Othello Act 3 Scene 3

Be certain of this, good Cassio: I will do

everything in my power on your behalf.

Please do, madam. I promise you it upsets my husband

as though the trouble were his own.

Oh, he's an honest man. Have no fear, Cassio —

I'll get my husband and you back

on the old friendly terms.

Generous lady,

whatever becomes of Michael Cassio,

he'll never be anything but your loyal servant.

I know it. Thank you. You're fond of my husband,

you've known him a long time — and rest assured

he'll keep you at a distance no further

than politics requires.

Yes, but, my lady,

that policy might last so long,

or live on such a thin and watery diet,

or keep renewing itself out of one circumstance after another,

that with me gone and my post filled by someone else,

my general will forget my loyalty and my service.

Don't be afraid of that. Here, in front of Emilia,

I guarantee you your post. Be certain of this:

if I promise a kindness, I carry it out

down to the last detail. My husband will get no rest.

I'll keep him awake till he gives in and talk till he can't stand it.

His bed will feel like a classroom, his dinner table like a confession box.

I'll mix Cassio's case into everything

he does. So cheer up, Cassio:

your advocate would sooner die

than drop your case. (She is promising to bring Cassio up at every opportunity until Othello gives in. Keeping that promise is precisely what will make her look guilty.)

Madam — here comes my lord.

Madam, I'll take my leave.

No — stay, and hear me speak to him.

Not now, madam. I'm very uncomfortable,

in no state to serve my own cause.

Well — do as you think best.

Huh. I don't like that. (Four words, muttered, apparently to himself. He never makes an accusation in this scene. He makes noises and lets Othello do the accusing.)

What did you say?

Nothing, my lord. Or if — I don't know what.

Wasn't that Cassio leaving my wife?

Cassio, my lord? No, surely not. I can't believe

he'd slip away looking so guilty

at the sight of you coming.

I'm fairly sure it was him.

Well, my lord?

I've been talking here with a man who wants something —

a man who's wasting away out of favour with you.

Who do you mean?

Your lieutenant, Cassio. My good lord,

if I have any charm or influence with you at all,

make it up with him now.

Because if he isn't a man who genuinely loves you,

who went wrong out of stupidity and not calculation,

then I can't read an honest face at all.

Please — call him back.

Did he leave just now?

Yes, truly — and so humiliated

that he's left some of his misery behind with me

to share. My love, call him back.

Not now, sweet Desdemon. Another time.

But will it be soon?

The sooner, sweetheart, because you ask.

Shall it be tonight at supper?

No, not tonight.

Tomorrow at dinner, then?

I won't be eating at home.

I'm meeting the captains at the citadel.

Tomorrow night, then, or Tuesday morning,

Tuesday midday or Tuesday night, or Wednesday morning.

Please name the time — only don't let it

be more than three days off. Honestly, he's sorry.

And in ordinary judgement his offence —

except that they say the army has to make examples

of its best men — hardly even amounts to something

worth a private telling-off. When should he come?

Tell me, Othello. I honestly can't imagine

what you could ask me that I'd refuse you,

or dither over like this. What — Michael Cassio,

who came courting with you, and so often,

when I said something critical about you,

took your side — and it takes all this fuss

to bring him back! By Our Lady, I could argue a great deal further —

Please, no more. Let him come whenever he likes.

I'll refuse you nothing.

But this isn't a favour!

It's like begging you to wear your gloves,

or eat properly, or keep yourself warm,

or asking you to do something for your own

particular good. No — when I do have a request

that's really meant to test your love,

it will be weighty and hard to balance

and frightening to grant.

I'll refuse you nothing.

In return for which, I beg you, grant me this:

leave me by myself for a little while.

Would I refuse you? No. Goodbye, my lord.

Goodbye, my Desdemona. I'll come to you shortly.

Emilia, come. — Be whatever your moods make you.

Whatever you are, I do as you wish.

Wonderful creature! Let my soul be damned

if I don't love you. And when I stop loving you,

the world goes back to chaos. ('Wretch' here is an endearment — something like 'you poor darling'. It is the opposite of an insult.)

My noble lord —

What is it, Iago?

Did Michael Cassio,

while you were courting my lady, know about your love?

He did, from beginning to end. Why do you ask?

Only to settle something in my mind.

Nothing more than that.

Why, what's in your mind, Iago?

I didn't realise he'd known her.

Oh yes — he carried messages between us all the time.

Really?

Really? Yes, really. Do you see something in that?

Isn't he honest?

Honest, my lord?

Honest — yes, honest.

