The wealthy curled darlings of our nation.

Othello. Act i. Sc. 2.

Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,
My very noble and approved good masters,
That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter,
It is most true; true, I have married her:

The very head and front of my offending

Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,1
And little blessed with the soft phrase of peace:
For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith,
Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used
Their dearest action in the tented field,

And little of this great world can I speak,

More than pertains to feats of broil and battle,
And therefore little shall I grace my cause

In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,

I will a round unvarnished tale deliver

Of my whole course of love.

Her father loved me; oft invited me;

Act i. Sc. 3.

Still questioned me the story of my life,
From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,
That I have passed.

I ran it through, even from my boyish days,
To the very moment that he bade me tell it;
Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field,

Of hair-breadth 'scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,
Of being taken by the insolent foe

And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence

And portance in my travels' history:

Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,

1 Though I be rude in speech. - 2 Cor. xi. 6.

Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch

heaven,

It was my hint to speak,—such was the process;
And of the Cannibals that each other eat,

The Anthropophagi and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear 1
Would Desdemona seriously incline. Othello. Acti. Sc. 3.

And often did beguile her of her tears,
When I did speak of some distressful stroke

That my youth suffered. My story being done,

She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:

She swore, in faith, 't was strange, 't was passing

strange,

"T was pitiful, 't was wondrous pitiful:

She wished she had not heard it, yet she wished

That heaven had made her such a man: she thanked

me,

And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,

I should but teach him how to tell my story,

And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake :

She loved me for the dangers I had passed,

And I loved her that she did pity them.

The robbed that smiles steals something from the thief.

The food that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida.

She was a wight, if ever such wight were,

Des. To do what?

Iago. To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.
Des. O most lame and impotent conclusion!

Ibid.

You may relish him more in the soldier than in the scholar.

Ibid.

If after every tempest come such calms,
May the winds blow till they have wakened death! Ibid.

Egregiously an ass.

Potations pottle-deep.

Ibid.

Act ii. Sc. 3.

King Stephen was a worthy peer,
His breeches cost him but a crown;
He held them sixpence all too dear,
With that he called the tailor lown.i

Silence that dreadful bell: it frights the isle

Ibid.

From her propriety.

Your name is great

Ibid.

In mouths of wisest censure.

Bid.

1 Though these lines are from an old ballad given in Percy's Reliques, they are much altered by Shakespeare, and it is his version we sing in the nursery.

Cassio, I love thee;

But never more be officer of mine. Othello. Act ii. Sc. 3

Iago. What, are you hurt, lieutenant?

Cas. Ay, past all surgery.

Ibid.

Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.

Ibid.

O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil!

Ibid.

O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!

Ibid.

Cas. Every inordinate cup is unblessed and the ingredient is a devil.

Iago. Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well used.

Excellent wretch!

Perdition catch my soul,

But I do love thee! and when I love thee not,

Chaos is come again.1

Speak to me as to thy thinkings,

Ibid.

Act iii. Sc. 3.

As thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughts The worst of words.

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,

Is the immediate jewel of their souls:

Ibid.

Who steals my purse steals trash; 't is something,

nothing;

"T was mine, 't is his, and has been slave to thousands;

But he that filches from me my good name

Robs me of that which not enriches him

1 For he being dead, with him is beauty slain,

Ibid.

And, beauty dead, black chaos comes again. - Venus and Adonis.

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;

It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.

Othello. Act iii. Sc. 3.

But, O, what damned minutes tells he o'er

1

Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly 1 loves!

Poor and content is rich and rich enough.

Ibid.

Ibid.

To be once in doubt

Is once to be resolved.

If I do prove her haggard,

Though that her jesses were my dear heart-strings,
I'ld whistle her off and let her down the wind,

Ibid.

I swear 't is better to be much abused
Than but to know 't a little.

Ibid.

He that is robbed, not wanting what is stolen,
Let him not know 't, and he 's not robbed at all.

Ibid.

1 'fondly,' Singer, White; 'soundly,' Staunton.