Oth.

I cry you mercy, then I took you for that cunning whore of Venice, That married with Othello.

DESDEMONA'S FIDELITY.

O, good Iago,

What shall I do to win my

lord again?

Good friend, go to him; for, by this light of heaven, I know not how I lost him. Here I kneel:

If e'er my will did trespass 'gainst his love,

Either in discourse of thought, or actual deed;
Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense,
Delighted them in any other form;

Or that I do not yet, and ever did,

And ever will-Though he do shake me off
To beggarly divorcement,-love him dearly,
Comfort forswear me! Unkindness may do much;
And his unkindness may defeat my life,
But never taint my love.

ACT V.

OTHELLO'S IRRESOLUTION TO MURDER DESDEMONA. SCENE. A Bedchamber; DESDEMONA in bed asleep. A light burning.

It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul.Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars' It is the cause.-Yet I'll not shed her blood; Nor scar that whiter skin of her's than snow, And smooth as monumental alabaster.

[Takes off his sword Yet she must dic, else she'll betray more men. Put out the light, and then put out the light:* If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, I can again thy former light restore, Should I repent me:-but once put out thine, Thou cunning'st pattern of excelling nature, I know not where is that Promethean heat, That can thy light relume. When I have pluck'

thy rose,

I cannot give it vital growth again,

* i. e. The light of life.

THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.

It needs must wither:-I'll smell it on the tree -

[Kissing her.

O balmy breath, that dost almost persuade
Justice to break her sword!-One more, one more.-
Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee,
And love thee after:-One more, and this the last:
So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep,

But they are cruel tears: This sorrow's heavenly:
It strikes, where it doth love.

HIS CONFUSION AFTER THE MURDER.

Yes; 'tis Emelia:-by and by. She's dead Tis like she comes to speak of Cassio's death: 'The noise was high,-Ha! no more moving? Still as the grave. Shall she come in? Were't good? I think, she stirs again:-No.-What's the best? If she come in, she'll sure speak to my wife: My wife! my wife! what wife?-I have no wife: O, insupportable! O heavy hour!

Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse

Of sun and moon; and that the affrighted globe
Should yawn at alteration.

Had she been true,

HIS LOVE.

If heaven would make me such another world
Of one entire and perfect chrysolite,*
I'd not have sold her for it.

HIS REMORSE.

Behold! I have a weapon;

A better never did itself sustain

Upon a soldier's thigh: I have seen the day,
That, with this little arm, and this good sword,
I have made my way through more impediments
Than twenty times your stop:-But, O vain boast!
Who can control his fate? 'tis not so now.—
Be not afraid, though you do see me weapon d;
Here is my journey's end, here is my butt,
And very sea mark of my utmost sail.
Do you go back dismay'd? 'tis a lost fear,
Man but a rush against Othello's breast,

* A precious stone.

And he retires:-Where should Othello go?-
Now, how dost thou look now? O ill-starr'd wenc
Pale as thy smock! when we shall meet at compt
This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven
And fiends will snatch at it cold. Cold, my girl?
Even like thy chastity.—

O cursed, cursed slave!-Whip me, ye devils,
From the possession of this heavenly sight!
Blow me about in winds, roast me in sulphur!
Wash me in steep down gulfs of liquid fire!—
O Desdemona! Desdemona! dead?

Dead? O! O! O!

HIS SPEECH BEFORE HIS DEATH.

Soft you; a word or two, before you go.

I have done the state some service, and they know it,
No more of that:-I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,

Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak
Of one, that lov'd not wisely, but too well;
Of one, not easily jealous, but being wrought,
Perplex'd in the extreme; of one, whose hand,
Like the base Judean, threw a pearl away,

Richer than all his tribe; cf one, whose subdu'd eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinal gum: Set you down this:
And say, besides,-that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk
Beat a Venetian, and traduc'd the state,
I took by the throat the circumcised dog,
And smote him-thus.

[Stabs himself.

ROMEO AND JULIET.

ACT I.

LOVE.

LOVE is a smoke rais'd with the fume of sighs; Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;

* Account.