The Play's the Thing: Act III scene i
LOCKHART: Do I have to tell you where you're supposed to be, or has everyone
read their script?
[sullen muttering]
LOCKHART: Wonderful. We're nearly halfway through now.
[Enter HARRY, followed by COLIN, gagged, and NEVILLE, who has found a teddy
bear somewhere and is cuddling it.]
HARRY: Masters, play here; I will content your pains;
Something that's brief; and bid 'Good morrow, general.'
COLIN: Mrfgo? Sntlngtm!
[Enter GOYLE, shoved onstage by CRABBE at DRACO's direction and wearing a
stupid hat.]
GOYLE: Why... masters, have your... in-stroo-ments been in... Nipples?
that they... speak in the nose thus? [Blinks] Hey Draco, what does
that mean?
DRACO: Never mind. It's not important.
NEVILLE: [hugging teddy bear tighter] Howsirhow?
GOYLE: Are these... I pray you... wind in-stroo-ments?
NEVILLE: Aymarryaretheysir?
COLIN: Hurghk!
GOYLE: O... theer-bee... hangs a... tail.
COLIN: Tayghk?! Nu?
NEVILLE: Wherebyhangsatalesir?
GOYLE: Marry. sir, by many a... wind in-stroo-ment that I know...
But, masters, here's... moan-ee for you... and the... jen-urr-al
so likes... your moo-sik... that he... dez-ires you, for... love's
sake... to make no... more... noise with it.
LOCKHART: Oh God... someone make him stop....
HERMIONE: He *is* trying, sir...
GOYLE: [to them] 'Snot my fault. These words're all funny.
NEVILLE: Wellsirwewillnot?
GOYLE: If you have... any... music that may not be... heard... to't
again but... as they say to hear... music... the jen-urr-al
does not... greet-ly care.
NEVILLE: [panicked] Wehavenonesuchsir?
GOYLE: Then put... up your pipes... in your bag... for I'll away...
go... van-ish... into air... away!
[NEVILLE runs offstage, pulling COLIN along with him]
COLIN: Mrg! Mrg!
HARRY: Dost thou hear, my honest friend?
GOYLE: No... I hear not your... honn-est... friend, I hear you.
[Quickly smothered laughter from DRACO offstage]
DRACO: Only when there's a script....
HARRY: [glares at him] Prithee, keep up thy quillets. There's a poor
piece of gold for thee: if the gentlewoman that attends the general's
wife be stirring, tell her there's one Cassio entreats her a little
favour of speech: wilt thou do this?
GOYLE: She is... stir-ring... sir: if she will stir... hither? I
shall... seem to... not-iff-ee un-toh... her.
HARRY: [hiding smile] Do, good my friend.
[Exit GOYLE. Enter DRACO]
HARRY: In happy time, Iago. [in an undertone] How do you put up with them?
DRACO: [undertone] Practice. [louder] You have not been a-bed, then?
HARRY: Why, no; the day had broke
Before we parted. I have made bold, Iago,
To send in to your wife: my suit to her
Is, that she will to virtuous Desdemona
Procure me some access.
DRACO: I'll send her to you presently;
And I'll devise a mean to draw the Moor
Out of the way, that your converse and business
May be more free.
HARRY: I humbly thank you for't.
[Exit DRACO. HARRY watches him go]
HARRY: [thoughtfully] I never knew
A Florentine more kind and honest.
[Enter HERMIONE, who curtsies. RON, offstage, gapes]
RON: [in sick tones, to LOCKHART] Wait, don't tell me. Let me guess.
Acting?
LOCKHART: I assumed so.
HERMIONE: Good morrow, good Lieutenant: I am sorry
For your displeasure; but all will sure be well.
The general and his wife are talking of it;
And she speaks for you stoutly: the Moor replies,
That he you hurt is of great fame in Cyprus,
And great affinity, and that in wholesome wisdom
He might not but refuse you; but he protests he loves you
And needs no other suitor but his likings
To take the safest occasion by the front
To bring you in again.
HARRY: Yet, I beseech you,
If you think fit, or that it may be done,
Give me advantage of some brief discourse
With Desdemona alone.
RON: Does *everyone* in this play want Desdemona? Ginny...?
GINNY: [giggling nervously] It's just a play, Ron.
HERMIONE: Pray you, come in;
I will bestow you where you shall have time
To speak your bosom freely.
HARRY: I am much bound to you.
SEAMUS: [blinks] Kinky... this Shakespeare guy had social problems, didn't
he?
[A snapping sound calls his attention to the Luggage, which has snuck up
behind him. SEAMUS gulps]
LOCKHART: You were saying, Mr. Finnegan?
SEAMUS: Oh... nothing, really... nothing....
End scene i
The Play's the Thing: Act III scene ii
[Enter DEAN, DRACO, and NEVILLE without teddy bear]
DEAN: These letters give, Iago, to the pilot;
And by him do my duties to the senate:
That done, I will be walking on the works;
Repair there to me.
DRACO: Well, my good lord, I'll do't.
DEAN: This fortification, gentlemen, shall we see't?
NEVILLE: W...w...w..we'llwaituponyourlordship!
[NEVILLE faints]
[beat]
DRACO: [points at NEVILLE] Does he have to keep doing that? He's ruining
my concentration!
RON: [saccharine] Oh, poor baby. [muttering] Prima donna.
[HARRY smacks RON in the back of the head]
RON: OW! Hey, what was that for?
HARRY: [innocently] Practicing for next rehearsal.
End scene ii
The Play's the Thing: Act III scene iii
[Enter GINNY, HARRY, and HERMIONE. GINNY is overacting noble, and HERMIONE is staring at the ground]
GINNY: Be thou assured, good Cassio, I will do
All my abilities in thy behalf.
HERMIONE: Good madam, do: I warrant it grieves my husband,
As if the case were his.
RON: [offstage, muttering] Yeah, I'll *bet* it does.
DRACO: And what do you mean by that, Weasley?
[RON refuses to answer]
GINNY: O, that's an honest fellow. Do not doubt, Cassio,
But I will have my lord and you again
As friendly as you were.
HARRY: Bounteous madam,
Whatever shall become of Michael Cassio,
He's never any thing but your true servant.
SEAMUS: Can she have that in writing, Harry?
DEAN: Knock it off, Seamus. Ginny's not like that.
SEAMUS: Dean and Ginny, sitting in a tree...
DEAN: [glancing at RON and blushing] Shut up!
GINNY: I know't; I thank you. You do love my lord:
You have known him long; and be you well assured
He shall in strangeness stand no further off
Than in a polite distance.
SEAMUS: Everybody loves everybody! What is this, an orgy?
LOCKHART: Mr. Finnegan, we'll have to gag you presently if you don't keep
your mouth shut.
SEAMUS: Yeah, you and what... oh yeah. [laughs nervously] I remember.
Forget I said anything.
HARRY: Ay, but, lady,
That policy may either last so long,
Or feed upon such nice and waterish diet,
Or breed itself so out of circumstance,
That, I being absent and my place supplied,
My general will forget my love and service.
RON: [under his breath] Did you hit him, too?
LOCKHART: Mr. Weasley, the same goes for you as it does for Mr. Finnegan.
COLIN: Mfghfth!
GINNY: Do not doubt that; before Emilia here
I give thee warrant of thy place: assure thee,
If I do vow a friendship, I'll perform it
To the last article: my lord shall never rest;
I'll watch him tame and talk him out of patience;
His bed shall seem a school, his board a shrift;
I'll intermingle every thing he does
With Cassio's suit: therefore be merry, Cassio;
For thy solicitor shall rather die
Than give thy cause away.
HERMIONE: Madam, here comes my lord.
HARRY: [uncomfortably] Madam, I'll take my leave.
GINNY: Why, stay, and hear me speak.
HARRY: Madam, not now: I am very ill at ease,
Unfit for mine own purposes.
GINNY: [overly doubtful] Well, do your discretion.
[HARRY beats a quick retreat offstage as DEAN and DRACO enter]
DRACO: Ha! I like not that.
HARRY: [under his breath] Liar.
DEAN: What dost thou say?
DRACO: Nothing, my lord: or if... [watches HARRY go] I know not what.
DEAN: [suspiciously] Was not that Cassio parted from my wife?
DRACO: [too innocent] Cassio, my lord! No, sure, I cannot think it,
That he would steal away so guilty-like,
Seeing you coming.
DEAN: I do believe 'twas he.
GINNY: How now, my lord!
I have been talking with a suitor here,
A man that languishes in your displeasure.
DEAN: Who is't you mean?
GINNY: Why, your lieutenant, Cassio. Good my lord,
If I have any grace or power to move you,
His present reconciliation take;
For if he be not one that truly loves you,
That errs in ignorance and not in cunning,
I have no judgment in an honest face:
I prithee, call him back.
DEAN: Went he hence now?
GINNY: Ay, sooth; so humbled
That he hath left part of his grief with me,
To suffer with him. Good love, call him back.
DEAN: Not now, sweet Desdemona; some other time.
GINNY: But shall't be shortly?
DEAN: The sooner, sweet, for you.
GINNY: Shall't be to-night at supper?
DEAN: [annoyed] No, not to-night.
GINNY: To-morrow dinner, then?
SEAMUS: [offstage] God, she never *stops*, does she? Dean, you're *dating*
her?
[DEAN goes red and makes discreet shushing gestures]
RON: WHAT?!
