. Change thy appearance: defeat from defaire, Fr. to unmake. Favour means the combination of features that gives the face its distinguishing character. 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 us locusts," shall be to him shortly as bitter as 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 erringy 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. Rod. 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, and 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. Rod. Where shall we meet i'the morning? Iago. At my lodging. Rod. I'll be with thee betimes. Iago. Go to; farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo? sequestration;] For separation. luscious as locusts,] The fruit of the locust-tree, (which I believe is here meant,) is a long black pod, that contains the seeds, among which there is a very sweet luscious juice of much the same consistency as fresh honey.STEEVENS. Coloquintala "is most bitter, white like a baule, full of seedes, leaves lyke to cucummers, hoat in the second, dry in the third degree." Bullein's Bulwark of Defence, 1579. STEEVENS. erring-] i. e. Wandering. Traverse ;] This was an ancient military word of command. Rod. What say you? Iago. No more of drowning, do you hear. Iago. Go to; farewell: put money enough in your purse. [Exit RODERIGO. Thus do I ever make my fool my purse: For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane, To be suspected; fram'd to make women false. That thinks men honest, that but seem to be so; As asses are. I have't;-it is engender'd :-Hell and night Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light. ACT II. [Exit. SCENE I-A Sea-port Town in Cyprus. A Platform. Enter MONTANO and Two Gentlemen. Mon. What from the cape can you discern at sea? 1 Gent. Nothing at all: it is a high-wrought flood; I cannot, 'twixt the heaven and the main, Descry a sail. aas if for surety.] That is, "I will act as if I were certain of the fact." -M. MASON. b He holds me well ;] i. e. Esteems me.-1 Mon. 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, 2 Gent. A segregation of the Turkish fleet : And quench the guards of the ever-fixed pole :d On th' enchafed flood. Mon. If that the Turkish fleet Be not inshelter'd and embay'd, they are drown'd; Enter a third Gentleman. 3 Gent. News, lords! our wars are done; On most part of their fleet. Mon. How! is this true? 3 Gent. The ship is here put in, The Veronessa; Michael Cassio, Lieutenant to the warlike Moor, Othello, Is come on shore: the Moor himself's at sea, Mon. I am glad on't; 'tis a worthy governor. 3 Gent. But this same Cassio,-though he speak of comfort, Touching the Turkish loss,—yet he looks sadly, banning-] i. e. That execrates the ravages of the waves; the reading of the elder quarto. In the folio, fouming. d guards of the ever-fixed pole:] Alluding to the star Arctophylax. It is some argument in favour of Shakspeare's knowledge of Greek, that Arctophylax literally signifies, the guard of the bear. The Veronessa;] The reading of the old copies is, A Veronessa; by which a ship of Verona is denoted; but Verona is an inland city. Every inconsistency may, however, be avoided, if we read-The Veronessa, i. e. the name of the ship is the Veronessa.-STEEVENS. And prays the Moor be safe; for they were parted Mon. 3 Gent. Come, let's do so; For every minute is expectancy Of more arrivance. Enter CASSIO. Cas. Thanks to the valiant of this warlike isle, That so approve the Moor; O, let the heavens For I have lost him on a dangerous sea! Mon. Is he well shipp'd? Cas. His bark is stoutly timber'd, and his pilot Of very expert and approv'd allowance ; Therefore my hopes, not surfeited to death, [Within.] A sail, a sail, a sail! . Enter another Gentleman. Cas. What noise? 4 Gent. The town is empty; on the brow o'the sea Stand ranks of people, and they cry—a sail. Cas. My hopes do shape him for the governor. 2 Gent. They do discharge their shot of courtesy: -a 1 full soldier.] i. e. A complete soldier. 8 Of very expert and approv'd allowance;] Expert and approv'd allowance is put for allow'd and approv'd expertness. This mode of expression is not unfrequent in Shakspeare.-STEEVENS. Therefore my hopes, not surfeited to death, Stand in bold cure.] Presumptuous hopes, which have no foundation in probability, may poetically be said to surfeit themselves to death, or forward their own dissolution. To stand in bold cure, is to erect themselves in confidence of being fulfilled.-STEEVENS. |