still pressing her to accept of some reward, she said, "Give me your gloves; I will wear them for your sake;" and then Bassanio taking off his gloves, she espied the ring which she had given him upon his finger; now it was the ring the wily lady wanted to get from him, to make a merry jest when she saw Bassanio again, that made her ask him for his gloves; and she said, when she saw the ring, "And for your love I will take this ring from you." Bassanio was sadly distressed that the counselor should ask him for the only thing he could not part with, and he replied in great confusion, that he could not give him that ring, because it was his wife's gift, and he had vowed never to part with it; but that he would give him the most valuable ring in Venice, and find it out by proclamation. On this Portia affected to be affronted, and left the court, saying, "You teach me, sir, how a beggar should be answered." "Dear Bassanio," said Antonio, "let him have the ring; let my love and the great service he has done for me be valued against your wife's displeasure." Bassanio, ashamed to appear so ungrateful, yielded, and sent Gratiano after Portia, with the ring; and then the clerk Nerissa, who had also given Gratiano a ring, she begged his ring, and Gratiano (not choosing to be outdone in generosity by his lord) gave it to her. And there was laughing among these ladies, to think, when they got home, how they would tax their husbands with giving away their rings, and swear that they had given them as a present to some woman. Portia, when she returned, was in that happy temper of mind which never fails to attend the consciousness of having performed a good action; her cheerful spirit enjoyed everything she saw the moon never seemed to shine so bright before; and when that pleasant moon was hid behind a cloud, then a light which she saw from her house at Belmont as well pleased her charmed fancy, and she said to Nerissa, "That light we see is burning in my hall; how far that little candle throws its beams; so shines a good deed in a naughty world; " and hearing the sound of music from her house, she said, "Methinks that music sounds sweeter than by day." And now Portia and Nerissa entered the house, and dressing themselves in their own apparel they awaited the arrival of their husbands, who soon followed them with Antonio; and Bassanio presenting his dear friend to the Lady Portia, the congratulations and welcomings of that lady were hardly over, when they perceived Nerissa and her husband quarreling in a corner of the room. "A quarrel already?" said Portia. "What is the matter?" Gratiano replied, "Lady, it is about a paltry gilt ring that Nerissa gave me, with words upon it like the poetry on a cutler's knife: Love me, and leave me not." "What does the poetry or the value of the ring signify?" said Nerissa. “You swore to me, when I gave it to you, that you would keep it till the hour of death; and now you say you gave it to the lawyer's clerk. I know you gave it to a woman." "By this hand," replied Gratiano, "I gave it to a youth, a kind of boy, a little scrubbed boy no higher than yourself; he was clerk to the young counselor that by his wise pleading saved Antonio's life: this prating boy begged it for a fee, and I could not for my life. deny him. Portia said, "You were to blame, Gratiano, to part with your wife's first gift. I gave my Lord Bassanio a ring, and I am sure he would not part with it for all the world." Gratiano in excuse for his fault now said, "My Lord Bassanio gave his ring away to the counselor, and then the boy, his clerk, that took some pains in writing, he begged my ring." Portia, hearing this, seemed very angry, and reproached Bassanio for giving away her ring; and she said Nerissa had taught her what to believe, and that she knew some woman had the ring. Bassanio was very unhappy to have so offended his dear lady, and he said with great earnestness, "No, by my honor, no woman had it, but a civil doctor, who refused three thousand ducats of me, and begged the ring, which when I denied him he went displeased away. What could I do, sweet Portia? I was so beset with shame for my seeming ingratitude, that I was forced to send the ring after him. Pardon me, good lady; had you been there, I think you would have begged the ring of me to give the worthy doctor." "Ah!" said Antonio, "I am the unhappy cause of these quarrels." Portia bid Antonio not to grieve at that, for that he was welcome notwithstanding; and then Antonio said, "I once did lend my body for Bassanio's sake, and but for him to whom your husband gave the ring, I should have now been dead. I dare be bound again, my soul upon the forfeit, your lord will never more break his faith with you." "Then you shall be his surety," said Portia ; "give him this ring, and bid him keep it better than the other." When Bassanio looked at this ring, he was strangely surprised to find it was the same he gave away; and then Portia told him how she was the young counselor, and Nerissa was her clerk; and Bassanio found, to his unspeakable wonder and delight, that it was by the noble courage and wisdom of his wife that Antonio's life was saved. And Portia again welcomed Antonio, and gave him letters which by some chance had fallen into her hands, which contained an account of Antonio's ships, that were supposed lost, being safely arrived in the harbor. So these tragical beginnings of this rich merchant's story were all forgotten in the unexpected good fortune which ensued; and there was leisure to laugh at the comical adventures of the rings, and the husbands that did not know their own wives: Gratiano merrily swearing, in a sort of rhyming speech, that -while he lived, he'd fear no other thing So sore, as keeping safe Nerissa's ring. OTHELLO. THE MOOR OF VENICE-THE BEAUTIFUL DESDEMONA-THE CRAFTY IAGO-DESDEMONA HEARS THE STORY OF OTHELLO'S WARS-THEY FALL IN LOVE AND ARE MARRIEDIAGO PLOTS MISCHIEF-HE PERSUADES OTHELLO THAT CASSIio Loves DesdeMONA-OTHELLO'S JEALOUS SUSPICIONS ARE AROUSED - IAGO'S SUBTLE INSINUATIONS-Emilia Made A PARTNER in the Plot-THE STOLEN HANDKERCHIEF — OTHELLO IS DISTRACTED WITH JEALOUSY AND RAGE-HE ACCUSES DESDEMONA OF INFIDELITY— IAGO ATTEMPTS THE MURDER OF CASSIO-OTHELLO KILLS DESDEMONA - EMILIA BETRAYS IAGO'S RABANTIO, the rich senator of Venice, had a fair daughter, the gentle Desdemona. She was sought to by divers suitors, both on account of her many virtuous qualities and for her rich expectations. But among the suitors of her own clime and complexion she saw none whom she could affect for this noble lady, who regarded the mind more than the features of men, with a singularity rather to be admired than imitated, had chosen for the object of her affections a Moor, a black whom her father loved, and often invited to his house. of general in the Venetian service, and was esteemed and trusted by the State He had been a traveler, and Desdemona (as is the manner of ladies) loved to hear him tell the story of his adventures, which he would run through from his earliest recollection; the battles, sieges, and encounters which he had passed through; the perils he had been exposed to by land and by water: his hairbreadth escapes when he had entered a breach, or marched up to the mouth of a cannon, and how he had been taken prisoner by the insolent enemy, and sold to slavery how he demeaned himself in that state, and how he escaped: all these accounts, added to the narration of the strange things he had seen in foreign countries, the vast wildernesses and romantic caverns, the quarries, the rocks. and mountains, whose heads are in the clouds; of the savage nations; the cannibals who are man-eaters, and a race of Neither is Desdemona to be altogether condemned for the unsuitableness of the person whom she selected for her lover. Bating that Othello was black the noble Moor wanted nothing which might recommend him to the affections of the greatest lady. He was a soldier, and a brave one; and by his conduct in bloody wars against the Turks had risen to the rank people in Africa whose heads do grow |