DEAN: [quickly] I shall not dine at home;
I meet the captains at the citadel.
GINNY: Why, then, to-morrow night; or Tuesday morn;
On Tuesday noon, or night; on Wednesday morn:
I prithee, name the time, but let it not
Exceed three days: in faith, he's penitent;
And yet his trespass, in our common reason--
Save that, they say, the wars must make examples
Out of their best--is not almost a fault
To incur a private cheque. When shall he come?
Tell me, Othello: I wonder in my soul,
What you would ask me, that I should deny,
Or stand so mammering on. What! Michael Cassio,
That came a-wooing with you, and so many a time,
When I have spoke of you dispraisingly,
Hath ta'en your part; to have so much to do
To bring him in! Trust me, I could do much,--
DEAN: Prithee, no more: let him come when he will;
I will deny thee nothing.
GINNY: Why, this is not a boon;
'Tis as I should entreat you wear your gloves,
Or feed on nourishing dishes, or keep you warm,
Or sue to you to do a peculiar profit
To your own person: nay, when I have a suit
Wherein I mean to touch your love indeed,
It shall be full of poise and difficult weight
And fearful to be granted.
RON: Suure. The guy gets drunk, beats up his best friend and another
friend, and it's not a favor to take him back?
HARRY: That's theatre, Ron. Calm down already.
DEAN: I will deny thee nothing:
Whereon, I do beseech thee, grant me this,
To leave me but a little to myself.
GINNY: Shall I deny you? no: farewell, my lord.
DEAN: Farewell, my Desdemona: I'll come to thee straight.
GINNY: [smiles] Emilia, come. Be as your fancies teach you;
Whate'er you be, I am obedient.
[Exit GINNY and HERMIONE]
DEAN: Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul,
But I do love thee! and when I love thee not,
Chaos is come again.
SEAMUS: [offstage to GINNY, smugly] Boy, he blows hot and cold, doesn't he?
HARRY: [offstage, to RON] I get the feeling I'm missing something here...
RON: Don't look at me!
DRACO: My noble lord--
DEAN: What dost thou say, Iago?
DRACO: [slowly] Did Michael Cassio, when you woo'd my lady,
Know of your love?
DEAN: He did, from first to last: why dost thou ask?
DRACO: [waves dismissively] But for a satisfaction of my thought;
No further harm.
DEAN: Why of thy thought, Iago?
DRACO: I...did not think he had been acquainted with her.
DEAN: O, yes; and went between us very oft.
DRACO: Indeed!
RON: [offstage, needling] Why? Jealous?
[HARRY smacks RON upside the head]
RON: Hey! What was that f-
[HARRY stares back, sphinx-like]
RON: Let me guess. Practicing for next rehearsal?
LOCKHART: I like to see that kind of dedication to a role.
RON: [muttering to himself] Dedication, nothing....
DEAN: Indeed! ay, indeed: discern'st thou aught in that?
Is he not honest?
DRACO: [blinks] ...Honest, my lord?
DEAN: Honest! ay, honest.
DRACO: My lord, for aught I know.
DEAN: What dost thou think?
DRACO: ...Think, my lord?
SEAMUS: [sarcastically] Way to dodge the question, Malfoy! It's not obvious
at all what you're up to!
RON: [to HARRY] How come you don't hit him?
HARRY: [aloof] I wasn't hitting you for fun, Ron, I was just practicing.
DEAN: Think, my lord!
By heaven, he echoes me,
As if there were some monster in his thought
Too hideous to be shown. Thou dost mean something:
I heard thee say even now, thou likedst not that,
When Cassio left my wife: what didst not like?
And when I told thee he was of my counsel
In my whole course of wooing, thou criedst 'Indeed!'
And didst contract and purse thy brow together,
As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain
Some horrible conceit: if thou dost love me,
Show me thy thought.
DRACO: My lord, you know I love you.
SEAMUS: There it is again! Any minute now, McGonagall's gonna burst in and
give us all detention for performing a lewd play!
LOCKHART: [mildly] *Professor* McGonagall to you, Mr. Finnegan.
DEAN: I think thou dost;
And, for I know thou'rt full of love and honesty,
And weigh'st thy words before thou givest them breath,
Therefore these stops of thine fright me the more:
For such things in a false disloyal knave
Are tricks of custom, but in a man that's just
They are close delations, working from the heart
That passion cannot rule.
DRACO: For Michael Cassio,
I dare be sworn I think that he is honest.
DEAN: I think so too.
DRACO: [wistfully] Men should be what they seem;
Or those that be not, would they might seem none!
DEAN: Certain, men should be what they seem.
DRACO: [Triumphantly] Why, then, I think Cassio's an honest man.
DEAN: Nay, yet there's more in this:
I prithee, speak to me as to thy thinkings,
As thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughts
The worst of words.
RON: [offstage] Like that's really hard for him. Come on!
[RON dodges a nonexistent effort to smack him upside the head, then looks
confused. HARRY is busy watching the scene]
DRACO: [bows head to hide slight smile] Good my lord, pardon me:
Though I am bound to every act of duty,
I am not bound to that all slaves are free to.
Utter my thoughts? Why, say they are vile and false;
As where's that palace whereinto foul things
Sometimes intrude not? who has a breast so pure,
But some uncleanly apprehensions
Keep leets and law-days and in session sit
With meditations lawful?
DEAN: Thou dost conspire against thy friend, Iago,
If thou but think'st him wrong'd and makest his ear
A stranger to thy thoughts.
DRACO: I do beseech you--
Though I perchance am... vicious in my guess,
As, I confess, it is my nature's plague
To spy into abuses, and oft my jealousy
Shapes faults that are not--that your wisdom yet,
From one that so imperfectly conceits,
Would take no notice, nor build yourself a trouble
Out of his scattering and unsure observance.
It were not for your quiet nor your good,
Nor for my manhood, honesty, or wisdom,
To let you know my thoughts.
DEAN: What dost thou mean?
HARRY: [offstage] Yes, what?
DRACO: Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands:
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.
RON: [offstage, to HERMIONE] Hang on... a few scenes back, didn't he tell
Cassio that reputation and good name weren't worth anything?
HERMIONE: Of course he did! He's the *villain*!
DEAN: By heaven, I'll know thy thoughts!
DRACO: [shakes his head] You cannot, if my heart were in your hand;
Nor shall not, whilst 'tis in my custody.
DEAN: Ha!
DRACO: O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on; that cuckold lives in bliss
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger;
But, O, what damned minutes tells he o'er
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!
DEAN: O misery!
DRACO: [piously] Poor and content is rich and rich enough,
But riches fineless is as poor as winter
To him that ever fears he shall be poor.
Good heaven, the souls of all my tribe defend
From jealousy!
DEAN: Why, why is this?
Think'st thou I'ld make a lie of jealousy,
To follow still the changes of the moon
With fresh suspicions? No; to be once in doubt
Is once to be resolved: exchange me for a goat,
When I shall turn the business of my soul
To such exsufflicate and blown surmises,
Matching thy inference. 'Tis not to make me jealous
To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company,
Is free of speech, sings, plays and dances well;
Where virtue is, these are more virtuous:
Nor from mine own weak merits will I draw
The smallest fear or doubt of her revolt;
For she had eyes, and chose me. No, Iago;
I'll see before I doubt; when I doubt, prove;
And on the proof, there is no more but this,--
Away at once with love or jealousy!
SEAMUS: Milk and cookies for everyone!
DRACO: I am glad of it; for now I shall have reason
To show the love and duty that I bear you
With franker spirit: therefore, as I am bound,
Receive it from me. I speak not yet of proof.
Look to your wife; observe her well with Cassio;
Wear your eye thus, not jealous nor secure:
I would not have your free and noble nature,
Out of self-bounty, be abused; look to't:
I know our country disposition well;
In Venice they do let heaven see the pranks
They dare not show their husbands; their best conscience
Is not to leave't undone, but keep't unknown.
DEAN: Dost thou say so?
SEAMUS: No, you're hearing things again.
DRACO: She *did* deceive her father, marrying you;
And when she seem'd to shake and fear your looks,
She loved them most.
DEAN: And so she did.
DRACO: Why, go to then;
She that, so young, could give out such a seeming,
To seal her father's eyes up close as oak-
He thought 'twas witchcraft--but I am much to blame;
I humbly do beseech you of your pardon
For too much loving you.
SEAMUS: [offstage] Uh-huh. Suuure you do.
DEAN: I am bound to thee for ever.
SEAMUS: Again with the bondage!
[There is a brief scuffle, after which HARRY and HERMIONE have managed to gag
SEAMUS]
DRACO: [smirking slightly] I see this hath a little dash'd your spirits.
DEAN: Not a jot, not a jot.
HARRY: [offstage] Liar.
DRACO: I' faith, I fear it has.
I hope you will consider what is spoke
Comes from my love. But I do see you're moved:
I am to pray you not to strain my speech
To grosser issues nor to larger reach
Than to suspicion.
DEAN: No, not much moved:
I do not think but Desdemona's honest.
HERMIONE: [offstage, singsong] Come into my parlor, said the spider to the
fly....
GINNY: [sighing] Isn't he sweet?
HERMIONE: [shrugs] We'll see if you're saying that later, *Desdemona*.
DRACO: Long live she so! and long live you to think so!