As far as I know, my lord.

What do you think?

Think, my lord?

'Think, my lord?' By heaven, you're echoing me

as though there were some monster in your mind

too hideous to be shown. You mean

something.

I heard you say a moment ago that you didn't like that,

when Cassio left my wife. What didn't you like?

And when I told you he was in my confidence

through the whole courtship, you said

'Really?'

and drew your eyebrows together and frowned,

as if you'd locked away in your head

some horrible idea. If you care about me,

show me what you're thinking. (Othello has just described Iago's entire technique with complete accuracy — the pauses, the repeated words, the frown — and drawn from it the conclusion Iago wanted.)

My lord, you know I'm devoted to you.

I believe you are.

And because I know you're full of loyalty and honesty,

and weigh your words before you let them

out,

these hesitations of yours frighten me all the more.

In a lying, disloyal man such things

are just habits of the trade; but in an honest man

they're things forced out from a heart

too full to hold them back.

As for Michael Cassio,

I'd swear on oath that I believe he's honest.

So do I.

Men ought to be what they look like.

Or if they aren't, I wish they didn't look like men at all.

Certainly — men should be what they seem.

Well then, I think Cassio is an honest man. (He has now said Cassio is honest three times, and each repetition has made Othello believe it less. He is agreeing his way to the opposite result.)

No — there's more to this.

Please, tell me what you're thinking,

just as it comes to you, and give your worst

thoughts

the worst words.

My good lord, forgive me.

I'm obliged to do every duty,

but not to a thing even a slave is free to refuse.

Say my thoughts out loud? Suppose they're vile and

false —

and where's the palace that filthy things

never get into? Whose heart is so

pure

that no dirty suspicions ever

hold court in it, sitting in judgement

alongside the respectable thoughts?

You're plotting against your friend, Iago,

if you believe he's being wronged and keep his ear

a stranger to what you think.

I beg you —

although my guesswork may well be poisonous;

I admit it's the curse of my nature

to go looking for wrongdoing, and my suspicion often

invents faults that aren't there — I beg that you, in your wisdom,

would take no notice of a man who judges

so badly, and wouldn't build yourself any trouble

out of his scattered, unreliable noticing.

It wouldn't be for your peace of mind or your good,

nor for my manhood, honesty and good sense,

to let you know what I think. (Every sentence is a refusal to speak, and every refusal makes the unspoken thing larger. He is not hiding anything, because there is nothing there to hide.)

God's wounds — what do you mean?

A good name, in a man or a woman, my dear lord,

is the jewel nearest to their soul.

Whoever steals my purse steals rubbish. It's something,

and nothing:

it was mine, now it's his, and it's been the servant of

thousands.

But the man who steals my good name from me

robs me of something that doesn't make him richer

and leaves me genuinely poor. (In Act 2 he told Cassio that reputation was an idle, false thing, lost and won without deserving. Same speaker, same week, opposite argument, both delivered with total conviction.)

By heaven, I will know what you're thinking.

You couldn't, not even if my heart were in your hand,

and you won't while it's in my keeping.

What?

Oh, beware of jealousy, my lord.

It's the green-eyed monster that toys with

the meat it feeds on. The deceived husband lives in bliss

who knows for certain and doesn't love the woman who wrongs him.

But oh, what damned minutes are counted out

by the man who adores and doubts, suspects and still loves hard. (The monster plays with its food rather than eating it — it keeps the victim alive to go on tormenting him. Iago is describing, with precision, what he is at that moment doing.)

Oh, misery.

To be poor and contented is to be rich, rich enough;

but limitless wealth is as poor as winter

to a man who lives in fear of going broke.

Good God, defend the souls of all my kind

from jealousy!

Why — what is all this?

Do you think I'd build a life out of jealousy,

following every change of the moon

with a fresh suspicion? No. To doubt once

is to settle it once and for all. Swap me for a goat

the day I turn the serious business of my soul

over to such puffed-up, inflated guesswork

as you're hinting at. It doesn't make me jealous

to say my wife is beautiful, eats well, likes company,

speaks freely, sings, plays music and dances well.

Where there's virtue, these things are all the more virtuous.

Nor will I draw, out of my own poor worth,

the smallest fear that she might turn from me,

because she had eyes, and she chose me. No, Iago:

I'll see before I doubt; when I doubt, I'll test it;

and once it's proved, there's nothing more to say —

away at once with either the love or the jealousy. (His rule is sound and he states it clearly. Within two hundred lines he will accept a report of somebody else's dream as proof.)

