Page 1469 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

CASSIO

I will rather sue to be despis’d, than to deceive so good a commander, with
so light, so drunken, and [270] indiscreet an officer. Drunk? and speak parrot?
and squabble? swagger? swear? and discourse fustian with one’s own

shadow? O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by,
let us call thee devil! [275]

IAGO
What was he, that you followed with your sword? What had he done to you?

CASSIO
I know not.

IAGO
Is’t possible?

CASSIO
I remember a mass of things, but nothing [280] distinctly; a quarrel, but
nothing wherefore. O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths, to

steal away their brains; that we should with joy, revel, pleasure, and
applause, transform ourselves into beasts!

IAGO
Why, but you are now well enough: how came [285] you thus recovered?

CASSIO
It hath pleas’d the devil drunkenness to give place to the devil wrath; one

unperfectness shows me another, to make me frankly despise myself.

IAGO

Come, you are too severe a moraler; as the time, [290] the place, the
condition of this country stands, I could heartily wish this had not so befallen;
but since it is as it is, mend it, for your own good.

CASSIO
I will ask him for my place again, he shall tell me I am a drunkard: had I as
many mouths as Hydra, [295] such an answer would stop ’em all: to be now