DEAN: And yet, how nature erring from itself,--
DRACO: Ay, there's the point: as--to be bold with you--
Not to affect many proposed matches
Of her own clime, complexion, and degree,
Whereto we see in all things nature tends--
Feh! one may smell in such a will most rank,
Foul disproportion thoughts unnatural.
But pardon me; I do not in position
Distinctly speak of her; though I may fear
Her will, recoiling to her better judgment,
May fall to match you with her country forms
And happily repent.
SEAMUS: Huh?
RON: I don't know either.
CRABBE: Look, I drew a bunny.
DEAN: Farewell, farewell:
If more thou dost perceive, let me know more;
Set on thy wife to observe: leave me, Iago...
DRACO: [turning to leave] My lord, I take my leave.
DEAN: Why did I marry? This honest creature doubtless
Sees and knows more, much more, than he unfolds.
SEAMUS: Keep going, you're almost there... you gonna let that snake play you
for a sucker?
DRACO: [turning back] 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.
DEAN: Fear not my government.
HARRY: [offstage, smiling, to SEAMUS] Guess so.
DRACO: I once more take my leave.
[Exit DRACO. He goes over to stand next to HARRY. CRABBE wanders over to
try and show him the new drawing. DRACO glares at him, and he backs off]
DEAN: [thoughtfully] 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:
[Enter GINNY and HERMIONE. GINNY has discovered a filmy pink scarf
somewhere and is wearing it so that it flutters behind her dramatically]
If she be false, O, then heaven mocks itself!
I'll not believe't.
GINNY: How now, my dear Othello!
Your dinner, and the generous islanders
By you invited, do attend your presence.
DEAN: [whispering] I am to blame.
GINNY: Why do you speak so faintly?
Are you not well?
DEAN: [touches his head] I have a pain upon my forehead here.
GINNY: 'Faith, that's with watching; 'twill away again:
Let me but bind it hard, within this hour
It will be well.
SEAMUS: Riiiight. Bandages do SO much for headaches, don't they?
[GINNY removes the scarf and attempts to tie it around DEAN's head
Rambo-style]
DEAN: [takes the scarf from GINNY and drops it on the ground]
Your napkin is too little:
Let it alone. Come, I'll go in with you.
GINNY: [contrite] I am very sorry you are not well.
HERMIONE: [picks up the scarf and holds it arm's length]
I am glad I have found this napkin:
This was her first remembrance from the Moor:
My wayward husband hath a hundred times
Woo'd me to steal it; but she so loves the token,
For he conjured her she should ever keep it,
That she reserves it evermore about her
To kiss and talk to. I'll have the work ta'en out,
And give't Iago: what he will do with it
Heaven knows, not I;
I nothing but to please his fantasy.
[Reenter DRACO]
DRACO: [suspicious] How now! what do you here alone?
HERMIONE: [snappishly] Do not you chide; I have a thing for you.
DRACO: A thing for me? It is a common thing-
HERMIONE: Ha!
DRACO: [smiling] To have a foolish wife.
HERMIONE: [teasing] O, is that all? What will you give me now
For the same handkerchief?
DRACO: [puzzled] What handkerchief?
HERMIONE: What handkerchief?
Why, that the Moor first gave to Desdemona;
That which so often you did bid me steal.
DRACO: Hast stol'n it from her?
HERMIONE: No, 'faith; she let it drop by negligence.
And, to the advantage, I, being here, took't up.
Look, here it is.
[HERMIONE produces the scarf and dangles it in front of DRACO playfully]
DRACO: [impressed] A good wench; give it me.
HERMIONE: What will you do with 't, that you have been so earnest
To have me filch it?
DRACO: [snatching it] Why, what's that to you?
HERMIONE: If it be not for some purpose of import,
Give't me again: poor lady, she'll run mad
When she shall lack it.
SEAMUS: [offstage. DEAN has ungagged him.] News flash! That's just what
he wants!
DRACO: Be not acknown on 't; I have use for it.
Go, leave me.
[Exit HERMIONE]
I will in Cassio's lodging lose this napkin,
And let him find it. Trifles light as air
Are to the jealous confirmations strong
As proofs of holy writ: this may do something.
The Moor already changes with my poison:
Dangerous conceits are, in their natures, poisons.
Which at the first are scarce found to distaste,
But with a little act upon the blood.
Burn like the mines of Sulphur. I did say so:
Look, where he comes!
[Reenter DEAN, shoving what was until lately SEAMUS's gag into the pocket of
his robes]
DRACO: [to himself] Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owedst yesterday.
DEAN: Ha! ha! false to me?
DRACO: [startled] Why, how now, general! no more of that.
DEAN: Avaunt! be gone! thou hast set me on the rack:
I swear 'tis better to be much abused
Than but to know't a little.
SEAMUS: [offstage] And that's the honest truth.
DRACO: How now, my lord!
DEAN: What sense had I of her stol'n hours of lust?
I saw't not, thought it not, it harm'd not me:
I slept the next night well, was free and merry;
I found not Cassio's kisses on her lips:
He that is robb'd, not wanting what is stol'n,
Let him not know't, and he's not robb'd at all.
DRACO: I am sorry to hear this.
DEAN: I had been happy, if the general camp,
Pioners and all, had tasted her sweet body,
So I had nothing known. O, now, for ever
Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!
Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars,
That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!
Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war!
And, O you mortal engines, whose rude throats
The immortal Jove's dead clamours counterfeit,
Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!
SEAMUS: Whoa! Overreact much?
DRACO: Is't possible, my lord?
DEAN: Villain, be sure thou prove my love a whore,
Be sure of it; give me the ocular proof:
Or by the worth of man's eternal soul,
Thou hadst been better have been born a dog
Than answer my waked wrath!
DRACO: [sadly] Is't come to this?
DEAN: Make me to see't; or, at the least, so prove it,
That the probation bear no hinge nor loop
To hang a doubt on; or woe upon thy life!
DRACO: My noble lord,-
DEAN: [angrily] If thou dost slander her and torture me,
Never pray more; abandon all remorse;
On horror's head horrors accumulate;
Do deeds to make heaven weep, all earth amazed;
For nothing canst thou to damnation add
Greater than that.
SEAMUS: Yeah, Iago colors outside the lines, all right.
DRACO: [backing away, hands up defensively]
O grace! O heaven forgive me!
Are you a man? have you a soul or sense?
God be wi' you; take mine office. O wretched fool.
That livest to make thine honesty a vice!
O monstrous world! Take note, take note, O world,
To be direct and honest is not safe.
I thank you for this profit; and from hence
I'll love no friend, since love breeds such offence.
DEAN: Nay, stay: thou shouldst be honest.
DRACO: [Shakes his head] I should be wise, for honesty's a fool
And loses that it works for.
HARRY: [offstage] Does it really?
DEAN: By the world,
I think my wife be honest and think she is not;
I think that thou art just and think thou art not.
I'll have some proof. Her name, that was as fresh
As Dian's visage, is now begrimed and black
As mine own face. If there be cords, or knives,
Poison, or fire, or suffocating streams,
I'll not endure it. Would I were satisfied!
DRACO: [regretfully] I see, sir, you are eaten up with passion:
I do repent me that I put it to you.
You would be satisfied?
DEAN: Would! nay, I will.
DRACO: [slowly] And may: but, how? how satisfied, my lord?
Would you, the supervisor, grossly gape on--
Behold her topp'd?
DEAN: Death and damnation! O!
RON: [nastily] Oops. He'll go for you throat now, Iago. Talk your way out
of that one!
DRACO: It were a tedious difficulty, I think,
To bring them to that prospect: damn them then,
If ever mortal eyes do see them bolster
More than their own! What then? how then?
What shall I say? Where's satisfaction?
It is impossible you should see this,
Were they as prime as goats, as hot as monkeys,
As salt as wolves in pride, and fools as gross
As ignorance made drunk. But yet, I say,
If imputation and strong circumstances,
Which lead directly to the door of truth,
Will give you satisfaction, you may have't.
HARRY: [offstage, amused] Like that, Ron?
DEAN: Give me a living reason she's disloyal.
[HARRY thumbs through his script to find out where they are, then blushes
bright red]
RON: What? What's up?
DRACO: I do not like the office:
But, sith I am enter'd in this cause so far,
Prick'd to't by foolish honesty and love,
I will go on.
[He takes a deep breath, and fights back a smile before continuing. HARRY
gets redder.]
DRACO: I lay with Cassio lately;
And, being troubled with a raging tooth,
I could not sleep.
There are a kind of men so loose of soul,
That in their sleeps will mutter their affairs:
One of this kind is Cassio:
In sleep I heard him say 'Sweet Desdemona,
Let us be wary, let us hide our loves;'
And then, sir, would he gripe and wring my hand,
Cry 'O sweet creature!' and then kiss me hard,
As if he pluck'd up kisses by the roots
That grew upon my lips: then laid his leg
Over my thigh, and sigh'd, and kiss'd; and then
Cried 'Cursed fate that gave thee to the Moor!'
DEAN: O monstrous! monstrous!
SEAMUS: I second!
RON: DAMN STRAIGHT!
HARRY: [weakly] Why does the floor never open up and swallow you when you
want it to?
RON: If he wasn't onstage I'd...
GINNY: [marveling, ignoring the boys] Wow, he said it without hitching at
*all*....
HERMIONE: [dryly] I think we all noticed that.
DRACO: Nay, this was but his dream.
