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Thy God's, and truth's; then, if thou fall'st, O Cromwell,
Thou fall'st a blessed martyr! Serve the king;
And-Prithee, lead me in:

There take an inventory of all I have,

To the last penny; 'tis the king's; my robe,
And my integrity to Heaven, is all

I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell,
Had I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my king, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies!

HELPS TO STUDY

Notes

"This many summers"-this nineteen years.
"Like Lucifer"-See Isaiah XIV, 12.
"To play the woman"-to shed tears.

8. CASSIO AND IAGO

OTHELLO. ACT II. SCENE III.

Iago. What, are you hurt, lieutenant?

Cassio. Ay, past all surgery.

Iago. Marry, heaven forbid !

Cas. Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my 5 reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation, Iago, my reputation!

Iago. As I am an honest man, I thought you had received some bodily wound; there is more sense in that than in reputation. Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without 10 merit, and lost without deserving: you have lost no reputation at all, unless you repute yourself such a loser. What, man! there are ways to recover the general again: you are but now cast in his mood, a punishment more in policy than in malice; even so as one would beat his offenceless dog to affright an imperious lion: sue to 15 him again, and he's yours.

Cas. I will rather sue to be despised than to deceive so good a commander with so slight, so drunken, and so indiscreet an officer. Drunk? and speak parrot? and squabble? swagger? swear? and discourse fustian with one's own shadow? O thou invisible spirit 5 of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil!

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Iago. What was he that you followed with your sword? What had he done to you?

Cas. I know not.

Iago. Is't possible?

Cas. I remember a mass of things, but nothing distinctly; a quarrel, but nothing wherefore. O God, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! that we should, with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause, transform ourselves into 15 beasts!

Iago. Why, but you are now well enough: how came you thus recovered?

Cas. It hath pleased the devil drunkenness to give place to the devil wrath: one unperfectness shows me another, to make me 20 frankly despise myself.

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Iago. Come, you are too severe a moraler: as the time, the place, and the condition of this country stands, I could heartily wish this had not befallen; but, since it is as it is, mend it for your own good.

Cas. I will ask him for my place again; he shall tell me I am a drunkard! Had I as many mouths as Hydra, such an answer would stop them all. To be now a sensible man, by and by a fool, and presently a beast! O strange! Every inordinate cup is unblessed and the ingredient is a devil.

30 Iago. Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well used exclaim no more against it. And, good lieutenant, I think you think I love you.

Cas. I have well approved it, sir. I drunk!

Iago. You or any man living may be drunk at a time, man. 35 I'll tell you what you shall do. Our general's wife is now the gen

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eral: I may say so in this respect, for that he hath devoted and given up himself to the contemplation, mark, and denotement of her parts and graces: confess yourself freely to her: importune her help to put you in your place again: she is of so free, so kind, so 5 apt, so blessed a disposition, she holds it a vice in her goodness not to do more than she is requested: this broken joint between you and her husband entreat her to splinter; and my fortunes against any lay worth naming, this crack of your love shall grow stronger than it was before.

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Iago. I protest in the sincerity of love and honest kindness. Cas. I think it freely; and betimes in the morning I will beseech the virtuous Desdemona to undertake for me: I am desperate of my fortunes if they check me here.

Iago. You are in the right. Good night, lieutenant; I must to the watch.

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PART II

SELECTIONS FROM GREAT AMERICAN AUTHORS

"He cometh unto you with a tale which holdeth children from play and old men from the chimney corner."

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

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