Returning. My lord, I would I might entreat your honour To scan this thing no further; leave it to time: Though it be fit that Cassio have his place, For sure, he fills it up with great ability, Yet, if you please to hold him off awhile, You shall by that perceive him and his means: Note, if your lady strain his entertainment With any strong or vehement importunity; Much will be seen in that. In the mean time, Let me be thought too busy in my fears⁠— As worthy cause I have to fear I am⁠— And hold her free, I do beseech your honour.

This fellow’s of exceeding honesty, And knows all qualities, with a learned spirit, Of human dealings. If I do prove her haggard, Though that her jesses were my dear heartstrings, I’ld whistle her off and let her down the wind, To pray at fortune. Haply, for I am black And have not those soft parts of conversation That chamberers have, or for I am declined Into the vale of years⁠—yet that’s not much⁠— She’s gone. I am abused; and my relief Must be to loathe her. O curse of marriage, That we can call these delicate creatures ours, And not their appetites! I had rather be a toad, And live upon the vapour of a dungeon, Than keep a corner in the thing I love For others’ uses. Yet, ’tis the plague of great ones; Prerogatived are they less than the base; ’Tis destiny unshunnable, like death: Even then this forked plague is fated to us When we do quicken. Desdemona comes:

If she be false, O, then heaven mocks itself! I’ll not believe’t.