RON: You're not getting out of this one, Malfoy...
[HARRY smacks him upside the head]
HARRY: It's a *play*, Ron. We're *acting*.
RON: [muttering] Why're you blushing then?
HARRY: I'm not.
RON: You are.
LOCKHART: Do I have to separate you two?
HERMIONE: They're doing rather well on their own, I think.
DEAN: But this denoted a foregone conclusion:
'Tis a shrewd doubt, though it be but a dream.
DRACO: And this may help to thicken other proofs
That do demonstrate thinly.
DEAN: [darkly] I'll tear her all to pieces.
SEAMUS: Awww, how sweet. This is the stuff picture books are made of.
DRACO: Nay, but be wise: yet we see nothing done;
She may be honest yet. Tell me but this,
Have you not sometimes seen a handkerchief
Spotted with strawberries in your wife's hand?
DEAN: I gave her such a one; 'twas my first gift.
GINNY: So that's what he wanted with the scarf...
DRACO: I know not that; but such a handkerchief--
I am sure it was your wife's--did I to-day
See Cassio wipe his beard with.
COLIN: Hrghr biruh!
HERMIONE: [removing gag] What?
COLIN: Harry doesn't *have* a beard...
HERMIONE: You are hopeless. [replaces gag]
DEAN: If it be that...
DRACO: [quickly] If it be that... or any that was hers...
It speaks against her with the other proofs.
RON: What proofs?
DEAN: O, that the slave had forty thousand lives!
One is too poor, too weak for my revenge.
Now do I see 'tis true. Look here, Iago;
All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven.
'Tis gone.
Arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow cell!
Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearted throne
To tyrannous hate! Swell, bosom, with thy fraught,
For 'tis of aspics' tongues!
DRACO: Yet be content....
SEAMUS: Because *he* certainly is....
DEAN: O, blood, blood, blood!
NEVILLE: [offstage] Where?! [faints]
DRACO: Patience, I say; your mind perhaps may change.
DEAN: Never, Iago: Like to the Pontic sea,
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on
To the Propontic and the Hellespont,
Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,
Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love,
Till that a capable and wide revenge
Swallow them up. Now, by yond marble heaven,
[he kneels]
In the due reverence of a sacred vow
I here engage my words.
RON: It's easy to play with this guy Othello's head, isn't it?
DRACO: Do not rise yet.
SEAMUS: I knew it! I knew it! Should we be watching this, Prof... Mr.
Lockhart?
LOCKHART: You have a dirty mind, Mr. Finnegan. In other plays I'd encourage
it, but not in this one. Shut up.
[DRACO kneels next to DEAN]
DRACO: Witness, you ever-burning lights above,
You elements that clip us round about,
Witness that here Iago doth give up
The execution of his wit, hands, heart,
To wrong'd Othello's service! Let him command,
And to obey shall be in me remorse,
What bloody business ever.
[Both boys rise to their feet]
DEAN: I greet thy love,
Not with vain thanks, but with acceptance bounteous,
And will upon the instant put thee to't:
Within these three days let me hear thee say
That Cassio's not alive.
RON: [offstage, confused] 'If you love me, you'll kill him?' Is that what
he just said?
HARRY: Something like that.
DRACO: [bowing his head] My friend is dead; 'tis done at your request:
But let her live.
DEAN: Damn her, lewd minx! O, damn her!
Come, go with me apart; I will withdraw,
To furnish me with some swift means of death
For the fair devil. Now art thou my lieutenant.
DRACO: I am your own for ever.
RON: [disbelieving] He got promoted? He convinces the guy to kill his wife
and second-in-command and he gets *promoted* for it?
DRACO: What can I say, Weasley? People recognize talent.
RON: [muttering] This is *messed up*.
End scene iii
The Play's the Thing: Act III scene iv
[Enter GINNY, HERMIONE, and GOYLE, still wearing the stupid hat]
GINNY: [to GOYLE] Do you know, sirrah, where Lieutenant Cassio lies?
GOYLE: I dare not say he... lies any... where.
GINNY: Why, man?
GOYLE: He's a... sold-ier.... and for one to say a... sold-ier lies,
is... stabbing.
CRABBE: [offstage, to DRACO] Cassio's Potter, right?
DRACO: [shortly] Yes.
CRABBE: So why's Greg afraid of him?
DRACO: [in no mood to explain drama to one-half of the Thicky Twins] Because
he's a homicidal maniac.
GINNY: [ignoring the offstage conversation] Go to: where lodges he?
CRABBE: My mum told me to stand up to homicidal maniacs.
DRACO: Yes, well, this would be the mum that declared with total conviction
that you were a brilliant and handsome stallion of a man. I think her opinions
are somewhat suspect.
CRABBE: [grinning] I love my mum.
DRACO: And I love chocolate, but I don't ask its advice, do I?
GOYLE: To tell you where he... lodges, is to tell you... where I lie.
HARRY: [offstage] Is it my imagination, or is he getting better?
GINNY: Can any thing be made of this?
GOYLE: I know not... where he... lodges, and for me to... devise a...
lodging and say he... lies here or he lies... there, were
to lie in... mine own throat.
GINNY: Can you inquire him out, and be edified by report?
GOYLE: I will... cat-a-ch-eyes... the world for him... that is make...
questions, and by them... ants were.
GINNY: Seek him, bid him come hither: tell him I have
moved my lord on his behalf, and hope all will be well.
GOYLE: To do this is... within the... compass of man's... wit and...
there-fore... I will attempt the... doing it.
[GOYLE wanders offstage]
GINNY: Where should I lose that handkerchief, Emilia?
SEAMUS: You didn't lose it, remember? You dropped it when you tried to
bandage a headache, you...
HERMIONE: I know not, madam.
DEAN: Liar! She's a liar!
GINNY: Believe me, I had rather have lost my purse
Full of crusadoes: and, but my noble Moor
Is true of mind and made of no such baseness
As jealous creatures are, it were enough
To put him to ill thinking.
HERMIONE: Is he not jealous?
SEAMUS: Well, let's just consider that question....
GINNY: Who, he? I think the sun where he was born
Drew all such humours from him.
SEAMUS: Nice answer... but you're WRONG!
HERMIONE: Look, where he comes.
[Enter DEAN. His script is now sporting a bunny and something that could be
a teddy bear]
GINNY: [undertone, to HERMIONE] I will not leave him now till Cassio
Be call'd to him.
[louder, to DEAN]
How is't with you, my lord?
DEAN: Well, my good lady.
[Aside]
O, hardness to dissemble!--
How do you, Desdemona?
SEAMUS: ...Just to prove my mind isn't always in the gutter, I'm not gonna
say anything about that.
GINNY: Well, my good lord.
DEAN: Give me your hand: this hand is moist, my lady.
SEAMUS: [sarcastically] Ooh, the telling blow! She washed her hands! She
*never* did that in Venice...
GINNY: It yet hath felt no age nor known no sorrow.
DRACO: Well, not yet, anyway.
DEAN: This argues fruitfulness and liberal heart:
Hot, hot, and moist: this hand of yours requires
A sequester from liberty, fasting and prayer,
Much castigation, exercise devout;
For here's a young and sweating devil here,
That commonly rebels. 'Tis a good hand,
A frank one.
SEAMUS: Wow, you got all that from her hand?
GINNY: You may, indeed, say so;
For 'twas that hand that gave away my heart.
DEAN: A liberal hand: the hearts of old gave hands;
But our new heraldry is hands, not hearts.
SEAMUS: Are they even talking about the same thing?
CRABBE: [who has SEAMUS's script] ...Can't draw puppies....
GINNY: I cannot speak of this. Come now, your promise.
DEAN: What promise, chuck?
DRACO: Now *there's* a nickname to set a girl's heart aflutter...
HARRY: It's better than some, isn't it?
GINNY: I have sent to bid Cassio come speak with you.
DEAN: I have a salt and sorry rheum offends me;
Lend me thy handkerchief.
SEAMUS: Smooooth, Dean. Now sneeze on her.
GINNY: Here, my lord. [She mimes handing him a handkerchief]
DEAN: That which I gave you.
HARRY: Yeah, he wants the scarf.
DRACO: [snickering] Well, sometimes soldiers just want to feel pretty.
GINNY: I have it not about me.
DEAN: Not?
GINNY: No, indeed, my lord.
DEAN: That is a fault.
That handkerchief
Did an Egyptian to my mother give;
She was a charmer, and could almost read
The thoughts of people: she told her, while
she kept it,
'Twould make her amiable and subdue my father
Entirely to her love, but if she lost it
Or made gift of it, my father's eye
Should hold her loathed and his spirits should hunt
After new fancies: she, dying, gave it me;
And bid me, when my fate would have me wive,
To give it her. I did so: and take heed on't;
Make it a darling like your precious eye;
To lose't or give't away were such perdition
As nothing else could match.
DRACO: [reading ahead. He raises one eyebrow, impressed] You're not wrong.
GINNY: Indeed! is't true?
DEAN: Most veritable; therefore look to't well.
GINNY: Then would to God I had never seen't!
DEAN: Ha! wherefore?
GINNY: Why do you speak so startingly and rash?
DEAN: Is't lost? is't gone? speak, is it out o'the way?
GINNY: Heaven bless us!
DEAN: Say you?
SEAMUS: You!
GINNY: It is not lost, but what an if it were?
SEAMUS: Wrong answer!
