Page 1576 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

Your power and your command is taken off,
And Cassio rules in Cyprus: for this slave,
If there be any cunning cruelty,
That can torment him much, and hold him long, [335]

It shall be his: you shall close prisoner rest,
Till that the nature of your fault be known
To the Venetian state; come, bring him away.

OTHELLO
Soft you, a word or two:

I have done the state some service, and they know ’t; [340]
No more of that: I pray you in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of them as they are; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice; then must you speak

Of one that lov’d not wisely, but too well: [345]
Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought,
Perplex’d in the extreme; of one whose hand,

Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away,
Richer than all his tribe: of one whose subdued eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood, [350]
Drops tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinal gum; set you down this,

And say besides, that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turban’d Turk
Beat a Venetian and traduc’d the state, [355]

I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
And smote him thus.
Stabs himself.

LODOVICO
O bloody period!

GRATIANO
All that’s spoke is marr’d.

OTHELLO
I kiss’d thee ere I kill’d thee, no way but this,