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Jealousy destroys the marriage between an older black man and a younger white woman in 1500s Venice.

Page 43 of 229
Table of Contents

Act I

Roderigo
It cannot be.
Iago
It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the will. Come, be a man. Drown thyself! drown cats and blind puppies. I have professed me thy friend and I confess me knit to thy deserving with cables of perdurable toughness; I could never better stead thee than now. Put money in thy purse; follow thou the wars; defeat thy favour with an usurped beard; I say, put money in thy purse. It cannot be that Desdemona should long continue her love to the Moor⁠—put money in thy purse⁠—nor he his to her: it was a violent commencement, and thou shalt see an answerable sequestration:⁠—put but money in thy purse. These Moors are changeable in their wills: fill thy purse with money:⁠—the food that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida. She must change for youth: when she is sated with his body, she will find the error of her choice: she must have change, she must: therefore put money in thy purse. If thou wilt needs damn thyself, do it a more delicate way than drowning. Make all the money thou canst: if sanctimony and a frail vow betwixt an erring barbarian and a supersubtle Venetian not too hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell, thou shalt enjoy her; therefore make money. A pox of drowning thyself! it is clean out of the way: seek thou rather to be hanged in compassing thy joy than to be drowned and go without her.
Roderigo
Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend on the issue?
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