DEAN: How!
SEAMUS: How!
GINNY: I say, it is not lost.
DEAN: Fetch't, let me see't.
GINNY: Why, so I can, sir, but I will not now.
This is a trick to put me from my suit:
Pray you, let Cassio be received again.
DEAN: Fetch me the handkerchief, my mind misgives.
GINNY: Come, come;
You'll never meet a more sufficient man.
HARRY: [offstage] Now I *know* they're not talking about the same thing.
DEAN: The handkerchief!
GINNY: I pray, talk me of Cassio.
DEAN: The handkerchief!
GINNY: A man that all his time
Hath founded his good fortunes on your love,
Shared dangers with you,--
DEAN: The handkerchief!
SEAMUS: The handkerchief!
HARRY: Echo!
GINNY: In sooth, you are to blame.
DEAN: Away!
SEAMUS: The handkerchief!
[DEAN stomps offstage]
HERMIONE: Is not this man jealous?
GINNY: I ne'er saw this before.
Sure, there's some wonder in this handkerchief:
I am most unhappy in the loss of it.
HERMIONE: [consolingly] 'Tis not a year or two shows us a man:
They are all but stomachs, and we all but food;
To eat us hungerly, and when they are full,
They belch us. Look you, Cassio and my husband!
[Enter DRACO and HARRY, walking together]
DRACO: There is no other way; 'tis she must do't:
And, lo, the happiness! go, and importune her.
GINNY: How now, good Cassio! what's the news with you?
HARRY: [bowing] Madam, my former suit: I do beseech you
That by your virtuous means I may again
Exist, and be a member of his love
Whom I with all the office of my heart
Entirely honour: I would not be delay'd.
If my offence be of such mortal kind
That nor my service past, nor present sorrows,
Nor purposed merit in futurity,
Can ransom me into his love again,
But to know so must be my benefit;
So shall I clothe me in a forced content,
And shut myself up in some other course,
To fortune's alms.
SEAMUS: I prefer cotton, myself....
GINNY: Alas, thrice-gentle Cassio!
My advocation is not now in tune;
My lord is not my lord; nor should I know him,
Were he in favour as in humour alter'd.
So help me every spirit sanctified,
As I have spoken for you all my best
And stood within the blank of his displeasure
For my free speech! you must awhile be patient:
What I can do I will; and more I will
Than for myself I dare: let that suffice you.
DRACO: Is my lord angry?
SEAMUS: Sure, act like you don't know. Can't anyone else see thorugh this
guy?
HERMIONE: He went hence but now,
And certainly in strange unquietness.
CRABBE: [offstage] Here. It doesn't look much like a puppy.
NEVILLE: [hesitantly] Ummm... thanks....
DRACO: Can he be angry? I have seen the cannon,
When it hath blown his ranks into the air,
And, like the devil, from his very arm
Puff'd his own brother:--and can he be angry?
Something of moment then: I will go meet him:
There's matter in't indeed, if he be angry.
GINNY: [gratefully] I prithee, do so.
SEAMUS: Oh sure. Give him an inch and he'll hang you with it.
[Exit DRACO]
GINNY: Something, sure, of state,
Either from Venice, or some unhatch'd practise
Made demonstrable here in Cyprus to him,
Hath puddled his clear spirit: and in such cases
Men's natures wrangle with inferior things,
Though great ones are their object. 'Tis even so;
For let our finger ache, and it indues
Our other healthful members even to that sense
Of pain: nay, we must think men are not gods,
Nor of them look for such observances
As fit the bridal. Beshrew me much, Emilia,
I was, unhandsome warrior as I am,
Arraigning his unkindness with my soul;
But now I find I had suborn'd the witness,
And he's indicted falsely.
SEAMUS: Nice thought... but you're WRONG!
HERMIONE: Pray heaven it be state-matters, as you think,
And no conception nor no jealous toy
Concerning you.
GINNY: Alas the day! I never gave him cause.
DEAN: That's what *you* think.
HERMIONE: But jealous souls will not be answer'd so;
They are not ever jealous for the cause,
But jealous for they are jealous: 'tis a monster
Begot upon itself, born on itself.
GINNY: Heaven keep that monster from Othello's mind!
HARRY: [muttering] Too late.
HERMIONE: [kicks HARRY in the shins, discreetly] Lady, amen.
GINNY: I will go seek him. Cassio, walk hereabout:
If I do find him fit, I'll move your suit
And seek to effect it to my uttermost.
HARRY: [bows] I humbly thank your ladyship..
[GINNY sweeps dramatically offstage, followed by HERMIONE. Enter PANSY]
PANSY: [in an irritating simpering half-whine] Save you, friend Cassio!
HARRY: [wincing] What make you from home?
How is it with you, my most fair Bianca?
I' faith, sweet love, I was coming to your house.
RON: Now *that* is acting.
PANSY: [still in the irritating simpering half-whine]
And I was going to your lodging, Cassio.
What, keep a week away? seven days and nights?
Eight score eight hours? and lovers' absent hours,
More tedious than the dial eight score times?
O weary reckoning!
HARRY: Pardon me, Bianca:
I have this while with leaden thoughts been press'd:
But I shall, in a more continuate time,
Strike off this score of absence. Sweet Bianca,
[hands her teh filmy pink scarf]
Take me this work out.
PANSY: [whining irritatingly and simpering] O Cassio, whence came this?
This is some token from a newer friend:
To the felt absence now I feel a cause:
Is't come to this? Well, well.
SEAMUS: That's... not her *normal* voice, is it?
DRACO: ...I'm afraid it is.
HARRY: Go to, woman!
Throw your vile guesses in the devil's teeth,
From whence you have them. You are jealous now
That this is from some mistress, some remembrance:
No, in good troth, Bianca.
PANSY: Why, whose is it?
HARRY: I know not, sweet: I found it in my chamber.
I like the work well: ere it be demanded--
As like enough it will--I'ld have it copied:
Take it, and do't; and leave me for this time.
PANSY: Leave you! wherefore?
HARRY: I do attend here on the general;
And think it no addition, nor my wish,
To have him see me woman'd.
PANSY: Why, I pray you?
SEAMUS: He can't take your *voice* any more, Pansy! Do you need a sign or
something?
HARRY: Not that I love you not.
DRACO: Even though that's the case...
PANSY: But that you do not love me.
I pray you, bring me on the way a little,
And say if I shall see you soon at night.
HARRY: 'Tis but a little way that I can bring you;
For I attend here: but I'll see you soon.
PANSY: 'Tis very good; I must be circumstanced.
[Exit HARRY and PANSY. PANSY keeps the scarf in her hands, but as she passes
by, DRACO takes it away. She doesn't notice. DRACO hands the scarf to HARRY]
DRACO: Here. She'd only lose it.
HARRY: Thanks... [tosses it around his neck playfully] There. What do you
think?
DRACO: Pink isn't your color.
RON: I'm going to be sick....
End Act III
LOCKHART: Do I have to tell you where you're supposed to be, or has everyone
read their script?
[sullen muttering]
LOCKHART: Wonderful. We're nearly halfway through now.
[Enter HARRY, followed by COLIN, gagged, and NEVILLE, who has found a teddy
bear somewhere and is cuddling it.]
HARRY: Masters, play here; I will content your pains;
Something that's brief; and bid 'Good morrow, general.'
COLIN: Mrfgo? Sntlngtm!
[Enter GOYLE, shoved onstage by CRABBE at DRACO's direction and wearing a
stupid hat.]
GOYLE: Why... masters, have your... in-stroo-ments been in... Nipples?
that they... speak in the nose thus? [Blinks] Hey Draco, what does
that mean?
DRACO: Never mind. It's not important.
NEVILLE: [hugging teddy bear tighter] Howsirhow?
GOYLE: Are these... I pray you... wind in-stroo-ments?
NEVILLE: Aymarryaretheysir?
COLIN: Hurghk!
GOYLE: O... theer-bee... hangs a... tail.
COLIN: Tayghk?! Nu?
NEVILLE: Wherebyhangsatalesir?
GOYLE: Marry. sir, by many a... wind in-stroo-ment that I know...
But, masters, here's... moan-ee for you... and the... jen-urr-al
so likes... your moo-sik... that he... dez-ires you, for... love's
sake... to make no... more... noise with it.
LOCKHART: Oh God... someone make him stop....
HERMIONE: He *is* trying, sir...
GOYLE: [to them] 'Snot my fault. These words're all funny.
NEVILLE: Wellsirwewillnot?
GOYLE: If you have... any... music that may not be... heard... to't
again but... as they say to hear... music... the jen-urr-al
does not... greet-ly care.
NEVILLE: [panicked] Wehavenonesuchsir?
GOYLE: Then put... up your pipes... in your bag... for I'll away...
go... van-ish... into air... away!
[NEVILLE runs offstage, pulling COLIN along with him]
COLIN: Mrg! Mrg!
HARRY: Dost thou hear, my honest friend?
GOYLE: No... I hear not your... honn-est... friend, I hear you.
[Quickly smothered laughter from DRACO offstage]
DRACO: Only when there's a script....
HARRY: [glares at him] Prithee, keep up thy quillets. There's a poor
piece of gold for thee: if the gentlewoman that attends the general's
wife be stirring, tell her there's one Cassio entreats her a little
favour of speech: wilt thou do this?
