Othello monologue from Othello

Othello’s monologue

Had it pleased heaven

To try me with affliction; had they rain'd

All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head.

Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips,

5Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes,

I should have found in some place of my soul

A drop of patience: but, alas, to make me

A fixed figure for the time of scorn

To point his slow unmoving finger at!

10Yet could I bear that too; well, very well:

But there, where I have garner'd up my heart,

Where either I must live, or bear no life;

The fountain from the which my current runs,

Or else dries up; to be discarded thence!

15Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads

To knot and gender in! Turn thy complexion there,

Patience, thou young and rose-lipp'd cherubin,—

Ay, there, look grim as hell! O, ay; as summer flies are in the shambles,

That quicken even with blowing. O thou weed,

20Who art so lovely fair and smell'st so sweet

That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst

ne'er been born! Was this fair paper, this most goodly book,

Made to write 'whore' upon? What committed!

Committed! O thou public commoner!

25I should make very forges of my cheeks,

That would to cinders burn up modesty,

Did I but speak thy deeds. What committed!

Heaven stops the nose at it and the moon winks,

The bawdy wind that kisses all it meets

30Is hush'd within the hollow mine of earth,

And will not hear it. What committed!

Impudent strumpet!

Public domain text.