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 stead thee than now. Put money in thy purse; follow thou the wars; defeat thy favour2 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 in her, 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: 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 super-subtle Venetian, be not too hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell, thou

4

'These

1 Defeat thy favour.] Make different, disguise, or, as it were, defeature, thy face, in order to give thyself a valiant appearance.— 'Thy face is valiant since I saw thee last.'-Hamlet, ii. 2. assume but valour's excrement.'-Merchant of Venice, iii. 2. Favour often meant face. To alter favour ever is to fear.'-Macbeth, i. 5. See the Editor's Jul. Cæs., p. 15, note 1.

2 Answerable sequestration.] Corresponding retirement or witndrawment.

3 As luscious as locusts, &c.] to have the flavour of honey. bitter apple, of the druggists.

Erring.] Errant; roaming.

The fruit of the locust tree is said
Coloquintida is the colocynth, or

A pox of

shalt enjoy her; therefore make money. drowning thyself! it is clean out of the way: seek thou rather to be hanged in compassing thy joy, than to be drowned and go without her.

Rod. Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend on the issue?

-I

Iago. Thou art sure of me:-Go, make money: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, 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; farewell! Do you hear, Roderigo?
Rod. What say you?

Iago. No more of drowning, do you hear?

Rod. I am changed: I'll go sell all my land.

Iago. Go to; farewell! put money enough in your

purse.

Thus do I ever make my fool my purse;

[Exit RODERIGO.

For I mine own gained 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

1 Cuckold.] A cuckold is one, as it were, cuckooed; gulled like the hedge-sparrow, whose nest has been invaded by the cuckoo. See Worcester's speech in 1 K. Henry IV., v. 1, and the cuckoo song at the end of Love's Labour's Lost.

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;1
The better shall my purpose work on him.
Cassio's a proper2 man: Let me see now;—
To get his place, and to plume up my will,
A double knavery,-How? how ?—Let's 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; framed 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 engendered :—Hell and night
Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.

1 Well.] In great esteem.

[Exit.

2 Proper.] Goodly, handsome. See the Editor's Julius Cæsar, p. 5, note 4.

3 Dispose.] Behaviour.

SCENE I.

ACT II.

SCENE I-A Sea-port Town in Cyprus.

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 ruffianed so1 upon the sea,

What ribs of oak, when mountains melt on them,3
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 chidden billow seems to pelt the clouds;

The wind-shaked surge, with high and monstrous mane,
Seems to cast water on the burning bear,

1 Ruffianed so.] Rioted so; been so boisterous. Compare 2 K. Henry IV., iii. 1, 'The winds who take the ruffian billows by the top.'

2 Mountains melt, &c.] Huge waves are here compared to melting mountains. Farther on, Othello says: 'And let the labouring bark climb hills of seas.' In Troilus and Cressida, i. 3, Nestor says:'But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage

The gentle Thetis, and, anon, behold

The strong-ribbed bark through liquid mountains cut.' 8 Mortise.] A reference to the tenon and mortise of carpentry.

And quench the guards of the ever-fixed pole:1
I never did like molestation view

On the enchafed flood.

Mon.

If that the Turkish fleet

Be not ensheltered and embayed, they are drowned;
It is impossible they bear it out.

Enter a Third Gentleman.

3 Gent. News, lads! our wars are done:
The desperate tempest hath so banged the Turks,
That their designment halts: A noble ship of Venice
Hath seen a grievous wreck and sufferance

On most part of their fleet.

Mon. How is this true?

3 Gent.

The ship is here put in,

A Veronessa. Michael Cassio,

Lieutenant to the warlike Moor Othello,
Is come on shore; the Moor himself's at sea,
And is in full commission here for Cyprus.

Mon. I am glad on 't; 't is a worthy governor.

1 The burning bear, &c.] In our older books of astronomy, the northern constellation Boötes was called the Bear driver, being regarded as driving the Great and Lesser Bears round the celestial pole. Arctophylax, another name of Boötes, is a Greek word meaning the keeper or guard of the bear. See in Julius Cæsar, iii: 1, where Cæsar says 'I am constant as the northern star,' &c.

2 A Veronessa.] This seems to mean a ship called Veronessa. It cannot refer to Cassio, who was not a native of Verona; nor can it mean a ship of Verona, for Verona was not a maritime town.

3 I am glad on't.] Montano, who says this, was himself governor of Cyprus, a man, as the Duke had said,' of most allowed sufficiency;' but the office was only temporary, and we find (iv. 1,) Othello very soon called upon, by the senate's messenger, Lodovico, to transfer the command to Cassio. We may suppose that Montano would be well pleased to resign the post, in a time of so great peril, to such a man as Othello, under whom he had served. On't is for