GOYLE: She is... stir-ring... sir: if she will stir... hither? I
shall... seem to... not-iff-ee un-toh... her.
HARRY: [hiding smile] Do, good my friend.
[Exit GOYLE. Enter DRACO]
HARRY: In happy time, Iago. [in an undertone] How do you put up with them?
DRACO: [undertone] Practice. [louder] You have not been a-bed, then?
HARRY: Why, no; the day had broke
Before we parted. I have made bold, Iago,
To send in to your wife: my suit to her
Is, that she will to virtuous Desdemona
Procure me some access.
DRACO: I'll send her to you presently;
And I'll devise a mean to draw the Moor
Out of the way, that your converse and business
May be more free.
HARRY: I humbly thank you for't.
[Exit DRACO. HARRY watches him go]
HARRY: [thoughtfully] I never knew
A Florentine more kind and honest.
[Enter HERMIONE, who curtsies. RON, offstage, gapes]
RON: [in sick tones, to LOCKHART] Wait, don't tell me. Let me guess.
Acting?
LOCKHART: I assumed so.
HERMIONE: Good morrow, good Lieutenant: I am sorry
For your displeasure; but all will sure be well.
The general and his wife are talking of it;
And she speaks for you stoutly: the Moor replies,
That he you hurt is of great fame in Cyprus,
And great affinity, and that in wholesome wisdom
He might not but refuse you; but he protests he loves you
And needs no other suitor but his likings
To take the safest occasion by the front
To bring you in again.
HARRY: Yet, I beseech you,
If you think fit, or that it may be done,
Give me advantage of some brief discourse
With Desdemona alone.
RON: Does *everyone* in this play want Desdemona? Ginny...?
GINNY: [giggling nervously] It's just a play, Ron.
HERMIONE: Pray you, come in;
I will bestow you where you shall have time
To speak your bosom freely.
HARRY: I am much bound to you.
SEAMUS: [blinks] Kinky... this Shakespeare guy had social problems, didn't
he?
[A snapping sound calls his attention to the Luggage, which has snuck up
behind him. SEAMUS gulps]
LOCKHART: You were saying, Mr. Finnegan?
SEAMUS: Oh... nothing, really... nothing....
End scene i
The Play's the Thing: Act III scene ii
[Enter DEAN, DRACO, and NEVILLE without teddy bear]
DEAN: These letters give, Iago, to the pilot;
And by him do my duties to the senate:
That done, I will be walking on the works;
Repair there to me.
DRACO: Well, my good lord, I'll do't.
DEAN: This fortification, gentlemen, shall we see't?
NEVILLE: W...w...w..we'llwaituponyourlordship!
[NEVILLE faints]
[beat]
DRACO: [points at NEVILLE] Does he have to keep doing that? He's ruining
my concentration!
RON: [saccharine] Oh, poor baby. [muttering] Prima donna.
[HARRY smacks RON in the back of the head]
RON: OW! Hey, what was that for?
HARRY: [innocently] Practicing for next rehearsal.
End scene ii
The Play's the Thing: Act III scene iii
[Enter GINNY, HARRY, and HERMIONE. GINNY is overacting noble, and HERMIONE is staring at the ground]
GINNY: Be thou assured, good Cassio, I will do
All my abilities in thy behalf.
HERMIONE: Good madam, do: I warrant it grieves my husband,
As if the case were his.
RON: [offstage, muttering] Yeah, I'll *bet* it does.
DRACO: And what do you mean by that, Weasley?
[RON refuses to answer]
GINNY: O, that's an honest fellow. Do not doubt, Cassio,
But I will have my lord and you again
As friendly as you were.
HARRY: Bounteous madam,
Whatever shall become of Michael Cassio,
He's never any thing but your true servant.
SEAMUS: Can she have that in writing, Harry?
DEAN: Knock it off, Seamus. Ginny's not like that.
SEAMUS: Dean and Ginny, sitting in a tree...
DEAN: [glancing at RON and blushing] Shut up!
GINNY: I know't; I thank you. You do love my lord:
You have known him long; and be you well assured
He shall in strangeness stand no further off
Than in a polite distance.
SEAMUS: Everybody loves everybody! What is this, an orgy?
LOCKHART: Mr. Finnegan, we'll have to gag you presently if you don't keep
your mouth shut.
SEAMUS: Yeah, you and what... oh yeah. [laughs nervously] I remember.
Forget I said anything.
HARRY: Ay, but, lady,
That policy may either last so long,
Or feed upon such nice and waterish diet,
Or breed itself so out of circumstance,
That, I being absent and my place supplied,
My general will forget my love and service.
RON: [under his breath] Did you hit him, too?
LOCKHART: Mr. Weasley, the same goes for you as it does for Mr. Finnegan.
COLIN: Mfghfth!
GINNY: Do not doubt that; before Emilia here
I give thee warrant of thy place: assure thee,
If I do vow a friendship, I'll perform it
To the last article: my lord shall never rest;
I'll watch him tame and talk him out of patience;
His bed shall seem a school, his board a shrift;
I'll intermingle every thing he does
With Cassio's suit: therefore be merry, Cassio;
For thy solicitor shall rather die
Than give thy cause away.
HERMIONE: Madam, here comes my lord.
HARRY: [uncomfortably] Madam, I'll take my leave.
GINNY: Why, stay, and hear me speak.
HARRY: Madam, not now: I am very ill at ease,
Unfit for mine own purposes.
GINNY: [overly doubtful] Well, do your discretion.
[HARRY beats a quick retreat offstage as DEAN and DRACO enter]
DRACO: Ha! I like not that.
HARRY: [under his breath] Liar.
DEAN: What dost thou say?
DRACO: Nothing, my lord: or if... [watches HARRY go] I know not what.
DEAN: [suspiciously] Was not that Cassio parted from my wife?
DRACO: [too innocent] Cassio, my lord! No, sure, I cannot think it,
That he would steal away so guilty-like,
Seeing you coming.
DEAN: I do believe 'twas he.
GINNY: How now, my lord!
I have been talking with a suitor here,
A man that languishes in your displeasure.
DEAN: Who is't you mean?
GINNY: Why, your lieutenant, Cassio. Good my lord,
If I have any grace or power to move you,
His present reconciliation take;
For if he be not one that truly loves you,
That errs in ignorance and not in cunning,
I have no judgment in an honest face:
I prithee, call him back.
DEAN: Went he hence now?
GINNY: Ay, sooth; so humbled
That he hath left part of his grief with me,
To suffer with him. Good love, call him back.
DEAN: Not now, sweet Desdemona; some other time.
GINNY: But shall't be shortly?
DEAN: The sooner, sweet, for you.
GINNY: Shall't be to-night at supper?
DEAN: [annoyed] No, not to-night.
GINNY: To-morrow dinner, then?
SEAMUS: [offstage] God, she never *stops*, does she? Dean, you're *dating*
her?
[DEAN goes red and makes discreet shushing gestures]
RON: WHAT?!
DEAN: [quickly] I shall not dine at home;
I meet the captains at the citadel.
GINNY: Why, then, to-morrow night; or Tuesday morn;
On Tuesday noon, or night; on Wednesday morn:
I prithee, name the time, but let it not
Exceed three days: in faith, he's penitent;
And yet his trespass, in our common reason--
Save that, they say, the wars must make examples
Out of their best--is not almost a fault
To incur a private cheque. When shall he come?
Tell me, Othello: I wonder in my soul,
What you would ask me, that I should deny,
Or stand so mammering on. What! Michael Cassio,
That came a-wooing with you, and so many a time,
When I have spoke of you dispraisingly,
Hath ta'en your part; to have so much to do
To bring him in! Trust me, I could do much,--
DEAN: Prithee, no more: let him come when he will;
I will deny thee nothing.
GINNY: Why, this is not a boon;
'Tis as I should entreat you wear your gloves,
Or feed on nourishing dishes, or keep you warm,
Or sue to you to do a peculiar profit
To your own person: nay, when I have a suit
Wherein I mean to touch your love indeed,
It shall be full of poise and difficult weight
And fearful to be granted.
RON: Suure. The guy gets drunk, beats up his best friend and another
friend, and it's not a favor to take him back?
HARRY: That's theatre, Ron. Calm down already.
DEAN: I will deny thee nothing:
Whereon, I do beseech thee, grant me this,
To leave me but a little to myself.
GINNY: Shall I deny you? no: farewell, my lord.
DEAN: Farewell, my Desdemona: I'll come to thee straight.
GINNY: [smiles] Emilia, come. Be as your fancies teach you;
Whate'er you be, I am obedient.
[Exit GINNY and HERMIONE]
DEAN: Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul,
But I do love thee! and when I love thee not,
Chaos is come again.
SEAMUS: [offstage to GINNY, smugly] Boy, he blows hot and cold, doesn't he?
HARRY: [offstage, to RON] I get the feeling I'm missing something here...
RON: Don't look at me!
DRACO: My noble lord--
DEAN: What dost thou say, Iago?
DRACO: [slowly] Did Michael Cassio, when you woo'd my lady,
Know of your love?
DEAN: He did, from first to last: why dost thou ask?
DRACO: [waves dismissively] But for a satisfaction of my thought;
No further harm.
DEAN: Why of thy thought, Iago?
DRACO: I...did not think he had been acquainted with her.
DEAN: O, yes; and went between us very oft.
DRACO: Indeed!
RON: [offstage, needling] Why? Jealous?
