Cyprus. A street.
[Enter Iago and Roderigo.]
IAGO. Here, stand behind this bulk; straight will he come:
Wear thy good rapier bare, and put it home:
Quick, quick; fear nothing; I’ll be at thy elbow:
It makes us, or it mars us; think on that,
And fix most firm thy resolution.
RODERIGO. Be near at hand; I may miscarry in’t.
IAGO. Here, at thy hand: be bold, and take thy stand.
[Retires to a little distance.]
RODERIGO. I have no great devotion to the deed;
And yet he hath given me satisfying reasons:
’Tis but a man gone. Forth, my sword: he dies.
IAGO. I have rubbed this young quat almost to the sense,
And he grows angry. Now, whether he kill Cassio,
Or Cassio him, or each do kill the other,
Every way makes my gain: live Roderigo,
He calls me to a restitution large
Of gold and jewels that I bobbed from him,
As gifts to Desdemona;
It must not be: if Cassio do remain,
He hath a daily beauty in his life
That makes me ugly; and, besides, the Moor
May unfold me to him; there stand I in much peril:
No, he must die. But so: I hear him coming.
[Enter Cassio.]
RODERIGO. I know his gait, ’tis he. – Villain, thou diest!
[Makes a pass at Cassio.]
CASSIO. That thrust had been mine enemy indeed,
But that my coat is better than thou know’st:
I will make proof of thine. [Draws, and wounds Roderigo.]
RODERIGO. O, I am slain!
[Iago from behind wounds Cassio in the leg, and exit.]
CASSIO. I am maimed for ever. Help, ho!
murder! murder! [Falls.]
[Enter Othello.]
OTHELLO. The voice of Cassio: Iago keeps his word.
RODERIGO. O, villain that I am!
OTHELLO. It is even so.
CASSIO. O, help, ho! light! a surgeon!
OTHELLO. ’Tis he: – O brave Iago, honest and just,
That hast such noble sense of thy friend’s wrong!
Thou teachest me. Minion, your dear lies dead,
And your unblest fate hies: strumpet, I come.
Forth of my heart those charms, thine eyes, are blotted;
Thy bed, lust-stained, shall with lust’s blood be spotted. [Exit.]
[Enter Lodovico and Gratiano.]
CASSIO. What, ho! no watch? no passage? murder! murder!
GRATIANO. ’Tis some mischance; the cry is very direful.
CASSIO. O, help!
LODOVICO. Hark!
RODERIGO. O wretched villain!