William Shakespeare: Othello, Moor of Venice

ACT I. 1. SCENE I. Venice. A street.

[Enter Roderigo and Iago.]

RODERIGO.
Tush, never tell me; I take it much unkindly
That thou, Iago, 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.

RODERIGO.
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:--
But he, as loving his own pride and purposes,
Evades them, with a bumbast 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,
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 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.

RODERIGO.
By heaven, I rather would have been his hangman.

IAGO.
Why, there's no remedy; 'tis the curse of service,
Preferment goes by letter and affection,
And not by old gradation, where each second
Stood heir to the first. Now, sir, be judge yourself
Whether I in any just term am affin'd
To love the Moor.

RODERIGO.
I would not follow him, then.