Othello

Officers, Gentlemen, Messenger, Musicians, Herald, Sailor, Attendants, &c. SCENE: The First Act in Venice; during the rest of the Play at a Seaport in Cyprus. Enter Roderigo and Iago . RODERIGO. Tush, never tell me, I take it much unkindly That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse, As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this. IAGO. ’Sblood, but you will not hear me. If ever I did dream of such a matter, Abhor me. RODERIGO. Thou told’st me, thou didst hold him in thy hate. IAGO. Despise me if I do not. Three great ones of the city, In personal suit to make me his lieutenant, Off-capp’d to him; and by the faith of man, I know my price, I am worth no worse a place. But he, as loving his own pride and purposes, Evades them, with a bombast circumstance, Horribly stuff’d with epithets of war: And in conclusion, Nonsuits my mediators: for “Certes,” says he, “I have already chose my officer.” And what was he? Forsooth, a great arithmetician, One Michael Cassio, a Florentine, A fellow almost damn’d in a fair wife, That never set a squadron in the field, Nor the division of a battle knows More than a spinster, unless the bookish theoric, Wherein the toged consuls can propose 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 belee’d and calm’d By debitor and creditor, this counter-caster, He, in good time, must his lieutenant be, And I, God bless the mark, his Moorship’s ancient. RODERIGO. By heaven, I rather would have been his hangman. IAGO. Why, there’s no remedy. ’Tis the curse of service, Preferment goes by letter and affection, And not by 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. IAGO. O, sir, content you. I follow him to serve my turn upon him: We cannot all be masters, nor all masters Cannot be truly follow’d. You shall mark Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave That, doting on his own obsequious bondage, Wears out his time, much like his master’s ass,