"Othello" By William Shakespeare, Act 5

Here, stand behind this bulk. Straight will he come.
Wear thy good rapier bare, and put it home.
Quick, quick! Fear nothing. I’ll be at thy elbow.

Now, whether he kill Cassio,
Or Cassio him, or each do kill the other,
Every way makes my gain. Live Roderigo,
He calls me to a restitution large
Of gold and jewels that I bobbed from him
As gifts to Desdemona.

I know his gait. ’Tis he!—Villain, thou diest!

I am maimed forever! Help, ho! Murder, murder!

’Tis some mischance. The voice is very direful.

What are you here that cry so grievously?

O treacherous villains!

Cassio, may you suspect
Who they should be that have thus mangled you?

Yet I’ll not shed her blood,
Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,
And smooth as monumental alabaster.

If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,
I can again thy former light restore
Should I repent me.

O balmy breath, that dost almost persuade
Justice to break her sword!

If you bethink yourself of any crime
Unreconciled as yet to heaven and grace,
Solicit for it straight.

That death’s unnatural that kills for loving.
Alas, why gnaw you so your nether lip?
Some bloody passion shakes your very frame.
These are portents, but yet I hope, I hope
They do not point on me.

Sweet soul, take heed, take heed of perjury.
Thou art on thy deathbed.

Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse
Of sun and moon, and that th’ affrighted globe
Should yawn at alteration.

O, I were damned beneath all depth in hell
But that I did proceed upon just grounds
To this extremity.

What needs this iterance, woman? I say, thy husband.

If he say so, may his pernicious soul
Rot half a grain a day! He lies to th’ heart!
She was too fond of her most filthy bargain.

You told a lie, an odious, damnèd lie!
Upon my soul, a lie, a wicked lie!

Did he live now,
This sight would make him do a desperate turn,
Yea, curse his better angel from his side,
And fall to reprobance.

Cassio confessed it,
And she did gratify his amorous works
With that recognizance and pledge of love
Which I first gave her.

O thou dull Moor, that handkerchief thou speak’st of
I found by fortune, and did give my husband—
For often, with a solemn earnestness
(More than indeed belonged to such a trifle),
He begged of me to steal ’t.

O thou dull Moor, that handkerchief thou speak’st of
I found by fortune, and did give my husband—
For often, with a solemn earnestness
(More than indeed belonged to such a trifle),
He begged of me to steal ’t.

’Tis a notorious villain. Take you this weapon
Which I have here recovered from the Moor.
Come, guard the door without. Let him not pass,
But kill him rather.

What did thy song bode, lady?

If thou attempt it, it will cost thee dear;
Thou hast no weapon and perforce must suffer.

Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil
Why he hath thus ensnared my soul and body?

Now here’s another discontented paper
Found in his pocket, too; and this it seems
Roderigo meant t’ have sent this damnèd villain,
But that, belike, Iago in the interim
Came in and satisfied him.

There is besides, in Roderigo’s letter,
How he upbraids Iago, that he made him
Brave me upon the watch, whereon it came
That I was cast.

I pray you in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am. Nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice.

Then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely, but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Judean, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drops tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinable gum.

Then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely, but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Judean, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drops tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinable gum.

Set you down this.
And say besides, that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turbanned Turk
Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,
I took by th’ throat the circumcisèd dog,
And smote him, thus. [He stabs himself.]

Set you down this.
And say besides, that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turbanned Turk
Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,
I took by th’ throat the circumcisèd dog,
And smote him, thus. [He stabs himself.]

Set you down this.
And say besides, that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turbanned Turk
Beat a Venetian and traduced the state,
I took by th’ throat the circumcisèd dog,
And smote him, thus. [He stabs himself.]