I'm glad of this, because now I've grounds

to show the love and duty I feel for you

more openly. So, since it's my duty,

take this from me. I'm not talking about proof yet.

Watch your wife. Watch her carefully with Cassio.

Keep your eyes like this — neither jealous nor complacent.

I wouldn't want your open and noble nature

abused because of your own generosity. Watch out for it.

I know the way things are done in our country.

In Venice, women let God see the tricks

they'd never dare show their husbands. Their idea of a clear

conscience

isn't to leave it undone, but to keep it quiet.

Is that what you say?

She deceived her father by marrying you.

And when she seemed to tremble and fear the sight of you,

that was when she loved it most. (This is Brabantio's parting shot in Act 1, handed back to Othello word for word. Iago has been saving it.)

So she did.

Well, there you are, then.

A girl who could put on such a performance so young,

and sew her father's eyes shut as tight as oak,

so that he thought it was witchcraft — but I'm much to

blame.

I humbly beg your pardon

for caring about you too much.

I'm in your debt for ever.

I can see this has knocked your spirits a little.

Not in the least. Not in the least.

Honestly, I'm afraid it has.

I hope you'll take what I've said

as coming from affection. But I can see you're upset.

I must beg you not to stretch my words

into anything coarser or wider

than a suspicion.

I won't.

If you did, my lord,

my words would end in a vile result

I never intended. Cassio is my good

friend.

My lord — I can see you're upset.

No. Not much.

I've no doubt Desdemona is faithful.

Long may she be so — and long may you go on thinking it.

And yet, when nature goes wrong against itself —

Yes — that's the point. For instance, to be blunt with you:

turning down all those offered matches

from her own country, her own colour, her own rank —

which is the way nature leans in everything —

ugh, you can smell something rotten in a desire like that,

something badly out of proportion, unnatural thinking —

but forgive me, I'm not in saying this

referring to her specifically, though I do fear

her desire, once it comes back to better judgement,

may start comparing you to the men of her own country

and possibly regret the whole thing. (This is the argument underneath all the others, and now it is out loud: that a white Venetian woman choosing a black man is against nature, and needs explaining. Iago attaches it to Desdemona and then says he isn't talking about Desdemona.)

Goodbye, goodbye.

If you notice anything more, tell me more.

Put your wife on to watching her. Leave me, Iago.

(going) My lord, I'll take my leave.

Why did I marry? This honest man undoubtedly

sees and knows more — far more — than he lets out.

(coming back) My lord, I wish I could persuade your honour

to examine this no further. Leave it to time.

Although it's right that Cassio should have his post —

he certainly fills it very ably —

still, if you'd hold him off for a while,

you'll learn something about him and his methods.

Notice whether your lady pushes for his reinstatement

with any strong or insistent pleading.

A lot will show in that. In the meantime,

let me be thought over-anxious in my fears —

as I've good reason to fear I am —

and consider her innocent, I beg your honour. (He has just told Othello to test her by watching how hard she argues for Cassio — knowing she has promised to argue constantly. The more loyal she is to a friend, the guiltier she will look.)

Don't worry about my self-control.

Once more, I'll take my leave.

This man is honest beyond the ordinary,

and understands every kind of human dealing

with a trained eye. If I prove her a wild hawk,

then even if the straps on her legs were my own heartstrings,

I'd whistle her off and turn her loose downwind

to hunt for herself. Perhaps because I'm black,

and haven't the smooth conversational graces

these courtiers have — or because I've slipped

into the valley of middle age; though that's not much —

she's gone. I'm deceived, and my only relief

will be to hate her. Oh, the curse of marriage,

that we can call these delicate creatures ours

and not their appetites. I'd rather be a toad

living off the damp air of a dungeon

than keep a corner of the thing I love

for other men's use. But it's the curse of the great;

they have fewer privileges than the low-born.

It's a fate you can't dodge, like death.

This horned curse is settled on us

from the moment we stir in the womb. Look — here she comes. (A hawk that will not be tamed is called a haggard; jesses are the straps on its legs. He has moved in twelve lines from trusting her completely to planning how to release her — and the reason he reaches for first is his own colour.)

If she's false, then heaven is making a joke of itself.

I won't believe it.

Well now, my dear Othello?

Your dinner is waiting, and so are the noble islanders

you invited.

That's my fault.

Why are you speaking so faintly? Aren't you well?

I've a pain in my forehead, here.

That's from too little sleep. It'll pass.

Just let me bind it up tightly. Within the hour

it'll be fine.

Your handkerchief is too small. (The whole tragedy turns on this line. He pushes away the thing she is trying to comfort him with, and neither of them looks down.)

