Iago. What, are you hurt, Lieutenant?'
Cas. Ay, past all surgery.

Jago. Marry, heaven forbid!

Cas. Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, f have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part, Sir, of myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation, Iago, my reputation.

Iago. As I am an honest man, I thought you had received some bodily wound; there is more offence 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 this 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's yours.

Cas. 1 will rather sue to be despised, than to deceive so good a commander, with so slight, so druuken, and so indiscreet an officer. Drunk? and speak parrot? and squabble? swagger? swear and discourse fustian with one's own shadow? Othon invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call the

-

devil! Iago. What was he that you follow'd with your sword? What had he done to you?

Cas. I know not.
Iago. Is it 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, revel, pleasure, and applause, transform our selves into beasts!

Iago.

Lago. Why, but you are now well enough; How came you thus recover'd?,

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 coun- ̈ try 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 nouths 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 inor dinate cup is unbless'd, and the ingredient is a devil.

Iago. Come, Coine, good wine is a good fami liar 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 some 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; she'll help to put you in your place again: she is of so free, so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition, that 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 Vol. xx.

4

naming, this crack of your love shall grow stronger than it was before.

Cas. You advise me well.

Jago. I protest, in the sincerity of love, and honest kindness.

Cas. I think it freely; and, betimes in the morning, will I beseech the virtuous Desdemona to undertake for me: I am desperate of my fortunes, if they check me here.

Lago. You are in the right. Good night, Lieutenant; I must to the watch.

[Exit CASSIO. I play

Cas. Good night, honest Iago.
Iago. And what's he then, that says,
the villain?

When this advice is free, I give, and honest,
Probal to thinking, and (indeed) the course
To win the Moor again? For 'tis most easy
The inclining Desdemona to subdue

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,
All seals and symbols of redeemed sin,
His soul is so enfetter'd to her love,

That she may make, unmake, do what she list,
Even as her appetite shall play the god

With his weak function. How am I then a villain,
To counsel Cassio to this parellel course,
Directly to his good? Divinity of hell!
When devils will their blackest sins put on,
They do suggest at first with heavenly shows,
As I do now: For, while, this honest fool
Plies Desdemona to repair his fortunes,
And she for him pleads strongly to the Moor,
I'll pour this pestilence into his ear,
That she repeals him for her body's lust;
And, by how much she strives to do him good,

She shall undo her credit with the Moor.
So will 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 chace, 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 cudgell'd; and, 1 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 pa

tience!

What wound did ever heal, but by degrees? Thou know'st, we work by wit, and not by witchcraft;

And wit depens on dilatory time.

Does't not go well? Cassio hath beaten thee,
And thou, by that small burt, hast cashier'd

Though other things grow fair against the sun, Yet fruits, that blossom first, will first be ripe: Content thyself a while. By the mass, 'tis morn

ing;

Pleasure, and action, make the hours seem short.
Retire thee; go where thou art billeted:
Away, I say; thou shalt know more hereafter;
Nay, get the gone, [Exit ROD.] Two things are
to be done,
My wife must move for Cassio to her mistress;
I'll set her on;

Myself, the while, to draw the Moor apart,

And bring him jump when he may Cassio find

Soliciting his wife:-Ay, that's the way;
Dull not device by coldness and delay.

[Exit.

Enter CASSIO, and some Musicians.

Cas. Masters, play here, I will content your

pains,

Something that's brief; and bid

general.

good-morrow, [Musick.

Enter Clown.

Clo. Why, Masters, have your instruments been at Naples, that they speak i'the nose thus?

1. Mus. How, Sir, how!

Clo. Are these, I pray you, call'd wind instruments?

1. Mus. Ay, marry, are
they, Sir.
Clo. O, thereby hangs a tail.

1. Mus. Whereby hangs a tale, Sir?

Clo. Marry, Sir, by many a wind instrument that I know. But, Masters, here's money for you: and the general so likes your musick, that he desires you, of all loves, to make no more noise with it.

1. Mus. Well, Sir, we will not.

Clo. If you have any musick that may not be heard to't again: but, as they say, to hear musick, the general does not greatly care.

1. Mus. We have none such, Sir.