Page 1414 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

One Michael Cassio, a Florentine, [20]
A fellow almost damn’d in a fair wife,
That never set a squadron in the field,
Nor the devision of a battle knows,

More than a spinster, unless the bookish theoric,
Wherein the toged consuls can propose [25]
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 lee’d, and calm’d, [30]
By debitor and creditor, this counter-caster:

He, in good time, must his lieutenant be,
And I, God bless the mark, his worship’s ancient.

RODERIGO
By heaven I rather would have been his hangman.

IAGO
But there’s no remedy, ’tis the curse of service, [35]
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.

RODERIGO
I would not follow him then. [40]

IAGO
O, sir, content you.
I follow him to serve my turn upon him:
We cannot be all masters, nor all masters
Cannot be truly follow’d. You shall mark

Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave, [45]
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,