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SCENE, for the first Act, in Venice; during the rest of the Play, at a Sea-port in Cyprus.

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Rod. Thou told'st me, thou didst hold him in thy hate.

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Iago. Despise me, if I do not. Three great ones
of the city,

In personal suit to make me his lieutenant,
Oft capp'd' to him ;-and, by the faith of man,
I know my price, I am worth no worse a place:
But he, as loving his own pride and purposes,
Evades them, with a bombast circumstance,"
Horribly stuff'd with epithets of war;
And, in conclusion, nonsuits

My mediators; for certes,' says he,
I have already chose my officer.
And what was he?

Forsooth, a great arithmetician,
One Michael Cassio, a Florentine,

A fellow almost damn'd in a fair wife;
That never set a squadron in the field,
Nor the division of a battle knows
More than a spinster; unless the bookish theoric,
Wherein the toged consuls can propose
As masterly as he: mere prattle, without practice,
Is all his soldiership. But he, sir, had the election:
And I, of whom his eyes had seen the proof,
At Rhodes, at Cyprus; and on other grounds
Christian and heathen,-must be be-lee'd and

calm'd

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Certainly.

By debitor and creditor, this counter-caster;"
He, in good time, must his lieutenant be,
And I, (God bless the mark!) his Moorship's an
*cient.

Rod. By heaven, I rather would have been his hangman.

Iago. But there's no remedy, 'tis the curse of

service;

Preferment goes by letter, and affection,
Not by the old gradation, where each second
Stood heir to the first. Now, sir, be judge yourself,
Whether I in any just term am affin'd'
To love the Moor.

Rod.
I would not follow him then
lago. O, sir, content you;

I follow him to serve my turn upon him:
We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
Cannot be truly follow'd. You shall mark
Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave,
That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,
Wears out his time, much like his master's ass,
For nought but provender; and, when he's old,
cashier'd;

Whip me such honest knaves: Others there are
Who, trimm'd in forms and visages of duty,
Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves,
And, throwing but shows of service on the
lords,

Do well thrive by them, and when they have lined their coats,

Do themselves homage: these fellows have some soul;

And such a one do I profess myself
For, sir,

It is as sure as you are Roderigo,
Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago:
In following him, I follow but myself;

It was anciently the practice to reckon up sums with

counters.

Related.

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