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Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
My thrice-driven bed of down. I do agonize
A natural and prompt alacrity

I find in hardness; and do undertake
This present war against the Ottomites.
Most humbly therefore bending to your state,
I crave fit disposition for my wife,
Due reference of place and exhibition;
With such accommodation and besort
As levels with her breeding.

Duke. Why, at her father's.

Bra. I will not have it so.

Oth. Nor I.

Des. Nor would I there reside,

To put my father in impatient thoughts

By being in his eye.

Most gracious duke,

your gracious ear,

To my unfolding lend

And let me find a charter in your voice

T'assist my simpleness.

Duke. What would you, Desdemona?

Des. That I did love the Moor to live with him, My downright violence and storm of fortunes May trumpet to the world. My heart's subdued Even to the very quality of my

lord;

I saw Othello's visage in his mind,

And to his honours and his valiant parts
Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.
So that, dear lords, if I be left behind

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A moth of peace, and he go to the war,

The rites, for which I love him, are bereft me:
And I a heavy interim shall support,

By his dear absence. Let me go with him.

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Oth. Your voices, lords; 'beseech you, let her Have a free way. I therefore beg it not To please the palate of my appetite; Nor to apply with heat, the young affects, In my distinct and proper satisfaction; But to be free and bounteous to her mind. And Heaven defend your good souls, that you think, I will your serious and great business scant, For she is with me.-No, when light-winged toys Of feathered Cupid foil with wanton dulness My speculative and officed instruments,

That my disports corrupt and taint my business ; Let housewives make a skillet of my helm, (34) And all indign and base adversities

Make head against my estimation.

Duke. Be it as you shall privately determine, Or for her stay or going; the affair cries haste; And speed must answer. You must hence to-night. Des. To-night, my Lord?

Duke. This night.

Oth. With all my heart.

(34) By referring to figure 100, and reversing it, it may be seen that the helm or bonnet of Othello, there drawn resembles a skillet.

Duke. At nine i' th' morning here we'll meet Othello, leave some officer behind,

[again. And he shall our commission bring to you ; And such things else of quality and respect As doth import you.

Oth. 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 every one.

And, noble signior,

If virtue no delighted beauty lack,

Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.

Sen. Adieu, brave Moor, use Desdemona well. Bra. Adieu, brave Moor, if thou hast eyes to see, She has deceived her father, and may thee.

[Exit Duke, with Senators. Oth. My life upon her faith.--Honest Iago, My Desdemona must I leave to thee;

I pr'ythee, let thy wife attend on her; (35)

(35) Let thy wife attend on her. Iago's wife, Emilia, is the same as Trulla in Hudibras, whose figure (No. 20, by this time well impressed upon the reader's memory,) is following or attending on that of Desdemona in the moon. Though her character in this play may not be free from levity, yet she is not to be considered here so coarse a virago as she was in Hudibras.

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And bring her after in the best advantage.
Come, Desdemona, I have but an hour
Of love, of worldly matter and direction

To speak with thee. We must obey the time.

Manent RODORIGO and IAGO.

Rod. Iago

Iago. What sayest thou, noble heart?

Rod. What will I do, thinkest thou?
Iago. Why, go to bed, and sleep.

[Exeunt.

Rod. I will incontinently drown myself.

Iago. Well, if thou dost, I shall never love thee Why, thou silly gentleman!

[after. Rod. It is silliness to live, when to live is a torment; and then we have a prescription to die, when death is our physician.

Iago. O villainous! I have looked Ироп the world for four times seven years, and since I could distinguish betwixt 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 Guinea-hen, 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 my 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 have it steril with idleness, or manured with industry; why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our will. If the beam 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 syen.

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 professed me thy friend, and I confess me knit to thy deserving with cables of perdurable toughness. I could never better steed thee than now. Put money in thy purse, follow thou 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 It was money in thy purse-nor he his to her.

a violent commencement in her, and thou shalt see an answerable sequestration-put money in thy purse. These Moors are changeable in their wills; fill thy purse with money. The food that to him

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