EMILIA.
Good gentlemen, let me have leave to speak.
’Tis proper I obey him, but not now.
Perchance, Iago, I will ne’er go home.
OTHELLO.
O! O! O!
[Hanging over his wife.]
EMILIA.
Nay, lay thee down and roar;
For thou hast kill’d the sweetest innocent
That e’er did lift up eye.
OTHELLO.
[Rising.] O, she was foul!
I scarce did know you, uncle, there lies your niece,
Whose breath indeed these hands have newly stopp’d.
I know this act shows horrible and grim.
GRATIANO.
Poor Desdemona! I am glad thy father’s dead.
Thy match was mortal to him, and pure grief
Shore his old thread in twain: did he live now,
This sight would make him do a desperate turn,
Yea, curse his better angel from his side,
And fall to reprobance.
OTHELLO.
’Tis pitiful. But yet Iago knows
That she with Cassio hath the act of shame
A thousand times committed; Cassio confess’d it,
And she did gratify his amorous works
With that recognizance and pledge of love
Which I first gave her; I saw it in his hand.
It was a handkerchief, an antique token
My father gave my mother.
EMILIA.
O heaven! O heavenly powers!
IAGO.
Come, hold your peace.
EMILIA.
’Twill out, ’twill out. I peace?
No, I will speak as liberal as the north.
Let heaven and men and devils, let them all,
All, all, cry shame against me, yet I’ll speak.