Act 3, Scene 4

Cyprus. Before the Castle.

[Enter Desdemona, Emilia, and Clown.]
Desdemona
2010 Do you know, sirrah, where Lieutenant Cassio lies?
Clown
2011 I dare not say he lies anywhere.
Desdemona
2012 Why, man?
Clown
2013 He's a soldier; and for one to say a soldier lies is stabbing.
Desdemona
2014 Go to: where lodges he?
Clown
2015 To tell you where he lodges is to tell you where I lie.
Desdemona
2016 Can anything be made of this?
Clown
2017 I know not where he lodges; and for me to devise a lodging,
2018 and say he lies here or he lies there were to lie in mine
2019 own throat.
Desdemona
2020 Can you inquire him out, and be edified by report?
Clown
2021 I will catechize the world for him; that is, make questions
2022 and by them answer.
Desdemona
2023 Seek him, bid him come hither: tell him I have moved my lord
2024 on his behalf, and hope all will be well.
Clown
2025 To do this is within the compass of man's wit; and therefore
2026 I will attempt the doing it.
[Exit.]
Desdemona
2027 Where should I lose that handkerchief, Emilia?
Emilia
2028 I know not, madam.
Desdemona
2029 Believe me, I had rather have lost my purse
2030 Full of crusadoes: and, but my noble Moor
2031 Is true of mind and made of no such baseness
2032 As jealous creatures are, it were enough
2033 To put him to ill thinking.
Emilia
2034 Is he not jealous?
Desdemona
2035 Who, he? I think the sun where he was born
2036 Drew all such humours from him.
Emilia
2037 Look, where he comes.
Desdemona
2038 I will not leave him now till Cassio
2039 Be call'd to him.
[Enter Othello.]
Desdemona
2040 How is't with you, my lord?
Othello
2041 Well, my good lady.—
[Aside.]
Othello
2042 O, hardness to dissemble!—
2043 How do you, Desdemona?
Desdemona
2044 Well, my good lord.
Othello
2045 Give me your hand: this hand is moist, my lady.
Desdemona
2046 It yet hath felt no age nor known no sorrow.
Othello
2047 This argues fruitfulness and liberal heart:—
2048 Hot, hot, and moist: this hand of yours requires
2049 A sequester from liberty, fasting, and prayer,
2050 Much castigation, exercise devout;
2051 For here's a young and sweating devil here
2052 That commonly rebels. 'Tis a good hand,
2053 A frank one.
Desdemona
2054 You may, indeed, say so;
2055 For 'twas that hand that gave away my heart.
Othello
2056 A liberal hand: the hearts of old gave hands;
2057 But our new heraldry is hands, not hearts.
Desdemona
2058 I cannot speak of this. Come now, your promise.
Othello
2059 What promise, chuck?
Desdemona
2060 I have sent to bid Cassio come speak with you.
Othello
2061 I have a salt and sorry rheum offends me;
2062 Lend me thy handkerchief.
Desdemona
2063 Here, my lord.
Othello
2064 That which I gave you.
Desdemona
2065 I have it not about me.
Othello
2066 Not?
Desdemona
2067 No, faith, my lord.
Othello
2068 That is a fault. That handkerchief
2069 Did an Egyptian to my mother give;
2070 She was a charmer, and could almost read
2071 The thoughts of people: she told her, while she kept it,
2072 'Twould make her amiable and subdue my father
2073 Entirely to her love; but if she lost it
2074 Or made a gift of it, my father's eye
2075 Should hold her loathed, and his spirits should hunt
2076 After new fancies: she, dying, gave it me;
2077 And bid me, when my fate would have me wive,
2078 To give it her. I did so: and take heed on't;
2079 Make it a darling like your precious eye;
2080 To lose't or give't away were such perdition
2081 As nothing else could match.
Desdemona
2082 Is't possible?
Othello
2083 'Tis true: there's magic in the web of it:
2084 A sibyl, that had number'd in the world
2085 The sun to course two hundred compasses,
2086 In her prophetic fury sew'd the work;
2087 The worms were hallow'd that did breed the silk;
2088 And it was dy'd in mummy which the skillful
2089 Conserv'd of maiden's hearts.
Desdemona
2090 Indeed! is't true?
Othello
2091 Most veritable; therefore look to't well.
Desdemona
2092 Then would to God that I had never seen't!
Othello
2093 Ha! wherefore?
Desdemona
2094 Why do you speak so startingly and rash?
Othello
2095 Is't lost? is't gone? speak, is it out of the way?
Desdemona
2096 Heaven bless us!
Othello
2097 Say you?
Desdemona
2098 It is not lost; but what an if it were?
Othello
2099 How!
Desdemona
2100 I say, it is not lost.
Othello
2101 Fetch't, let me see't.
Desdemona
2102 Why, so I can, sir, but I will not now.
2103 This is a trick to put me from my suit:
2104 Pray you, let Cassio be receiv'd again.
Othello
2105 Fetch me the handkerchief: my mind misgives.
Desdemona
2106 Come, come;
2107 You'll never meet a more sufficient man.
Othello
2108 The handkerchief!
Desdemona
2109 I pray, talk me of Cassio.
Othello
2110 The handkerchief!
Desdemona
2111 A man that all his time
2112 Hath founded his good fortunes on your love,
2113 Shar'd dangers with you,—
Othello
2114 The handkerchief!
Desdemona
2115 In sooth, you are to blame.
Othello
2116 Away!
[Exit.]
Emilia
2117 Is not this man jealous?
Desdemona
2118 I ne'er saw this before.
2119 Sure there's some wonder in this handkerchief;
2120 I am most unhappy in the loss of it.
Emilia
2121 'Tis not a year or two shows us a man:
2122 They are all but stomachs and we all but food:
2123 They eat us hungerly, and when they are full,
2124 They belch us.—Look you,—Cassio and my husband.
[Enter Cassio and Iago.]
Iago
2125 There is no other way; 'tis she must do't:
2126 And, lo, the happiness! go and importune her.
Desdemona
2127 How now, good Cassio! what's the news with you?
Cassio
2128 Madam, my former suit: I do beseech you
2129 That by your virtuous means I may again
2130 Exist, and be a member of his love,
2131 Whom I, with all the office of my heart,
2132 Entirely honour: I would not be delay'd.
2133 If my offence be of such mortal kind
2134 That nor my service past, nor present sorrows,
2135 Nor purpos'd merit in futurity,
2136 Can ransom me into his love again,
2137 But to know so must be my benefit;
2138 So shall I clothe me in a forc'd content,
2139 And shut myself up in some other course,
2140 To fortune's alms.
Desdemona
2141 Alas, thrice-gentle Cassio!
2142 My advocation is not now in tune;
2143 My lord is not my lord; nor should I know him
2144 Were he in favour as in humour alter'd.
2145 So help me every spirit sanctified,
2146 As I have spoken for you all my best,
2147 And stood within the blank of his displeasure
2148 For my free speech! You must awhile be patient:
2149 What I can do I will; and more I will
2150 Than for myself I dare: let that suffice you.
Iago
2151 Is my lord angry?
Emilia
2152 He went hence but now,
2153 And certainly in strange unquietness.
Iago
2154 Can he be angry? I have seen the cannon,
2155 When it hath blown his ranks into the air
2156 And, like the devil, from his very arm
2157 Puff'd his own brother;—and can he be angry?
2158 Something of moment, then: I will go meet him:
2159 There's matter in't indeed if he be angry.
Desdemona
2160 I pr'ythee, do so.
[Exit Iago.]
Desdemona
2161 Something sure of state,—
2162 Either from Venice or some unhatch'd practice
2163 Made demonstrable here in Cyprus to him,—
2164 Hath puddled his clear spirit, and in such cases
2165 Men's natures wrangle with inferior things,
2166 Though great ones are their object. 'Tis even so;
2167 For let our finger ache, and it indues
2168 Our other healthful members even to that sense
2169 Of pain: nay, we must think men are not gods,
2170 Nor of them look for such observancy
2171 As fits the bridal.—Beshrew me much, Emilia,
2172 I was,—unhandsome warrior as I am,—
2173 Arraigning his unkindness with my soul;
2174 But now I find I had suborn'd the witness,
2175 And he's indicted falsely.
Emilia
2176 Pray heaven it be state matters, as you think,
2177 And no conception nor no jealous toy
2178 Concerning you.
Desdemona
2179 Alas the day, I never gave him cause!
Emilia
2180 But jealous souls will not be answer'd so;
2181 They are not ever jealous for the cause,
2182 But jealous for they are jealous: 'tis a monster
2183 Begot upon itself, born on itself.
Desdemona
2184 Heaven keep that monster from Othello's mind!
Emilia
2185 Lady, amen.
Desdemona
2186 I will go seek him.—Cassio, walk hereabout:
2187 If I do find him fit, I'll move your suit,
2188 And seek to effect it to my uttermost.
Cassio
2189 I humbly thank your ladyship.
[Exeunt Desdemona and Emilia.]
[Enter Bianca.]