[HARRY smacks RON upside the head]
RON: Hey! What was that f-
[HARRY stares back, sphinx-like]
RON: Let me guess. Practicing for next rehearsal?
LOCKHART: I like to see that kind of dedication to a role.
RON: [muttering to himself] Dedication, nothing....
DEAN: Indeed! ay, indeed: discern'st thou aught in that?
Is he not honest?
DRACO: [blinks] ...Honest, my lord?
DEAN: Honest! ay, honest.
DRACO: My lord, for aught I know.
DEAN: What dost thou think?
DRACO: ...Think, my lord?
SEAMUS: [sarcastically] Way to dodge the question, Malfoy! It's not obvious
at all what you're up to!
RON: [to HARRY] How come you don't hit him?
HARRY: [aloof] I wasn't hitting you for fun, Ron, I was just practicing.
DEAN: Think, my lord!
By heaven, he echoes me,
As if there were some monster in his thought
Too hideous to be shown. Thou dost mean something:
I heard thee say even now, thou likedst not that,
When Cassio left my wife: what didst not like?
And when I told thee he was of my counsel
In my whole course of wooing, thou criedst 'Indeed!'
And didst contract and purse thy brow together,
As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain
Some horrible conceit: if thou dost love me,
Show me thy thought.
DRACO: My lord, you know I love you.
SEAMUS: There it is again! Any minute now, McGonagall's gonna burst in and
give us all detention for performing a lewd play!
LOCKHART: [mildly] *Professor* McGonagall to you, Mr. Finnegan.
DEAN: I think thou dost;
And, for I know thou'rt full of love and honesty,
And weigh'st thy words before thou givest them breath,
Therefore these stops of thine fright me the more:
For such things in a false disloyal knave
Are tricks of custom, but in a man that's just
They are close delations, working from the heart
That passion cannot rule.
DRACO: For Michael Cassio,
I dare be sworn I think that he is honest.
DEAN: I think so too.
DRACO: [wistfully] Men should be what they seem;
Or those that be not, would they might seem none!
DEAN: Certain, men should be what they seem.
DRACO: [Triumphantly] Why, then, I think Cassio's an honest man.
DEAN: Nay, yet there's more in this:
I prithee, speak to me as to thy thinkings,
As thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughts
The worst of words.
RON: [offstage] Like that's really hard for him. Come on!
[RON dodges a nonexistent effort to smack him upside the head, then looks
confused. HARRY is busy watching the scene]
DRACO: [bows head to hide slight smile] Good my lord, pardon me:
Though I am bound to every act of duty,
I am not bound to that all slaves are free to.
Utter my thoughts? Why, say they are vile and false;
As where's that palace whereinto foul things
Sometimes intrude not? who has a breast so pure,
But some uncleanly apprehensions
Keep leets and law-days and in session sit
With meditations lawful?
DEAN: Thou dost conspire against thy friend, Iago,
If thou but think'st him wrong'd and makest his ear
A stranger to thy thoughts.
DRACO: I do beseech you--
Though I perchance am... vicious in my guess,
As, I confess, it is my nature's plague
To spy into abuses, and oft my jealousy
Shapes faults that are not--that your wisdom yet,
From one that so imperfectly conceits,
Would take no notice, nor build yourself a trouble
Out of his scattering and unsure observance.
It were not for your quiet nor your good,
Nor for my manhood, honesty, or wisdom,
To let you know my thoughts.
DEAN: What dost thou mean?
HARRY: [offstage] Yes, what?
DRACO: Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls:
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands:
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.
RON: [offstage, to HERMIONE] Hang on... a few scenes back, didn't he tell
Cassio that reputation and good name weren't worth anything?
HERMIONE: Of course he did! He's the *villain*!
DEAN: By heaven, I'll know thy thoughts!
DRACO: [shakes his head] You cannot, if my heart were in your hand;
Nor shall not, whilst 'tis in my custody.
DEAN: Ha!
DRACO: O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on; that cuckold lives in bliss
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger;
But, O, what damned minutes tells he o'er
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!
DEAN: O misery!
DRACO: [piously] Poor and content is rich and rich enough,
But riches fineless is as poor as winter
To him that ever fears he shall be poor.
Good heaven, the souls of all my tribe defend
From jealousy!
DEAN: Why, why is this?
Think'st thou I'ld make a lie of jealousy,
To follow still the changes of the moon
With fresh suspicions? No; to be once in doubt
Is once to be resolved: exchange me for a goat,
When I shall turn the business of my soul
To such exsufflicate and blown surmises,
Matching thy inference. 'Tis not to make me jealous
To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company,
Is free of speech, sings, plays and dances well;
Where virtue is, these are more virtuous:
Nor from mine own weak merits will I draw
The smallest fear or doubt of her revolt;
For she had eyes, and chose me. No, Iago;
I'll see before I doubt; when I doubt, prove;
And on the proof, there is no more but this,--
Away at once with love or jealousy!
SEAMUS: Milk and cookies for everyone!
DRACO: I am glad of it; for now I shall have reason
To show the love and duty that I bear you
With franker spirit: therefore, as I am bound,
Receive it from me. I speak not yet of proof.
Look to your wife; observe her well with Cassio;
Wear your eye thus, not jealous nor secure:
I would not have your free and noble nature,
Out of self-bounty, be abused; look to't:
I know our country disposition well;
In Venice they do let heaven see the pranks
They dare not show their husbands; their best conscience
Is not to leave't undone, but keep't unknown.
DEAN: Dost thou say so?
SEAMUS: No, you're hearing things again.
DRACO: She *did* deceive her father, marrying you;
And when she seem'd to shake and fear your looks,
She loved them most.
DEAN: And so she did.
DRACO: Why, go to then;
She that, so young, could give out such a seeming,
To seal her father's eyes up close as oak-
He thought 'twas witchcraft--but I am much to blame;
I humbly do beseech you of your pardon
For too much loving you.
SEAMUS: [offstage] Uh-huh. Suuure you do.
DEAN: I am bound to thee for ever.
SEAMUS: Again with the bondage!
[There is a brief scuffle, after which HARRY and HERMIONE have managed to gag
SEAMUS]
DRACO: [smirking slightly] I see this hath a little dash'd your spirits.
DEAN: Not a jot, not a jot.
HARRY: [offstage] Liar.
DRACO: I' faith, I fear it has.
I hope you will consider what is spoke
Comes from my love. But I do see you're moved:
I am to pray you not to strain my speech
To grosser issues nor to larger reach
Than to suspicion.
DEAN: No, not much moved:
I do not think but Desdemona's honest.
HERMIONE: [offstage, singsong] Come into my parlor, said the spider to the
fly....
GINNY: [sighing] Isn't he sweet?
HERMIONE: [shrugs] We'll see if you're saying that later, *Desdemona*.
DRACO: Long live she so! and long live you to think so!
DEAN: And yet, how nature erring from itself,--
DRACO: Ay, there's the point: as--to be bold with you--
Not to affect many proposed matches
Of her own clime, complexion, and degree,
Whereto we see in all things nature tends--
Feh! one may smell in such a will most rank,
Foul disproportion thoughts unnatural.
But pardon me; I do not in position
Distinctly speak of her; though I may fear
Her will, recoiling to her better judgment,
May fall to match you with her country forms
And happily repent.
SEAMUS: Huh?
RON: I don't know either.
CRABBE: Look, I drew a bunny.
DEAN: Farewell, farewell:
If more thou dost perceive, let me know more;
Set on thy wife to observe: leave me, Iago...
DRACO: [turning to leave] My lord, I take my leave.
DEAN: Why did I marry? This honest creature doubtless
Sees and knows more, much more, than he unfolds.
SEAMUS: Keep going, you're almost there... you gonna let that snake play you
for a sucker?
DRACO: [turning back] 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.
DEAN: Fear not my government.
HARRY: [offstage, smiling, to SEAMUS] Guess so.
DRACO: I once more take my leave.
[Exit DRACO. He goes over to stand next to HARRY. CRABBE wanders over to
try and show him the new drawing. DRACO glares at him, and he backs off]
DEAN: [thoughtfully] 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:
[Enter GINNY and HERMIONE. GINNY has discovered a filmy pink scarf
somewhere and is wearing it so that it flutters behind her dramatically]
If she be false, O, then heaven mocks itself!
I'll not believe't.
GINNY: How now, my dear Othello!
Your dinner, and the generous islanders
By you invited, do attend your presence.
DEAN: [whispering] I am to blame.
GINNY: Why do you speak so faintly?
Are you not well?
DEAN: [touches his head] I have a pain upon my forehead here.
GINNY: 'Faith, that's with watching; 'twill away again:
Let me but bind it hard, within this hour
It will be well.
SEAMUS: Riiiight. Bandages do SO much for headaches, don't they?
[GINNY removes the scarf and attempts to tie it around DEAN's head
Rambo-style]
DEAN: [takes the scarf from GINNY and drops it on the ground]
Your napkin is too little:
Let it alone. Come, I'll go in with you.
GINNY: [contrite] I am very sorry you are not well.
HERMIONE: [picks up the scarf and holds it arm's length]
I am glad I have found this napkin:
This was her first remembrance from the Moor:
My wayward husband hath a hundred times
Woo'd me to steal it; but she so loves the token,
For he conjured her she should ever keep it,
That she reserves it evermore about her
To kiss and talk to. I'll have the work ta'en out,
And give't Iago: what he will do with it
Heaven knows, not I;
I nothing but to please his fantasy.
