Which, as a grise, or step, may help these lovers
Into your favour.

When remedies are past, the griefs are ended

By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended.
To mourn a mischief that is past and gone
Is the next way to draw more mischief on.
What cannot be preserv'd when fortune takes,
Patience her injury a mockery makes.

The robb'd, that smiles, steals something from the thief:
He robs himself, that spends a bootless grief.

Bra. So let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile :

We lose it not, so long as we can smile.

He bears the sentence well, that nothing bears
But the free comfort which from thence he hears;
But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow,
That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow.
These sentences, to sugar, or to gall,

Being strong on both sides, are equivocal:
But words are words; I never yet did hear,
That the bruis'd heart was pierced through the ear.
Beseech you, now to the affairs of state.

Duke. The Turk with a most mighty preparation makes for Cyprus. Othello, the fortitude of the place is best known to you; and though we have there a substitute of most allowed sufficiency, yet opinion, a sovereign mistress of effects, throws a. more safer voice on you: you must, therefore, be content to slubber the gloss of your new fortunes with this more stubborn and boisterous expedition.

Oth. The tyrant custom, most grave senators,

Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war

My thrice-driven bed of down: I do agnize
A natural and prompt alacrity,

I find in hardness; and do undertake
These present wars against the Ottomites.

Most humbly, therefore, bending to your state,
I crave fit disposition for my wife;

Due reference of place, and exhibition,

With such accommodation, and besort,

As levels with her breeding.

Duke.

Be 't at her father's.

Bra.

Oth. Nor I.

Des.

If you please,

I'll not have it so.

Nor I; I would not there reside,

To put my father in impatient thoughts,
By being in his eye. Most gracious duke,
To my unfolding lend your prosperous ear:
And let me find a charter in your voice,
T'assist my simpleness.

Duke. What would you, Desdemona?

Des. That I did love the Moor to live with him,

My downright violence and storm of fortunes
May trumpet to the world: my heart's subdued
Even to the very quality of my lord:

I saw Othello's visage in his mind;

And to his honours, and his valiant parts,
Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.
So that, dear lords, if I be left behind,
A moth of peace, and he go to the war,
The rites for which I love him are bereft me,
And I a heavy interim shall support

By his dear absence. Let me go with him.

Oth. Your voices, lords: 'beseech you, let her will

Have a free way.

Vouch with me, heaven, I therefore beg it not,

To please the palate of my appetite;

Nor to comply with heat, the young affects,

In my defunct and proper satisfaction;

But to be free and bounteous to her mind:

And heaven defend your good souls, that you think

I will your serious and great business scant,

For she is with me. No, when light-wing'd toys
Of feather'd Cupid foil with wanton dulness
My speculative and active instruments,

That my disports corrupt and taint my business,
Let housewives make a skillet of my helm,
And all indign and base adversities

Make head against my reputation!

Duke. Be it as you shall privately determine, Either for her stay, or going. Th' affair cries haste, And speed must answer it: you must hence to-night.

Des. To-night, my lord?

Duke.

Oth.

This night.

With all my heart.

Duke. At nine i' the morning here we 'll meet again.
Othello, leave some officer behind,

And he shall our commission bring to you;
With such things else of quality and respect,

As doth import you.

0th.

Please your grace, my ancient;

A man he is of honesty, and trust:

To his conveyance I assign my wife,

With what else needful your good grace shall think

If virtue no delighted beauty lack,

Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.

1 Sen. Adieu, brave Moor! use Desdemona well. Bra. Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see: She has deceiv'd her father, and may thee.

[Exeunt DUKE, Senators, Officers, &c. Honest Iago,

Oth. My life upon her faith.
My Desdemona must I leave to thee:
I pr'ythee, let thy wife attend on her,
And bring her after in the best advantage.
Come, Desdemona; I have but an hour
Of love, of worldly matters and direction,
To spend with thee: we must obey the time.

[Exeunt OTHELLO and Desdemona.

Rod. Iago.

Iago. What say'st thou, noble heart?
Rod. What will I do, thinkest thou?
Iago. Why, go to bed, and sleep.
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 betwixt 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 Guineahen, 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 my virtue to amend it.

Iago. Virtue? a fig! 't is in ourselves that we are thus, or thus. Our bodies are 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 profess 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 favour with an usurped beard; I say, put money in thy purse. It cannot be, that Desdemona 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 as 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 erring 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, 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?
Rod. What say you?

Iago. No more of drowning, do you hear.

Rod. I am changed. I'll sell all my land.

Iago. Go to; farewell: put money enough in your purse.

Thus do I ever make my fool my purse;

For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane,

If I would time expend with such a snipe,

[Exit RODERIGO.

But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor;

And it is thought abroad, that 'twixt my sheets

He has done my office: I know not if 't be true;