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Mark what I say. Attend me where I wheel: Strike not a stroke, but keep yourselves in breath:

And when I have the bloody Hector found,
Empale him with your weapons round about;
In fellest manner execute your aims.
Follow me, sirs, and my proceedings eye:
It is decreed Hector the great must die.

[Exeunt. Enter MENELAUS and PARIS, fighting: then THERSITES.

Ther. The cuckold and the cuckold-maker are at it. Now, bull! now, dog! 'Loo, Paris, 'loo! now my double-henned sparrow! 'loo, Paris, 'loo! The bull has the game: ware horns, ho! [Exeunt Paris and Menelaus.

Enter MARGARELON.

Mar. Turn, slave, and fight.
Ther. What art thou ?
Mar. A bastard son of Priam's.

Ther. lama bastard too; I love bastards : I am a bastard begot, bastard instructed, bastard in mind, bastard in valor, in every thing illegitimate. One bear will not bite another, and wherefore should one bastard? Take heed, the quarrel's most ominous to us: if the son of a whore fight for a whore, he tempts judgment: farewell, bastard.

[Exit.

Mar. The devil take thee, coward! [Exit.

SCENE VIII. Another part of the plains.
Enter HECTOR

Hect. Most putrefied core, so fair without, Thy goodly armor thus hath cost thy life. Now is my day's work done; I'll take good breath:

Rest, sword; thou hast thy fill of blood and death. [Puts off his helmet and hangs his shield behind him.

Enter ACHILLES and Myrmidons.

Achil. Look, Hector, how the sun begins to set;

How ugly night comes breathing at his heels :
Even with the vail and darking of the sun,
To close the day up, Hector's life is done.
Hect. I am unarm'd; forego this vantage,

Greek.

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My half-supp'd sword, that frankly would
have fed,
Pleased with this dainty bait, thus goes to bed.
[Sheathes his sword.

Come, tie his body to my horse's tail;
Along the field I will the Trojan trail. [Exeunt.

SCENE IX. Another part of the plains. Enter AGAMEMNON, AJAX, MENELAUS, NESTOR, DIOMEDES, and others, marching. Shouts within.

Agam. Hark! hark! what shout is that? Nest. Peace, drums!

[Within) Achilles ! Achilles ! Hector's slain!

Achilles.

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SCENE X. Another part of the plains.
Enter ÆNEAS and Trojans

Æne. Stand, ho! yet are we masters of the field:

Never go home; here starve we out the night.
Enter TROILUS,

Tro. Hector is slain.
Al.
Hector! the gods forbid !
Tro. He's dead; and at the murderer's
horse's tail,

In beastly sort, dragg'd through the shameful
field.
Frown on, you heavens, effect your rage with
speed!

Sit, gods, upon your thrones, and smile at
Troy!
I say, at once let your brief plagues be mercy,
And linger not our sure destructions on!
Æne. My lord, you do discomfort all the
host.
K

Tro. You understand me not that tell me so:
I do not speak of flight, of fear, of death,
But dare all imminence that gods and men
Address their dangers in. Hector is gone:
Who shall tell Priam so, or Hecuba?

Let him that will a screech-owl aye be call'd,
Go in to Troy, and say there, Hector's dead:
There is a word will Priam turn to stone;
Make wells and Niobes of the maids and wives,
Cold statues of the youth, and, in a word, 20
Acare Troy out of itself. But, march away :
Hector is dead; there is no more to say.
Stay yet. You vile abominable tents,
Thus proudly pight upon our Phrygian plains,
Let Titan rise as early as he dare,
I'll through and through you! and, thou great

sized coward,

No space of earth shall sunder our two hates : I'll haunt thee like a wicked conscience still, That mouldeth goblins swift as frenzy's

thoughts.

Strike a free march to Troy! with comfort go: Hope of revenge shall hide our inward woe. 31 [Exeunt Æneas and Trojans.

AS TROILUS is going out, enter, from the other side, PANDARUS.

Pan. But hear you, hear you! Tro. Hence, broker-lackey! ignomy and shame

Pursue thy life, and live aye with thy name! [Exit.

Pan. A goodly medicine for my aching bones! O world! world! world! thus is the poor agent despised! O traitors and bawds, how earnestly are you set a-work, and how ill requited! why should our endeavor be so loved and the performance so loathed? what

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painted cloths.

