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, think'st thou?
Iago. Why, go to bed, and sleep.
Rod. I will incontinently drown myself.

Iago. Well, if thou dost, I shall never love the 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 look'd upon the world for four times seven years: and since I could distinguish 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 virtue to amend it.

Iago. Virtue? a fig! 'tis in ourselves, that we are thus, or thus. Our bodies are our 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 have profess'd 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 hang'd in compassing thy joy, than to be drown'd 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, and 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; farewel. 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; farewel: put money enough in your purse.

[Exit Roderigo. 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,
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;
But I, for mere suspicion in that kind,
Will do, as if for surety. He holds me well;
The better shall my purpose work on him.

Cassio's a proper man: Let me see now;
To get his place, and to plume up my will;
A double knavery,-How? how?-Let me see:-
After some time, to abuse Othello's ear,
That he is too familiar with his wife:
He hath a person, and a smooth dispose,
To be suspected; fram'd to make women false.
The Moor is of a free and open nature,
That thinks men honest, that but seem to be so;
And will as tenderly be led by the nose,
As asses are.
I have't;—it is engender'd: Hell and night
Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.

[Exit.

ACT II.

SCENE I.

A SEA-PORT TOWN IN CYPRUS.

A PLATFORM.

Enter Montano and two Gentlemen.

Mon. What from the cape can you discern at sea ?

1 Gent. Nothing at all: it is a high-wrought flood; I cannot, 'twixt the heaven and the main, Descry a sail. Mon. Methinks, the wind hath spoke aloud at

land; A fuller blast ne'er shook our battlements: If it hath ruffian'd so upon the sea, What ribs of oak, when mountains melt on them, Can hold the mortise? what shall we hear of this?

2 Gent. A segregation of the Turkish fleet:
For do but stand upon the foaming shore,
The chiding billow seems to pelt the clouds;
The wind-shak’d surge, with high and monstrous

main,
Seems to cast water on the burning bear,
And quench the guards of the ever-fixed pole:
I never did like molestation view
On th' enchafed flood.
Mon.

If that the Turkish fleet
Be not inshelter'd and embay'd, they are drown'd;
It is impossible they bear it out.

Enter a third Gentleman.

3 Gent. News, lords! our wars are done; The desperate tempest hath so bang’d the Turks,