As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.
RODERIGO
Come on, don't tell me that. I don't like it
that you knew about this, Iago. All this time I've
thought you were such a good friend that I've let you
spend my money as if it was yours.
IAGO
'Sblood, but you'll not hear me! If ever I
did dream
5
of such a matter, abhor me.
IAGO
Damn it, you're not listening to me! I never dreamed
this was happening—if you find out I did, you can go
ahead and hate me.
RODERIGO
Thou told'st me
Thou didst hold him in thy hate.
RODERIGO
You told me you hated him.
IAGO
Despise me
If I do not. Three great ones of the city
10
(In personal suit to make me his lieutenant)
Off-capped 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 bombast circumstance
15
Horribly stuffed with epithets of war,
And in conclusion
Nonsuits my mediators. For “Certes,” says
he,
“I have already chose my officer.”
And what was he?
20
Forsooth, a great arithmetician,
One Michael Cassio, a Florentine
(A fellow almost damned in a fair wife)
That never set a squadron in the field,
Nor the division of a battle knows
25
More than a spinster—unless the bookish theoric,
IAGO
I do hate him
, I swear. Three of Venice's most
important noblemen took their hats off to him and asked him humbly
to make me his lieutenant, the second in command. And I know my own
worth well enough to know I deserve that position. But he wants to
have things his own way, so he sidesteps the issue with a lot of
military talk and refuses their request. “I've
already chosen my lieutenant,” he says. And who does he
choose? A guy who knows more about numbers then fighting! This guy
from Florence named Michael Cassio. He has a pretty wife but he
can't even control her. And he's definitely
never commanded men in battle. He's got no more hands-on
knowledge of warfare than an old woman—unless you count
what he's read in books,
