DRAMATIS PERSONAE

Venice. A street.

Enter RODERIGO and IAGO.

RODERIGO.

TUSH, never tell me; I take it much unkindly
That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse
As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of
this,--

IAGO

'Sblood, but you will not hear me:--
If ever I did dream of such a matter,
Abhor me.

RODERIGO.

Thou told'st me thou didst hold him in thy hate.

IAGO.

Despise me, if I do not. Three great ones of the
city,
In personal suit to make me his lieutenant,
Off-capt to him:--and, by the faith of man,
I know my price, I am worth no worse a place:--
But he, as loving his own pride and purposes,
Evades them, with a bombast circumstance
Horribly stuft with epithets of war;
And, in conclusion,
Nonsuits my mediators; for, 'Certes,' says he,
'I have already chose my officer.'
And what was he?
Forsooth, a great arithmetician,
One Michael Cassio, a Florentine,
A fellow almost damn'd in a fair wife;
That never set a squadron in the field,
Nor the division of a battle knows
More than a spinster; unless the bookish theoric,
Wherein the toged consuls can propose
As masterly as he: mere prattle, without practice,
Is all his soldiership. But he, sir, had th'election:
And I--of whom his eyes had seen the proof
At Rhodes, at Cyprus, and on other grounds
Christian and heathen--must be be-lee'd and
calm'd
By debitor and creditor; this counter-caster,
He, in good time, must his lieutenant be,
And I--God bless the mark!--his Moorship's
ancient.

RODERIGO.

By heaven, I rather would have been his hangman.

IAGO.

Why, there's no remedy; 'tis the curse of service,
Preferment goes by letter and affection,
And not by old gradation, where each second
Stood heir to th' first. Now, sir, be judge your-
self,
Whether I in any just term am affined
To love the Moor.

RODERIGO.

I would not follow him, then.

IAGO.

O, sir, content you;
I follow him to serve my turn upon him:
We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
Cannot be truly follow'd. You shall mark
Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave,
That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,
Wears out his time, much like his master's ass,
For naught but provender; and, when he's old,
cashier'd:
Whip me such honest knaves. Others there are,
Who, trimm'd in forms and visages of duty,
Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves;
And, throwing but shows of service on their lords,
Do well thrive by them, and, when they have
lined their coats,
Do themselves homage: these fellows have some
soul;
And such a one do I profess myself.
For, sir,
It is as sure as you are Roderigo,
Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago:
In following him, I follow but myself;
Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
But seeming so, for my peculiar end:
For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In compliment extern, 'tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.

RODERIGO.

What a full fortune does the thick-lips owe,
If he can carry't thus!

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