William Shakespeare: Othello, Moor of Venice

ACT V. 2. SCENE II. Cyprus. A Bedchamber in the castle: Desdemona in bed (continued)

LODOVICO.
You must forsake this room, and go with us:
Your power and your command is taken off,
And Cassio rules in Cyprus. For this slave,--
If there be any cunning cruelty
That can torment him much and hold him long,
It shall be his. You shall close prisoner rest,
Till that the nature of your fault be known
To the Venetian state.--Come, bring away.

OTHELLO.
Soft you; a word or two before you go.
I have done the state some service, and they know't.--
No more of that.--I pray you, in your letters,
When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice: then must you speak
Of one that loved not wisely, but too well;
Of one not easily jealous, but, being wrought,
Perplex'd in the extreme; of one whose hand,
Like the base Judean, threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdu'd eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drop tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinal gum. Set you down this;
And say besides,--that in Aleppo once,
Where a malignant and a turban'd Turk
Beat a Venetian and traduc'd the state,
I took by the throat the circumcised dog
And smote him--thus.

[Stabs himself.]

LODOVICO.
O bloody period!

GRATIANO.
All that's spoke is marr'd.

OTHELLO.
I kiss'd thee ere I kill'd thee:--no way but this,
[Falling upom Desdemona.]
Killing myself, to die upon a kiss.