wretched fool, That liv’st to make thine honesty a vice! O monstrous world! Take note, take note, O world, To be direct and honest is not safe. I thank you for this profit, and from hence I’ll love no friend, sith love breeds such offence. 

OTHELLO. Nay, stay. Thou shouldst be honest. 

IAGO. I should be wise; for honesty’s a fool, And loses that it works for. 

OTHELLO. By the world, I think my wife be honest, and think she is not. I think that thou art just, and think thou art not. I’ll have some proof: her name, that was as fresh As Dian’s visage, is now begrim’d and black As mine own face. If there be cords or knives, Poison or fire, or suffocating streams, I’ll not endure ’t. Would I were satisfied! 

IAGO. I see, sir, you are eaten up with passion. I do repent me that I put it to you. You would be satisfied? 

OTHELLO. Would? Nay, I will. 

IAGO. And may; but how? How satisfied, my lord? Would you, the supervisor, grossly gape on, Behold her topp’d? 

OTHELLO. Death and damnation! O! 

IAGO. It were a tedious difficulty, I think, To bring them to that prospect. Damn them then, If ever mortal eyes do see them bolster More than their own! What then? How then? What shall I say? Where’s satisfaction? It is impossible you should see this, Were they as prime as goats, as hot as monkeys, As salt as wolves in pride, and fools as gross As ignorance made drunk. But yet I say, If imputation and strong circumstances, Which lead directly to the door of truth, Will give you satisfaction, you may have’t. 

OTHELLO. Give me a living reason she’s disloyal. 

IAGO. I do not like the office, But sith I am enter’d in this cause so far, Prick’d to ’t by foolish honesty and love, I will go on. I lay with Cassio lately, And being troubled with a raging tooth, I could not sleep. There are a kind of men so loose of soul, That in their sleeps will mutter their affairs. One of this kind is Cassio: In sleep I heard him say, “Sweet Desdemona, Let us be wary, let us hide our loves;” And then, sir, would he gripe and wring my hand, Cry “O sweet creature!” and then kiss me hard, As if he pluck’d up kisses by the roots, That grew upon my lips, then laid his leg Over my thigh, and sigh’d and kiss’d, and then Cried “Cursed fate that gave thee to the Moor!” 

 Prev. P 49/96 next