Iago.
Rod.
Iago—
Iago.
What sayest thou noble heart?
Rod.
What will I do, thinkest thou?
Iago.
Why, go to bed, and sleep.
Rod.
I will incontinently drown myself.
Iago.
Well, if thou dost, I shall never love thee after.
Why, thou silly gentleman!
Rod.
It is silliness to live, when to live is a torment;
and then have we a prescription to die, when death is
our physician.
-- 351 --
Iago.
O villainous! I have look'd upon the world
for four times seven years, and since I could distinguish
betwixt a benefit and an injury, I never found
man that knew how to love himself. Ere I would say,
I would drown myself for the love of 2 notea Guinea-hen, I
would change my humanity with a baboon.
Rod.
What should I do? I confess, it is my shame
to be so fond, but it is not in my virtue to amend it.
Iago.
Virtue? a fig! 'tis in ourselves that we are
thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the
which our wills are gardeners. So that if we will
plant nettles, or sow lettice; set hyssop, and weed up
thyme; supply it with one gender of herbs, or distract
it with many; either have it steril with idleness, or
manured with industry; why, the power and corrigible
authority of this lies in our will. If the ballance of
our lives had not one scale of reason to poise another
of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures
would conduct us to most preposterous conclusions.
But we have reason, to cool our raging motions, our
carnal stings, our unbitted lusts; whereof I take this,
that you call love, to be a Set or scien.
Rod.
It cannot be.
Iago.
It is merely a lust of the blood, and a permission
of the will. Come, be a man. Drown thyself?
drown cats and blind puppies. I have profest
me thy friend, and I confess me knit to thy deserving
with cables of perdurable toughness. I could never
better stead thee than now. Put mony in thy purse;
follow thou these wars; 3 note
defeat thy favour with an
-- 352 --
usurped beard. I say, put mony in thy purse. It cannot
be, that Desdemona should long continue her love
to the Moor—Put mony in thy purse—nor he his to
her. 4 noteIt was a violent commencement in her, and thou
shalt see an answerable sequestration.—Put but mony
in thy purse.—These Moors are changeable in their
wills.—Fill thy purse with mony. The food, that to
him now is 5 noteas luscious as lohocks, shall shortly be as
bitter as a coloquintida. When she is sated with his
body, she will find the errors of her choice.—She
must have change, she must: therefore put mony in
thy purse.—If thou wilt needs damn thyself, do
it a more delicate way than drowning. Make all the
mony thou canst. If sanctimony and a frail vow,
6 note
betwixt an erring Barbarian and a super-subtle Venetian,
be not too hard for my wits, and all the tribe of
hell, thou shalt enjoy her; therefore make mony. A
pox of drowning thyself! it is clean out of the way.
Seek thou rather to be hang'd in compassing thy joy,
than to be drown'd and go without her.
Rod.
Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend
on the issue?
Iago.
Thou art sure of me.—Go, make mony.—
-- 353 --
I have told thee often, and I re-tell thee again and
again, I hate the Moor. My cause is hearted; thine
hath no less reason. Let us be conjunctive in our revenge
against him. If thou canst cuckold him, thou
dost thyself a pleasure, and me a sport. There are
many events in the womb of time, which will be delivered.
Traverse, go. Provide thy mony. We will
have more of this to-morrow. Adieu.
Rod.
Where shall we meet i'th' morning?
Iago.
At my lodging.
Rod.
I'll be with thee betimes.
Iago.
Go to, farewel. Do you hear, Rodorigo?
Rod.
What say you?
Iago.
No more of drowning, do you hear.
Rod.
I am chang'd. I'll go sell all my land.
Iago.
“Go to, farewel, put mony enough in your purse”—
[Exit Rodorigo.
Samuel Johnson [1765], The plays of William Shakespeare, in eight volumes, with the corrections and illustrations of Various Commentators; To which are added notes by Sam. Johnson (Printed for J. and R. Tonson [and] C. Corbet [etc.], London) [word count] [S11001].
