That thrust had been mine enemy indeed,
But that my coat is better than thou know'st:
I will make proof of thine.
[Draws, and wounds Roderigo.]
RODERIGO
O, I am slain!
[Iago rushes from his post, cuts Cassio behind in the leg, and exit.]
CASSIO
I am maim'd forever. – Help, ho! murder! murder!
[Falls.]
[Enter Othello at a distance.]
OTHELLO
The voice of Cassio: Iago keeps his word.
RODERIGO
O, villain that I am!
OTHELLO
It is even so.
CASSIO
O, help, ho! light! a surgeon!
OTHELLO
'Tis he: – O brave Iago, honest and just,
That hast such noble sense of thy friend's wrong!
Thou teachest me, – minion, your dear lies dead,
And your unbless'd fate hies. Strumpet, I come!
Forth of my heart those charms, thine eyes, are blotted;
Thy bed, lust-stain'd, shall with lust's blood be spotted.
[Exit.]
[Enter Lodovico and Gratiano at a distance.]
CASSIO
What, ho! no watch? no passage? murder! murder!
GRATIANO
'Tis some mischance; the cry is very direful.
CASSIO
O, help!
LODOVICO
Hark!
RODERIGO
O wretched villain!
LODOVICO
Two or three groan: – it is a heavy night:
These may be counterfeits: let's think't unsafe
To come in to the cry without more help.
RODERIGO
Nobody come? then shall I bleed to death.
LODOVICO
Hark!
[Re-enter Iago, with a light.]
GRATIANO
Here's one comes in his shirt, with light and weapons.
IAGO
Who's there? whose noise is this that cries on murder?
LODOVICO
We do not know.
IAGO