Bianca
2190 Save you, friend Cassio!
Cassio
2191 What make you from home?
2192 How is it with you, my most fair Bianca?
2193 I'faith, sweet love, I was coming to your house.
Bianca
2194 And I was going to your lodging, Cassio.
2195 What, keep a week away? seven days and nights?
2196 Eight score eight hours? and lovers' absent hours,
2197 More tedious than the dial eight score times?
2198 O weary reckoning!
Cassio
2199 Pardon me, Bianca:
2200 I have this while with leaden thoughts been press'd;
2201 But I shall in a more continuate time
2202 Strike off this score of absence. Sweet Bianca,
[Giving her Desdemona's handkerchief.]
Cassio
2203 Take me this work out.
Bianca
2204 O Cassio, whence came this?
2205 This is some token from a newer friend.
2206 To the felt absence now I feel a cause:
2207 Is't come to this? Well, well.
Cassio
2208 Go to, woman!
2209 Throw your vile guesses in the devil's teeth,
2210 From whence you have them. You are jealous now
2211 That this is from some mistress, some remembrance:
2212 No, in good troth, Bianca.
Bianca
2213 Why, whose is it?
Cassio
2214 I know not neither: I found it in my chamber.
2215 I like the work well: ere it be demanded,—
2216 As like enough it will,—I'd have it copied:
2217 Take it, and do't; and leave me for this time.
Bianca
2218 Leave you! wherefore?
Cassio
2219 I do attend here on the general;
2220 And think it no addition, nor my wish,
2221 To have him see me woman'd.
Bianca
2222 Why, I pray you?
Cassio
2223 Not that I love you not.
Bianca
2224 But that you do not love me.
2225 I pray you, bring me on the way a little;
2226 And say if I shall see you soon at night.
Cassio
2227 'Tis but a little way that I can bring you,
2228 For I attend here: but I'll see you soon.
Bianca
2229 'Tis very good; I must be circumstanc'd.
[Exeunt.]

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Notes

TLN 2010archaic vocab
“Do you know, sirrah”
'Sirrah' is a form of address used toward social inferiors, often carrying a tone of impatience or mild contempt. Desdemona uses it to the Clown, her husband's household servant.
TLN 2011wordplay
“I dare not say he lies anywhere”
The Clown spins a whole exchange out of the two meanings of 'lies': to tell a falsehood and to lodge (sleep) somewhere. Calling a soldier a liar was a deadly insult that could force a duel, so he pretends to be afraid of either meaning. Shakespeare's clown-characters often open a scene with this kind of punning routine.
TLN 2021archaic vocab
“I will catechize the world for him”
To 'catechize' is to question systematically, taken from the church practice of teaching Christian doctrine by asking and answering a set series of questions (a 'catechism'). The Clown is joking that asking around for Cassio is as formal an exercise as religious instruction.
TLN 2029archaic vocab
“lost my purse Full of crusadoes”
Crusadoes (also 'cruzados') were Portuguese gold coins, each stamped with a cross. As a Portuguese coin they suit the Mediterranean-colonial world of Cyprus; Desdemona uses them to measure just how much she values the handkerchief — more than a purse full of gold.
TLN 2035historical topical
“the sun where he was born Drew all such humours from him”
Elizabethan medicine held that the body contained four fluids ('humours') — blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile — whose balance determined temperament. Jealousy was associated with an excess of yellow bile. Desdemona claims that the climate of Othello's birthplace burned out these 'jealous humours,' making him constitutionally incapable of jealousy — a belief she is about to be proved catastrophically wrong about.
TLN 2047historical topical
“This argues fruitfulness and liberal heart”
Othello reads Desdemona's moist, warm palm according to the Elizabethan practice of palmistry, which held that a moist, hot hand signalled a generous but sexually forward nature. 'Fruitfulness' means fertility and generosity; 'liberal' means free-giving but also sexually loose. What begins as a playful touch immediately becomes a coded accusation of infidelity.
TLN 2061archaic vocab
“salt and sorry rheum offends me”
'Rheum' meant a cold or catarrh — an excess of watery fluid, which the four-humours theory placed under the influence of the cold, moist phlegm humour. 'Salt' means stinging or irritating; 'sorry' means troublesome or wretched. Othello claims to have a cold that needs a handkerchief — the first move in his trap for Desdemona.
TLN 2069historical topical
“an Egyptian to my mother give; She was a charmer”
An 'Egyptian' in this period was often understood as a gypsy or a practitioner of exotic magic — both were associated with fortune-telling, charms, and the occult arts. A 'charmer' is not a charming person but someone who uses charms (enchantments) — here a woman who could read minds. Othello's story presents the handkerchief as a magical object, not merely a keepsake.
