Enter BIANCA.

Bian. Save you, friend Cassio!

Cas.
What make you from home?
How is it with you, my most fair Bianca?
I' faith, sweet love', I was coming to your house.

Bian. And I was going to your lodging, Cassio.
What! keep a week away? seven days and nights?
Eight score eight hours? and lovers' absent hours,
More tedious than the dial eight score times?
O weary reckoning!

Cas.

Pardon me, Bianca;

I have this while with leaden thoughts been press'd; But I shall, in a more continuate time,

Strike off this score of absence.

Sweet Bianca,

[Giving her DESDEMONA's Handkerchief.

Take me this work out.

Bian.

O, Cassio! whence came this?

This is some token from a newer friend:
To the felt absence, now, I feel a cause.
Is it come to this? Well, well.

Go to, woman!

Cas.
Throw your vile guesses in the devil's teeth,

From whence you have them. You are jealous now,
That this is from some mistress some remembrance:

No, in good troth, Bianca.

Bian.

Why, whose is it?

Cas. I know not, sweet: I found it in my chamber.

I like the work well; ere it be demanded,

(As like enough it will) I'd have it copied :

Take it, and do't; and leave me for this time.
Bian. Leave you! wherefore?

6 What MAKE you from home?] A Saxon idiom which Malone destroyed by printing makes.

7 I'faith, sweet love,] The Master of the Revels here again objected to "I'faith," and altered it in the MS. from which the folio was printed to Indeed. 8 a more continuate time,] The quarto, 1622, alone reads "convenient time."

9 I know not, SWEET: I found it in my chamber,] So the quartos, and so the verse requires, the folio " I know not neither," &c.

Cas. I do attend here on the general, And think it no addition, nor my wish, To have him see me woman'd.

Bian.

Cas. Not that I love you not.
Bian.

Why, I pray you'?

But that you do not love me.

I pray you, bring me on the way a little;
And say, if I shall see you soon at night.
Cas. 'Tis but a little way, that I can bring you,
For I attend here; but I'll see you soon.

Bian. 'Tis very good I must be circumstanc'd.

Iago. Or to be naked with her friend abed,
An hour, or more, not meaning any harm?
Oth. Naked abed, Iago, and not mean harm?

It is hypocrisy against the devil:

They that mean virtuously, and yet do so,

The devil their virtue tempts, and they tempt heaven. Iago. If they do nothing, 'tis a venial slip:

But if I give my wife a handkerchief,—

Oth. What then?

Iago. Why, then 'tis hers, my lord; and, being hers, She may, I think, bestow't on any man.

1 Why, I pray you?] This question and the answer to it are wanting in the quarto, 1622. The dialogue is not consecutive without them.

Oth. She is protectress of her honour too: May she give that?

Iago. Her honour is an essence that's not seen; They have it very oft, that have it not:

But, for the handkerchief,—

Oth. By heaven, I would most gladly have forgot

it.

Thou saidst,-O! it comes o'er my memory,

As doth the raven o'er the infected house2,
Boding to all,-he had my handkerchief.
Iago. Ay, what of that?

Oth.

That's not so good, now.

Iago. What, if I had said, I had seen him do you

wrong?

Or heard him say,-as knaves be such abroad,
Who having, by their own importunate suit,
Or voluntary dotage of some mistress,
Convinced or supplied them3, cannot choose
But they must blab-

Oth.

Hath he said any thing? Iago. He hath, my lord; but be you well assur'd, No more than he'll unswear.

Oth.

What hath he said?

Iago. 'Faith, that he did,-I know not what he did. Oth. What? what?

Iago. Lie

Oth.

Iago.

With her?

With her, on her; what you will. Oth. Lie with her! lie on her!-We say, lie on her, when they belie her. Lie with her! that's fulsome.Handkerchief-confessions,—handkerchief1.—To con

2 o'er the INFECTED house,] The folio alone has “infectious house." 3 CONVINCED or SUPPLIED them,] i. e. overcome or satisfied them. This is an ordinary sense of "convince" (as in "Macbeth," p. 118.) and we cannot find the difficulty of the passage which puzzled some of the commentators.

4

confessions, handkerchief.-] Here ends the speech in the quarto, 1622, and a stage-direction is added, "he falls down." The text is continued in the folio, and in the quarto, 1630.

fess, and be hanged for his labour.-First, to be hanged, and then to confess :-I tremble at it. Nature would not invest herself in such shadowing passion, without some instruction. It is not words, that shake me thus: -Pish!-Noses, ears, and lips.-Is it possible ?-Confess!-Handkerchief!-O devil! [Falls in a Trance. Iago. Work on,

My medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught;
And many worthy and chaste dames, even thus,
All guiltless, meet reproach.-What, ho! my lord!

Enter CASSIO.

My lord, I say! Othello!-How now, Cassio!
Cas. What's the matter?

Iago. My lord is fallen into an epilepsy:
This is his second fit; he had one yesterday.
Cas. Rub him about the temples.

Iago.

No, forbears.

The lethargy must have his quiet course,

If not, he foams at mouth; and, by and by,
Breaks out to savage madness. Look, he stirs :
Do you withdraw yourself a little while,
He will recover straight: when he is gone,

I would on great occasion speak with you.

[Exit CASSIO. How is it, general? have you not hurt your head? Oth. Dost thou mock me?

Iago.

I mock you! no, by heaven. Would you would bear your fortunes like a man.

Oth. A horned man's a monster, and a beast.
Iago. There's many a beast, then, in a populous city,

And many a civil monster.

Oth. Did he confess it?

Iago.

Good sir, be a man;

5 No, forbear.] These words, necessary to the completion of the preceding hemistich, are not in the folio: we derive them from the quartos. Lower down the folio reads, tamely, "I mock you not, by heaven."

Think, every bearded fellow, that's but yok'd,
May draw with you: there's millions now alive,
That nightly lie in those unproper beds,

Which they dare swear peculiar: your case is better.
O! 'tis the spite of hell, the fiend's arch-mock,
To lip a wanton in a secure couch,

And to suppose her chaste. No, let me know;
And, knowing what I am, I know what she shall be.
Oth. O! thou art wise; 'tis certain.
Iago. Stand you awhile apart;
Confine yourself but in a patient list.

Whilst you were here, o'erwhelmed with your grief,
(A passion most unsuiting such a man)
Cassio came hither: I shifted him away,
And laid good 'scuse upon your ecstasy;
Bade him anon return, and here speak with me;
The which he promis'd. But encave yourself,
And mark the fleers, the gibes, and notable scorns,
That dwell in every region of his face;
For I will make him tell the tale anew,
Where, how, how oft, how long ago, and when
He hath, and is again to cope your wife:

I say, but mark his gesture.-Marry, patience;
Or I shall say, you are all in all in spleen,
And nothing of a man.

Oth.

Dost thou hear, Iago?

I will be found most cunning in my patience;

But (dost thou hear?) most bloody.

Iago.

That's not amiss;

But yet keep time in all. Will

Will you withdraw?

[OTHELLO retires.

Now will I question Cassio of Bianca,

66

6 Confine yourself but in a patient LIST.] i. e. in a patient limit or boundary. 7 — o'erwhelmed with your grief,] So the folio, and the quarto, 1630: the quarto, 1622, ere while mad with your grief;" probably a typographical error. In the next line, the quarto, 1622, has "unsuiting," the quarto, 1630, unfitting, and the folio, resulting. Lower down, the folio reads, "Do but encave yourself," injuriously as regards the metre.