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Shakespeare on Stage
American Shakespeare Center, Love's Labour's Lost. To Jun. 15, 2013.
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Othello (Quarto 1, 1622)

Author: William Shakespeare
Editor: Donald L. Bailey
Peer Reviewed
Lod. I do beseech you sir, trouble your selfe no further.
Oth. O pardon me, it shall doe me good to walke.
2970Lod. Madame, good night, I humbly thanke your Ladiship.
Des. Your honour is most welcome.
Oth. Will you walke sir: ---O Desdemona.
Des. My Lord.
2975Oth. Get you to bed, o'the instant I will be return'd, forthwith,
dispatch your Attendant there, ---looke it be done.
Exeunt.
Des. I will my Lord.
Em. How goes it now? he lookes gentler then he did.
2980Des. He saies he will returne incontinent:
He hath commanded me to goe to bed,
And bad me to dismisse you.
Em. Dismisse me?
Des. It was his bidding, therefore good Emillia,
2985Giue me my nightly wearing, and adiue,
We must not now displease him.
Em. I would you had neuer seene him.
Des. So would not I, my loue doth so approue him,
That euen his stubbornenesse, his checks and frownes.
2990Prethee vnpin me; haue grace and fauour in them.
Em. I haue laied these sheetes you bade me, on the bed.
Des. All's one good faith: how foolish are our minds?
If I doe die before thee, prethee shrowd me
In one of those same sheetes.
2995Em. Come, come, you talke.
Des. My mother had a maid cald Barbary,
She was in loue, and he she lou'd, prou'd mad,
And did forsake her, she has a song of willow,
An old thing 'twas, but it exprest her fortune,
3000And she died singing it, that Song to night,
Will not goe from my mind -- harke, who's that knocks?
Em. It is the wind.
Des. Now get thee gone, good night:
Mine eyes doe itch, does that bode weeping?
Em. Tis neither here nor there.
3035Des. Wouldst thou doe such a deed, for all the world?
Em. Why would not you.
Des. No, by this heauenly light.
Em. Nor I neither, by this heauenly light,
I might doe it as well in the darke.
3040Des. Would thou doe such a thing for all the world?
Em. The world is a huge thing, it is a great price,
For a small vice.
Des. Good troth I thinke thou wouldst not.
Em. By my troth I thinke I should, and vndo't when I had done
3045it, mary I would not doe such a thing for a ioynt ring; or for mea-
sures of Lawne, nor for Gownes, or Petticotes, nor Caps, nor any
such exhibition; but for the whole world? vds pitty, who would
not make her husband a Cuckole, to make him a Monarch? I should
venture purgatory for it.
Des. Beshrew me, if I would doe such a wrong,
For the whole world.
Em. Why, the wrong is but a wrong i'the world; and hauing the
world for your labour, tis a wrong in your owne world, and you
3055might quickly make it right.
Des. I doe not thinke there is any such woman.
Em. Yes, a dozen, and as many to the vantage, as would store
the world they played for.
Des. Good night, good night: God me such vsage send,
Not to picke bad from bad, but by bad mend.
Exeunt.