IAGO.
There’s many a beast, then, in a populous city,
And many a civil monster.
OTHELLO.
Did he confess it?
IAGO.
Good sir, be a man.
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.
OTHELLO.
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. Do 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.
OTHELLO.
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 you withdraw?
[Othello withdraws.]
Now will I question Cassio of Bianca,
A housewife that by selling her desires
Buys herself bread and clothes: it is a creature
That dotes on Cassio, (as ’tis the strumpet’s plague
To beguile many and be beguil’d by one.)
He, when he hears of her, cannot refrain
From the excess of laughter. Here he comes.
Enter Cassio.