Free Othello by William Shakespeare Page B

14 : if you think other,
     Remove your thought, it doth abuse your bosom:
     If any wretch have put this in your head,
     Let heaven requite it with the serpent’s curse 17 !
     For if she be not honest, chaste and true,
     There’s no man happy: the purest of their wives
     Is foul as slander.
    OTHELLO    Bid her come hither: go.
    Exit Emilia
         She says enough, yet she’s a simple bawd 22
     That cannot say as much. This 23 is a subtle whore,
     A closet lock and key of villainous secrets 24 :
     And yet she’ll kneel and pray, I have seen her do’t.
    Enter Desdemona and Emilia
    DESDEMONA    My lord, what is your will?
    OTHELLO    Pray you, chuck, come hither.
    DESDEMONA    What is your pleasure?
    OTHELLO    Let me see your eyes: look in my face.
    DESDEMONA    What horrible fancy’s this?
    OTHELLO    Some of your function 31 , mistress:
    To Emilia
         Leave procreants 32 alone and shut the door:
     Cough or cry ‘Hem’ if anybody come.
     Your mystery 34 , your mystery: nay, dispatch.
    Exit Emilia
    DESDEMONA    Upon my knee, what doth your speech
    Kneels
           import?
     I understand a fury in your words.
    OTHELLO    Why, what art thou?
    DESDEMONA    Your wife, my lord, your true and loyal wife.
    OTHELLO    Come, swear it, damn thyself
     Lest, being like one of heaven 40 , the devils themselves
     Should fear to seize thee: therefore be double damned:
     Swear thou art honest.
    DESDEMONA    Heaven doth truly know it.
    OTHELLO    Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell.
    DESDEMONA    To whom, my lord? With whom? How am I false?
    OTHELLO    Ah Desdemon! Away, away, away!
    Weeps
    DESDEMONA    Alas the heavy 47 day! Why do you weep?
     Am I the motive of these tears, my lord?
     If haply 49 you my father do suspect
     An instrument of this your calling back,
     Lay not your blame on me: if you have lost him,
     I have lost him too.
    OTHELLO    Had it pleased heaven
     To try me with affliction, had they rained
     All kind of sores 55 and shames on my bare head,
      Steeped 56 me in poverty to the very lips,
     Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes,
     I should have found in some place of my soul
     A drop of patience: but, alas, to make me
     The fixèd figure 60 for the time of scorn
     To point his slow and moving finger 61 at!
     Yet could I bear that too, well, very well,
     But there where I have garnered 63 up my heart,
     Where either I must live, or bear no life,
     The fountain 65 from the which my current runs
     Or else dries up: to be discarded thence!
     Or keep it as a cistern 67 for foul toads
     To knot and gender 68 in! Turn thy complexion there,
     Patience, thou young and rose-lipped cherubin 69 :
     Ay, here look grim 70 as hell!
    DESDEMONA    I hope my noble lord esteems me honest 71 .
    OTHELLO    O, ay, as summer flies are in the shambles 72 ,
     That quicken even with blowing 73 . O, thou weed,
     Who art so lovely fair and smell’st so sweet
     That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst never been born!
    DESDEMONA    Alas, what ignorant 76 sin have I committed?
    OTHELLO    Was this fair paper, this most goodly book,
     Made to write ‘whore’ upon? What committed 78 ?
     Committed? O, thou public commoner 79 ,
     I should make very forges of my cheeks,
     That would to cinders burn up modesty,
     Did I but speak thy deeds. What committed?
     Heaven stops 83 the nose at it and the moon winks,
     The bawdy wind that kisses all it meets
     Is hushed within the hollow mine 85 of earth
     And will not hear’t. What committed?
    DESDEMONA    By heaven, you do me wrong.
    OTHELLO