TLN 2084classical allusion
“A sibyl, that had number'd in the world The sun to course two hundred compasses”
A sibyl was a woman in classical antiquity believed to have the gift of prophecy — the most famous being the Cumaean Sibyl consulted by Aeneas in Virgil's Aeneid. Ovid gives the Cumaean Sibyl an age of nearly a thousand years. 'Two hundred compasses' means two hundred years of the sun's circuit (i.e., two centuries). Othello claims the handkerchief was sewn by a two-hundred-year-old prophetess, charging it with supernatural age and authority.
TLN 2094archaic vocab
“speak so startingly and rash”
'Startingly' means in starts or jerks — speaking in sudden, disjointed bursts rather than in a composed, continuous flow. Desdemona is noticing that Othello's speech has lost its famous, measured eloquence; he is firing his demands ('Is't lost? is't gone? speak, is it out of the way?') in rapid, disconnected fragments. The adverb is rare and likely Shakespeare's coinage.
TLN 2122rhetorical device
“They are all but stomachs and we all but food”
Emilia delivers a bitter generalisation about men: they treat women the way a stomach treats food — consuming them while hungry and discarding them once satisfied. The metaphor is a sustained analogy that compresses a whole theory of male appetite and female disposability into two lines. The image of being 'belched' out — expelled like a rude bodily reflex — is purposefully gross.
TLN 2142archaic vocab
“My advocation is not now in tune”
'Advocation' means advocacy — the act of pleading another's cause. The word is formal and near-legal; Desdemona is a legal advocate for Cassio before Othello, and she acknowledges that the moment is wrong for her plea, since Othello is in no state to hear it. The phrase 'not in tune' extends the metaphor into music — a string out of tune cannot produce harmony.
TLN 2147archaic vocab
“within the blank of his displeasure”
'The blank' is the white centre of an archery target — the bull's-eye that an arrow aims directly at. Desdemona says she has stood directly in the line of Othello's anger on Cassio's behalf. The image frames her intercession as physically dangerous.
TLN 2162archaic vocab
“some unhatch'd practice Made demonstrable here in Cyprus”
An 'unhatch'd practice' is a plot or scheme not yet fully hatched — still in progress, not yet brought into the open. Desdemona is guessing (incorrectly) that Othello has been disturbed by some piece of political treachery from Venice, now being unmasked in Cyprus. The word 'practice' in Shakespeare almost always means a crafty, underhanded scheme, not simply an activity.
TLN 2182rhetorical device
“'tis a monster Begot upon itself, born on itself”
Emilia describes jealousy as a self-generating monster — one that does not need an external cause but creates its own justification from within. This contrasts with Iago's earlier phrase 'the green-eyed monster' (3.3): there Iago named jealousy to seem helpful; here Emilia is diagnosing it with bitter precision. A thing 'begot upon itself' has no father and needs no evidence to feed it.
historical Jealousy: the 'green-eyed monster'
TLN 2201archaic vocab
“in a more continuate time Strike off this score”
'Continuate' means uninterrupted or undisturbed — a time when Cassio is not under military constraint. 'Strike off this score' means to settle the debt or tally of absences: a 'score' was a notched stick or chalk mark kept by a tavern-keeper to count what a customer owed. Cassio is promising Bianca he will make up for the lost week once he has a free moment.
TLN 2203archaic vocab
“Take me this work out”
'Take out' here means to copy — to reproduce the embroidery pattern of the handkerchief. Cassio wants Bianca to make a copy of the needlework design because he likes it but expects the handkerchief to be claimed back ('ere it be demanded'). He does not know it belongs to Desdemona; the audience does. Bianca's jealous assumption that it is from a rival woman is structurally correct even though she has the wrong story.
historical The handkerchief — Othello's 'ocular proof'
TLN 2219archaic vocab
“I do attend here on the general; And think it no addition”
Cassio is waiting to be called in by Othello (his 'general'), and says he thinks it 'no addition' — no credit or honor — to be seen with a woman ('woman'd') while doing so. 'Addition' in Shakespeare often means a title or mark of honor added to one's name; here it means that having a woman companion would subtract from, not add to, his military reputation.
TLN 2229archaic vocab
“I must be circumstanc'd”
Bianca resigns herself to the situation: 'I must be circumstanc'd' means she must yield to circumstances as they are, accept things as they stand, rather than insisting on her wishes. The word is used only here in Shakespeare. Coming at the close of a scene full of people who refuse to accept reality (Desdemona about Othello, Cassio about Iago's trap), Bianca's pragmatic acceptance is a wry contrast.