Page 1532 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

Given to captivity me and my hopes,
I should have found in some part of my soul
A drop of patience; but, alas, to make me
A fixed figure, for the time of scorn [55]

To point his slow unmoving fingers at... oh, oh.
Yet could I bear that too, well, very well:
But there, where I have garner’d up my heart,
Where either I must live, or bear no life,

The fountain, from the which my current runs, [60]
Or else dries up, to be discarded thence,
Or keep it as a cistern, for foul toads
To knot and gender in! Turn thy complexion there;

Patience, thy young and rose-lipp’d cherubin,
I here look grim as hell! [65]

DESDEMONA
I hope my noble lord esteems me honest.

OTHELLO
O, ay, as summer’s flies, are in the shambles,
That quicken even with blowing:

O thou black weed, why art so lovely fair?
Thou smell’st so sweet, that the sense aches at thee, [70]
Would thou hadst ne’er been born!

DESDEMONA
Alas, what ignorant sin have I committed?

OTHELLO
Was this fair paper, this most goodly book,

Made to write “whore” on?... What, committed?
Committed! O thou public commoner! [75]
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 the nose at it, and the moon winks,
The bawdy wind, that kisses all it meets, [80]
Is hush’d within the hollow mine of earth,