Another room In the castle.
[Enter OTHELLO, LODOVICO,
DESDEMONA, EMILIA and Attendants]
LODOVICO Madam, good night;
I humbly thank your ladyship.
DESDEMONA Your honour is most welcome.
OTHELLO Will you walk, sir?
O,–Desdemona,–
DESDEMONA My lord?
OTHELLO Get you to bed on the instant; I will be
returned forthwith: dismiss your attendant there:
look it be done.
DESDEMONA I will, my lord.
LODOVICO I do beseech you, sir,
trouble yourself no further.
OTHELLO O, pardon me: ’twill do me good to walk.
[Exeunt OTHELLO,
LODOVICO, and Attendants]
EMILIA How goes it now?
he looks gentler than he did.
DESDEMONA He hath commanded me to go to bed,
And bade me to dismiss you.
EMILIA Dismiss me!
DESDEMONA It was his bidding: therefore, good Emilia,.
Give me my nightly wearing, and adieu:
We must not now displease him.
EMILIA I would you had never seen him!
DESDEMONA So would not I my love doth so approve him,
That even his stubbornness, his cheques, his frowns–
Prithee, unpin me,–have grace and favour in them.
EMILIA I have laid those sheets you bade me on the bed.
DESDEMONA
All’s one. Good faith, how foolish are our minds!
If I do die before thee prithee, shroud me
In one of those same sheets.
EMILIA Come, come you talk.
DESDEMONA My mother had a maid call’d Barbara:
She was in love, and he she loved proved mad
And did forsake her: she had a song of ‘willow;’
An old thing ’twas, but it express’d her fortune,
And she died singing it: that song to-night
Will not go from my mind; I have much to do,
[Singing]
The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,
Sing all a green willow:
Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,
Sing willow, willow, willow:
Sing willow, willow, willow;
Must be my garland.
Sing green willow, willow, willow;
Sing all a green willow
must be my garland.
EMILIA Shall I go fetch your night-gown?
DESDEMONA No, unpin me here.
.–Hark! who is’t that knocks?
EMILIA It’s the wind.
DESDEMONA O, these men, these men!
Dost thou in conscience think,–tell me, Emilia,–
That there be women do abuse their husbands
In such gross kind?
EMILIA There be some such, no question.
DESDEMONA Beshrew me, if I would do such a wrong
For the whole world.
EMILIA But I do think it is their husbands’ faults
If wives do fall: say that they slack their duties,
Or else break out in peevish jealousies,
Or say they strike us, Or scant our former having in despite;
Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace,
Yet have we some revenge.
What is it that they do
When they change us for others? Is it sport?
I think it is: and doth affection breed it?
I think it doth: is’t frailty that thus errs?
It is so too: and have not we affections,
Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?
Then let them use us well: else let them know,
The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.
Good night, my lady!
DESDEMONA
Good night, good night: heaven me such uses send,
Not to pick bad from bad, but by bad mend!
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