Othello - William Shakespeare<br /><br />ACT I<br />SCENE I. Venice. A street.<br />Enter RODERIGO and IAGO<br />RODERIGO<br />Tush! never tell me; I take it much unkindly<br />That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse<br /><br />As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.<br />IAGO<br />&#39;Sblood, but you will not hear me:<br />If ever I did dream of such a matter, Abhor me.<br />RODERIGO<br />Thou told&#39;st me thou didst hold him in thy hate.<br />IAGO<br />Despise me, if I do not. Three great ones of the city,<br />In personal suit to make me his lieutenant,<br />Off-capp&#39;d to him: and, by the faith of man,<br />I know my price, I am worth no worse a place:<br />But he; as loving his own pride and purposes,<br />Evades them, with a bombast circumstance<br />Horribly stuff&#39;d with epithets of war;<br />And, in conclusion,<br />Nonsuits my mediators; for, &#39;Certes,&#39; says he,<br />&#39;I have already chose my officer.&#39;<br />And what was he?<br />Forsooth, a great arithmetician,<br />One Michael Cassio, a Florentine,<br />A fellow almost damn&#39;d in a fair wife;<br />That never set a squadron in the field,<br />Nor the division of a battle knows<br />More than a spinster; unless the bookish theoric,<br />Wherein the toged consuls can propose<br />As masterly as he: mere prattle, without practise,<br />Is all his soldiership. But he, sir, had the election:<br />And I, of whom his eyes had seen the proof<br />At Rhodes, at Cyprus and on other grounds<br />Christian and heathen, must be be-lee&#39;d and calm&#39;d<br />By debitor and creditor: this counter-caster,<br />He, in good time, must his lieutenant be,<br />And I--God bless the mark!--his Moorship&#39;s ancient.<br />RODERIGO<br />By heaven, I rather would have been his hangman.<br />IAGO<br />Why, there&#39;s no remedy; &#39;tis the curse of service,<br />Preferment goes by letter and affection,<br />And not by old gradation, where each second<br />Stood heir to the first. Now, sir, be judge yourself,<br />Whether I in any just term am affined<br />To love the Moor.<br />RODERIGO<br />I would not follow him then.<br />IAGO<br />O, sir, content you;<br />I follow him to serve my turn upon him:<br />We cannot all be masters, nor all masters<br />Cannot be truly follow&#39;d. You shall mark<br />Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave,<br />That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,<br />Wears out his time, much like his master&#39;s ass,<br />For nought but provender, and when he&#39;s old, cashier&#39;d:<br />Whip me such honest knaves. Others there are<br />Who, trimm&#39;d in forms and visages of duty,<br />Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves,<br />And, throwing but shows of service on their lords,<br />Do well thrive by them and when they have lined<br />their coats<br />Do themselves homage: these fellows have some soul;<br />And such a one do I profess myself. For, sir,<br />It is as sure as you are Roderigo,<br />Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago:<br />In following him, I follow but myself;<br />Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,<br />But seeming so, for my peculiar end:<br />For when my outward action doth demonstrate<br />The native act and figure of my heart<br />In compliment extern, &#39;tis not long after<br />But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve<br />For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.<br />RODERIGO<br />What a full fortune does the thicklips owe<br />If he can carry&#39;t thus!<br />IAGO<br />Call up her father,<br />Rouse him: make after him, poison his delight,<br />Proclaim him in the streets; incense her kinsmen,<br />And, though he in a fertile climate dwell,<br />Plague him wi<br />&nbsp;