Leave it.

(The handkerchief falls; neither of them notices.) Come on, I'll go in with you.

I'm so sorry you're not well.

(picking up the handkerchief) I'm glad I've found this handkerchief.

It was the first keepsake the Moor gave her.

My difficult husband has begged me a hundred times

to steal it. But she loves the thing so much —

because he made her swear to keep it always —

that she keeps it on her all the time,

to kiss and talk to. I'll have the embroidery copied

and give this to Iago. What he'll do with it,

heaven knows — I don't.

I only want to satisfy his whim.

Well? What are you doing here on your own?

Don't start telling me off. I've got a thing for you.

You've got a thing for me? It's a common enough thing —

What?

— to have a foolish wife.

Oh, is that all? Now — what will you give me

for that handkerchief?

What handkerchief?

What handkerchief!

The one the Moor first gave to Desdemona —

the one you've told me so often to steal.

Have you stolen it from her?

No, honestly — she let it fall by accident,

and I took the chance, being here, and picked it up.

Look — here it is.

Good girl. Give it here.

What are you going to do with it, that you've been so

desperate

to have me pinch it?

(snatching it) What's that got to do with you?

If it isn't for something important,

give it back. Poor lady, she'll go out of her mind

when she finds it gone.

Pretend you know nothing about it.

I have a use for it. Go on, leave me.

I'll drop this handkerchief in Cassio's lodgings

and let him find it. Trifles as light as air

are, to the jealous, confirmation as strong

as proof from scripture. This may achieve something.

The Moor is already changing under my poison.

Dangerous ideas are poisons by nature —

at first you hardly notice the taste,

but once they've worked a little on the blood

they burn like a sulphur mine. (He is not concealing his method. He has now stated it twice — the evidence does not need to be good, it only needs to reach someone who is already looking for it.)

I said as much.

Look, here he comes. Neither opium nor mandrake

nor all the sleeping draughts in the world

will ever dose you back into the sweet sleep

you had yesterday.

Ha — unfaithful to me?

Come now, general. No more of that.

Away! Get out! You've put me on the rack.

I swear it's better to be badly deceived

than to know only a little about it.

What's this, my lord?

What did I feel of her stolen hours of lust?

I didn't see it, didn't think it, and it did me no harm.

I slept well the next night, ate well, was easy and

cheerful.

I found no trace of Cassio's kisses on her lips.

A man who's robbed, and doesn't miss what was taken —

keep it from him and he hasn't been robbed at all.

I'm sorry to hear this.

I'd have been happy if the whole camp,

down to the ditch-diggers, had tasted her sweet body,

so long as I'd known nothing. Oh, now — for ever,

goodbye to the quiet mind. Goodbye to contentment.

Goodbye to the plumed troops and the great wars

that turn ambition into a virtue. Oh, goodbye.

Goodbye to the neighing warhorse and the shrill trumpet,

the drum that lifts the blood, the ear-splitting fife,

the royal banner, and every last bit

of the pride, display and ceremony of glorious war.

And you deadly cannon, whose rough throats

imitate the terrible noise of immortal Jupiter —

goodbye. Othello's occupation is gone. (Ten lines of grief, and not one of them is about Desdemona. He is mourning his career. What Iago has taken from him is the thing he thought he was.)

Is this possible, my lord?

Villain — you had better prove my love a whore.

Be sure of it. Give me the proof of my own eyes,

or, by the value of my immortal soul,

you'd have been better off born a dog

than face my anger once it's awake.

Has it come to this?

Make me see it — or at least prove it so completely

that the proof leaves no hinge or loop

to hang a doubt on. Or God help your life.

My noble lord —

If you're slandering her and torturing me,

then never pray again. Give up all pity.

Pile horrors on the head of horror.

Do things to make heaven weep and the whole earth stare.

Because you can add nothing to your damnation

worse than that.

Oh, mercy. Heaven forgive me.

Are you a man? Have you a soul, or any sense?

God be with you. Take my post back. — Oh, what a wretched fool,

to live only to have his honesty turned into a fault. —

Oh, monstrous world. Take note, world, take note:

being straight and honest is not safe. —

Thank you for the lesson. From now on

I'll care for no friend, since caring produces injuries like this.

No — stay. You're probably honest.

I ought to be clever instead. Honesty is an idiot

and loses the very thing it works for.

By the world,

I think my wife is faithful, and I think she isn't.

I think you're honest, and I think you're not.

