Othello

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 estimation!
DUKE. Be it as you shall privately determine,
Either for her stay or going. The affair cries haste,
And speed must answer't: you must hence tonight.
DESDEMONA. Tonight, my lord?
DUKE. This night.
OTHELLO. 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.
OTHELLO. So 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
To be sent after me.
DUKE. Let it be so.
Good night to everyone. [To Brabantio.] And, noble signior,
If virtue no delighted beauty lack,
Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.
FIRST SENATOR. Adieu, brave Moor, use Desdemona well.
BRABANTIO. Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see;
She has deceived her father, and may thee.

Exeunt Duke, Senators, and Officers

OTHELLO. My life upon her faith! Honest Iago,
My Desdemona must I leave to thee.
I prithee, let thy wife attend on her,
And bring them 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

RODERIGO. Iago!
IAGO. What say'st thou, noble heart?
RODERIGO. What will I do, thinkest thou?
IAGO. Why, go to bed and sleep.
RODERIGO. I will incontinently drown myself.
IAGO. If thou dost, I shall never love thee after.
Why, thou silly gentleman!
RODERIGO. It is silliness to live when to live is 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 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.
RODERIGO. 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! 'Tis 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 sterile 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.
RODERIGO. 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
thou
the wars; defeat thy favor 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