Enter LODOVICO, MONTANO, CASSIO, carried in a chair, and
Officers, with IAGO, prisoner.

LOD. Where is this rash and most unfortunate man?
ОTH. That's he that was Othello; here I am.

LOD. Where is that viper? bring the villain forth.

ОTH. I look down towards his feet;-but that's a fable: If that thou be'st a devil I cannot kill thee.

LOD. Wrench his sword from him.
IAGO.

[OTHELLO wounds IAGO.

I bleed, sir; but not kill'd.

Отн. I am not sorry neither; I'd have thee live ;

For, in my sense, 't is happiness to die.

LOD. O thou Othello, that was once so good,

Fall'n in the practice of a cursed slave,

What shall be said to thee?

Отн.

Why, any thing:

An honourable murtherer, if you will;

For nought I did in hate, but all in honour.

LOD. This wretch hath part confess'd his villainy:

Did you and he consent in Cassio's death?

Отн. Ау.

CAS. Dear general, I never gave you cause.
OTH. I do believe it, and I ask your pardon.

Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil,
Why he hath thus ensnar'd my soul and body?

IAGO. Demand me nothing: What you know, you know:

From this time forth I never will speak word.

LOD. What? not to pray?

GRA.

Отн. Well, thou dost best.

Torments will ope your lips.

LOD. Sir, you shall understand what hath befall'n,
Which, as I think, you know not: Here is a letter,
Found in the pocket of the slain Roderigo;

And here, another: the one of them imports
The death of Cassio to be undertook

By Roderigo.

Отн. O villain !

CAS.

Most heathenish and most gross!

LOD. Now here's another discontented paper,

Found in his pocket too; and this, it seems,
Roderigo meant to have sent this damned villain;
But that, belike, Iago in the interim

Came in and satisfied him.

Отн.

How came you, Cassio, by that handkerchief

That was my wife's ?

CAS.

O thou pernicious caitiff!

I found it in my chamber ;

And he himself confess'd, but even now,

That there he dropp'd it, for a special purpose,
Which wrought to his desire.

Отн.

O fool! fool! fool!

CAS. There is, besides, in Roderigo's letter,—
How he upbraids Iago, that he made him
Brave me upon the watch; whereon it came
That I was cast: And even but now he spake,
After long seeming dead,-Iago hurt him,

Iago set him on.

LOD. You must forsake this room, and go with us;
Your power and your command is taken off,
And Cassio rules in Cyprus. For this slave,-
If there be any cunning cruelty,

That can torment him much, and hold him long,
It shall be his: You shall close prisoner rest,
Till that the nature of your fault be known
To the Venetian state :-Come, bring him away.

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

I have done the state some service, and they know 't;
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 haud,
Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away,

Richer than all his tribe; of one, whose subdu'd eyes,

Albeit unused to the melting mood,

Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees

Their medicinable 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.

LOD. O bloody period!
GRA.

[Stabs himself.

All that is spoke is marr'd.

OTH. I kiss'd thee, ere I kill'd thee;-No way but this, Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.

[Dies.

CAS. This did I fear, but thought he had no weapon; For he was great of heart.

O Spartan dog!

LOD.
More fell than anguish, hunger, or the sea!
Look on the tragic loading of this bed;
This is thy work: the object poisons sight
Let it be hid.-Gratiano, keep the house,
And seize upon the fortunes of the Moor,
For they succeed on you. To you, lord governor,
Remains the censure of this hellish villain;
The time, the place, the torture,-O enforce it!
Myself will straight aboard; and, to the state,
This heavy act with heavy heart relate.

[To IAGO.

[Exeunt.

VARIOUS READINGS.

"Laying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes,
On an extravagant and wheedling stranger."

"I tremble at it. Nature would not invest herself in such shuddering passion, without some instruction."—Act IV., Sc. 1.

passion, which spreads its clouds
over me, is the effect of some
agency more than the operation of
words; it is one of those notices
which men have of unseen cala-
mities."

"A fixed figure for the hand of scorn
To point his slowly moving finger at."

Acknow, from the Latin agnosco, is to confess or acknowledge.
Ben Jonson, in his 'Volpone' (Act V., Sc. 5), has—

"You will not be acknown, sir;"

and Sir John Harrington in his translation of the 'Life of Ariosto,' 1667, writes-"Some say he was married to her privily, but durst not be acknown of it."

AGNIZE. Act I., Sc. 3.

66

'I do agnize a natural and prompt alacrity." Agnize is to acknowledge, to confess.

AIM. Act I., Sc. 3.

"As in these cases where the aim reports."

Aim is used in the sense of conjecture.

CARACK.

Act I., Sc. 2.

"He to-night hath boarded a land carack."

A carack was a ship of heavy burthen; the term was frequently applied to Spanish and Portuguese vessels.

VOL. VI.

KK