I'll have some proof. Her name, that used to be as clean

as the face of the moon, is filthy and black now,

as black as my own face. If there are ropes, or knives,

poison, or fire, or water to drown in,

I won't put up with this. I wish I knew for certain. (Iago's colour scheme has now moved inside him. Othello reaches for a word for 'ruined' and the word he finds is his own face.)

I can see you're eaten up with feeling.

I'm sorry I ever raised it with you.

You want to be certain?

Want to? No — I will be.

And you can be. But how? Certain in what way, my lord?

Would you stand there and watch, crudely gaping,

and see her mounted?

Death and damnation! Oh —

It would be a long and difficult business, I think,

to manoeuvre them into view. Damn them, then,

if any human eyes ever see them share a pillow

except their own. What then? How, then?

What am I to say? Where's your certainty?

It's impossible for you to see this,

even if they were as randy as goats, as hot as monkeys,

as rutting as wolves in heat, and as gross in their folly

as ignorance with drink in it. But even so —

if strong suggestion and circumstances

that lead straight to the door of the truth

will satisfy you, then you can have it.

Give me one solid reason to think she's unfaithful.

I don't like the job,

but since I've gone this far into the business,

driven to it by foolish honesty and affection,

I'll go on. I shared a bed with Cassio recently,

and being kept up by a raging toothache

I couldn't sleep. There's a type of man

so loose-souled that in their sleep they mutter

their private business. Cassio is one of them.

In his sleep I heard him say, 'Sweet Desdemona,

let's be careful, let's keep our love hidden.'

And then, sir, he'd grip and wring my hand,

cry 'Oh, sweet creature!' and kiss me hard,

as though he were pulling up kisses by the roots

where they grew on my lips. Then he laid his leg

over my thigh, and sighed, and kissed me, and then

cried, 'Cursed fate, that gave you to the Moor.' (This is the living reason Othello asked for: a story, with no witness, about what another man may have said while asleep. It proves nothing whatever, and Iago is the only source for all of it.)

Monstrous! Monstrous!

But this was only his

dream.

But it points to something already done.

It's a strong reason to suspect, even if it is only a dream.

And it may help to thicken up other proofs

that are looking rather thin.

I'll tear her to pieces.

No — be sensible. We've still seen nothing actually done.

She may still be faithful. Just tell me this:

haven't you sometimes seen a handkerchief

patterned with strawberries in your wife's hand?

I gave her one like that. It was my first present to her.

I didn't know that. But a handkerchief like it —

and I'm certain it was your wife's — I saw Cassio

wiping his beard with it today. (Othello had that handkerchief in front of him less than an hour ago, in Desdemona's hand, when she tried to bind his head with it. He does not remember.)

If that's the one —

If it's that one, or any that was hers,

it counts against her along with the rest.

Oh, if only that wretch had forty thousand lives!

One is too small, too weak, for my revenge.

Now I see it's true. Look here, Iago —

all my foolish love, I blow it away to heaven like this.

It's gone.

Rise up, black vengeance, out of hollow hell.

Love, hand over your crown and the throne in my heart

to tyrant hatred. Swell up, chest, with your cargo —

it's a load of serpents' tongues.

Steady, now.

Blood, blood, blood!

Patience, I say. You may well change your mind.

Never, Iago. Like the Black Sea,

whose icy current and driving course

never feels a backward tide but presses straight on

to the Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles —

just so my bloody thoughts, moving violently,

will never look back, never ebb into humble love,

until a revenge big enough to hold it all

swallows them up. (He kneels.) Now, by that unchanging

sky,

with all the reverence due to a sacred oath,

I pledge my word.

(kneeling too) Don't get up yet.

Witness this, you ever-burning lights above,

and you elements that surround us —

witness that Iago here hands over

the use of his mind, his hands and his heart

to the service of wronged Othello. Let him command,

and obeying will be an act of mercy in me,

however bloody the business. (Two men kneel and swear themselves to one another. It is staged exactly like a wedding, and it is the only vow in this play that both parties intend to keep.)

I welcome your loyalty,

not with empty thanks but by taking you up on it

generously,

and I'll put you to the test this instant.

Within three days, let me hear you say

that Cassio is dead.

My friend is dead.

It's done, at your request. But let her live.

Damn her, the filthy little whore. Damn her, damn

her!

Come away with me. I'm going to withdraw

and equip myself with some quick means of killing

the beautiful devil. Now you are my lieutenant.

I am yours for ever. (The rank he complained about losing in the opening scene of the play. He has taken it in about two and a half hours of stage time, mostly by letting other people finish his sentences for him.)