As many as be here of pander's hall,
Your eyes, half out, weep out at Pandar's fall;
Or if you cannot weep, yet give some groans,
Though not for me, yet for your aching bones.
Brethren and sisters of the hold-door trade,
Some two months hence my will shall here be
made:

It should be now, but that my fear is this,
Some galled goose of Winchester would hiss:
Till then I'll sweat and seek about for eases,
And at that time bequeathe you my diseases.
[Exit

1.

OTHELLO.

(WRITTEN ABOUT 1604.)

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INTRODUCTION.

Othellos the only play which appeared in quarto (in 1622) in the interval between Shakespeare's death and the publication of the first folio. We have no means, except by internal evidence, of ascertaining the date at which the play was written. Upon the strength of a supposed allusion to the armorial bearings of the new order of Baronets, instituted in 1611 (Act III., Sc. IV. L. 46-47), the play has been referred to a year not earlier than 1611; but the metrical tests confirm the impression produced by the general character and spirit of the tragedy, that it cannot belong to the same period as The Tempest, Cymbeline, and The Winter's Tale. It is evidently one of the group of tragedies of passion which includes Macbeth and Lear. The year 1604 has been accepted by several crities as a not improbable date for Othello. The original of the story is found in Cinthio's Hecatomithi, but it has been in a marvellous manner elevated and re-created by Shakespeare. Coleridge has justly said that the agonized doubt which lays hold of the Moor is not the jealousy of a man of naturally jealous temper, and he contrasts Othello with Leontes in The Winter's Tale, and Leonatus in Cymbe line. A mean watchfulness or prying suspicion is the last thing that Othello could be guilty of. He is of a free and noble nature, naturally trustful, with a kind of grand innocence, retaining some of his barbaric simpleness of soul in midst of the subtle and astute politicians of Venice. He is great in simple heroic action, but unversed in the complex affairs of life, and a stranger to the malignant deceits of the debased Italian character. Nothing is more chivalrous, more romantie, than the love of Othello and Desdemona. The beautiful Italian girl is fascinated by the real strength and grandeur, and the tender protectiveness of the Moor. He is charmed by the sweetness, the sympathy, the gentle disposition, the gracious womanliness of Desdemona. But neither quite rightly knows the other; there is none of that perfect equality and perfect knowledge between them which unite Bo flawlessly Brutus and Portia. There is no character in Shakespeare's plays so full of serpentine power and serpentine poison as Iago. He is envious of Cassio, and suspects that the Moor may have wronged his honor; but his malignancy is out of all proportion to even its alleged motives. Čassio, notwithstanding his moral weaknesses, is a chivalrous nature, possessed by enthusiastic admiration of his great general and the beautiful lady who is his wife. But Iago can see neither human virtue nor greatness. All things to him are common and unclean, and he is content that they should be so. He is not the sly, sneaking, and too manifest villain of some of the actors of his part. He is "honest Iago," and passes for a rough yet shrewd critic of life, who is himself frank and candid. To ensnare the nobly guileless Othello was, therefore, no impossible task. Shakespeare does not allow lago to triumph; his end is wretched as his life has been. And Othello, restored to love through such tragic calamity, dies once more reunited to his wife, and loyal, in spite of all his wrongs, to the city of his adoption. It is he who has sinned, and not she who was dearer to him than himself, and of his own wrongs and griefs he can make a sudden end.

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Rod. Tush! never tell me; I take it much unkindly

That thou, lago, 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.

Rod. 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-capp'd to him: and, by the faith of man, I know my price, I am worth no worse a

place:

11 But he, as loving his own pride and purposes, Evades them, with a bombast circumstance Horribly stuff'd 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,

20

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 the 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 30

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.

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are

Who, trimm'd in forms and visages of duty, Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves, 51

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 lago:
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 demon-

strate

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.

60

Rod. What a full fortune does the thick

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Iago

Awake! what, ho, Brabantio! thieves! thieves! thieves! Look to your house, your daughter and your

bags!

Thieves! thieves!

BRABANTIO appears above, at a window.

80

Bra. What is the reason of this terrible summons ?

What is the matter there?

Rod. Signior, is all your family within ?
Iago. Are your doors lock'd?
Bra.

Why, wherefore ask you this?
Iago. 'Zounds, sir, you're robb'd; for
shame, put on your gown;
Your heart is burst, you have lost half your

soul;

Even now, now, very now, an old black ram

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