[Reenter DRACO]
DRACO: [suspicious] How now! what do you here alone?
HERMIONE: [snappishly] Do not you chide; I have a thing for you.
DRACO: A thing for me? It is a common thing-
HERMIONE: Ha!
DRACO: [smiling] To have a foolish wife.
HERMIONE: [teasing] O, is that all? What will you give me now
For the same handkerchief?
DRACO: [puzzled] What handkerchief?
HERMIONE: What handkerchief?
Why, that the Moor first gave to Desdemona;
That which so often you did bid me steal.
DRACO: Hast stol'n it from her?
HERMIONE: No, 'faith; she let it drop by negligence.
And, to the advantage, I, being here, took't up.
Look, here it is.
[HERMIONE produces the scarf and dangles it in front of DRACO playfully]
DRACO: [impressed] A good wench; give it me.
HERMIONE: What will you do with 't, that you have been so earnest
To have me filch it?
DRACO: [snatching it] Why, what's that to you?
HERMIONE: If it be not for some purpose of import,
Give't me again: poor lady, she'll run mad
When she shall lack it.
SEAMUS: [offstage. DEAN has ungagged him.] News flash! That's just what
he wants!
DRACO: Be not acknown on 't; I have use for it.
Go, leave me.
[Exit HERMIONE]
I will in Cassio's lodging lose this napkin,
And let him find it. Trifles light as air
Are to the jealous confirmations strong
As proofs of holy writ: this may do something.
The Moor already changes with my poison:
Dangerous conceits are, in their natures, poisons.
Which at the first are scarce found to distaste,
But with a little act upon the blood.
Burn like the mines of Sulphur. I did say so:
Look, where he comes!
[Reenter DEAN, shoving what was until lately SEAMUS's gag into the pocket of
his robes]
DRACO: [to himself] Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owedst yesterday.
DEAN: Ha! ha! false to me?
DRACO: [startled] Why, how now, general! no more of that.
DEAN: Avaunt! be gone! thou hast set me on the rack:
I swear 'tis better to be much abused
Than but to know't a little.
SEAMUS: [offstage] And that's the honest truth.
DRACO: How now, my lord!
DEAN: What sense had I of her stol'n hours of lust?
I saw't not, thought it not, it harm'd not me:
I slept the next night well, was free and merry;
I found not Cassio's kisses on her lips:
He that is robb'd, not wanting what is stol'n,
Let him not know't, and he's not robb'd at all.
DRACO: I am sorry to hear this.
DEAN: I had been happy, if the general camp,
Pioners and all, had tasted her sweet body,
So I had nothing known. O, now, for ever
Farewell the tranquil mind! farewell content!
Farewell the plumed troop, and the big wars,
That make ambition virtue! O, farewell!
Farewell the neighing steed, and the shrill trump,
The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife,
The royal banner, and all quality,
Pride, pomp and circumstance of glorious war!
And, O you mortal engines, whose rude throats
The immortal Jove's dead clamours counterfeit,
Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!
SEAMUS: Whoa! Overreact much?
DRACO: Is't possible, my lord?
DEAN: Villain, be sure thou prove my love a whore,
Be sure of it; give me the ocular proof:
Or by the worth of man's eternal soul,
Thou hadst been better have been born a dog
Than answer my waked wrath!
DRACO: [sadly] Is't come to this?
DEAN: Make me to see't; or, at the least, so prove it,
That the probation bear no hinge nor loop
To hang a doubt on; or woe upon thy life!
DRACO: My noble lord,-
DEAN: [angrily] If thou dost slander her and torture me,
Never pray more; abandon all remorse;
On horror's head horrors accumulate;
Do deeds to make heaven weep, all earth amazed;
For nothing canst thou to damnation add
Greater than that.
SEAMUS: Yeah, Iago colors outside the lines, all right.
DRACO: [backing away, hands up defensively]
O grace! O heaven forgive me!
Are you a man? have you a soul or sense?
God be wi' you; take mine office. O wretched fool.
That livest to make thine honesty a vice!
O monstrous world! Take note, take note, O world,
To be direct and honest is not safe.
I thank you for this profit; and from hence
I'll love no friend, since love breeds such offence.
DEAN: Nay, stay: thou shouldst be honest.
DRACO: [Shakes his head] I should be wise, for honesty's a fool
And loses that it works for.
HARRY: [offstage] Does it really?
DEAN: By the world,
I think my wife be honest and think she is not;
I think that thou art just and think thou art not.
I'll have some proof. Her name, that was as fresh
As Dian's visage, is now begrimed and black
As mine own face. If there be cords, or knives,
Poison, or fire, or suffocating streams,
I'll not endure it. Would I were satisfied!
DRACO: [regretfully] I see, sir, you are eaten up with passion:
I do repent me that I put it to you.
You would be satisfied?
DEAN: Would! nay, I will.
DRACO: [slowly] And may: but, how? how satisfied, my lord?
Would you, the supervisor, grossly gape on--
Behold her topp'd?
DEAN: Death and damnation! O!
RON: [nastily] Oops. He'll go for you throat now, Iago. Talk your way out
of that one!
DRACO: It were a tedious difficulty, I think,
To bring them to that prospect: damn them then,
If ever mortal eyes do see them bolster
More than their own! What then? how then?
What shall I say? Where's satisfaction?
It is impossible you should see this,
Were they as prime as goats, as hot as monkeys,
As salt as wolves in pride, and fools as gross
As ignorance made drunk. But yet, I say,
If imputation and strong circumstances,
Which lead directly to the door of truth,
Will give you satisfaction, you may have't.
HARRY: [offstage, amused] Like that, Ron?
DEAN: Give me a living reason she's disloyal.
[HARRY thumbs through his script to find out where they are, then blushes
bright red]
RON: What? What's up?
DRACO: I do not like the office:
But, sith I am enter'd in this cause so far,
Prick'd to't by foolish honesty and love,
I will go on.
[He takes a deep breath, and fights back a smile before continuing. HARRY
gets redder.]
DRACO: I lay with Cassio lately;
And, being troubled with a raging tooth,
I could not sleep.
There are a kind of men so loose of soul,
That in their sleeps will mutter their affairs:
One of this kind is Cassio:
In sleep I heard him say 'Sweet Desdemona,
Let us be wary, let us hide our loves;'
And then, sir, would he gripe and wring my hand,
Cry 'O sweet creature!' and then kiss me hard,
As if he pluck'd up kisses by the roots
That grew upon my lips: then laid his leg
Over my thigh, and sigh'd, and kiss'd; and then
Cried 'Cursed fate that gave thee to the Moor!'
DEAN: O monstrous! monstrous!
SEAMUS: I second!
RON: DAMN STRAIGHT!
HARRY: [weakly] Why does the floor never open up and swallow you when you
want it to?
RON: If he wasn't onstage I'd...
GINNY: [marveling, ignoring the boys] Wow, he said it without hitching at
*all*....
HERMIONE: [dryly] I think we all noticed that.
DRACO: Nay, this was but his dream.
RON: You're not getting out of this one, Malfoy...
[HARRY smacks him upside the head]
HARRY: It's a *play*, Ron. We're *acting*.
RON: [muttering] Why're you blushing then?
HARRY: I'm not.
RON: You are.
LOCKHART: Do I have to separate you two?
HERMIONE: They're doing rather well on their own, I think.
DEAN: But this denoted a foregone conclusion:
'Tis a shrewd doubt, though it be but a dream.
DRACO: And this may help to thicken other proofs
That do demonstrate thinly.
DEAN: [darkly] I'll tear her all to pieces.
SEAMUS: Awww, how sweet. This is the stuff picture books are made of.
DRACO: Nay, but be wise: yet we see nothing done;
She may be honest yet. Tell me but this,
Have you not sometimes seen a handkerchief
Spotted with strawberries in your wife's hand?
DEAN: I gave her such a one; 'twas my first gift.
GINNY: So that's what he wanted with the scarf...
DRACO: I know not that; but such a handkerchief--
I am sure it was your wife's--did I to-day
See Cassio wipe his beard with.
COLIN: Hrghr biruh!
HERMIONE: [removing gag] What?
COLIN: Harry doesn't *have* a beard...
HERMIONE: You are hopeless. [replaces gag]
DEAN: If it be that...
DRACO: [quickly] If it be that... or any that was hers...
It speaks against her with the other proofs.
RON: What proofs?
DEAN: O, that the slave had forty thousand lives!
One is too poor, too weak for my revenge.
Now do I see 'tis true. Look here, Iago;
All my fond love thus do I blow to heaven.
'Tis gone.
Arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow cell!
Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearted throne
To tyrannous hate! Swell, bosom, with thy fraught,
For 'tis of aspics' tongues!
DRACO: Yet be content....
SEAMUS: Because *he* certainly is....
DEAN: O, blood, blood, blood!
NEVILLE: [offstage] Where?! [faints]
DRACO: Patience, I say; your mind perhaps may change.
DEAN: Never, Iago: Like to the Pontic sea,
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on
To the Propontic and the Hellespont,
Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,
Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love,
Till that a capable and wide revenge
Swallow them up. Now, by yond marble heaven,
[he kneels]
In the due reverence of a sacred vow
I here engage my words.
RON: It's easy to play with this guy Othello's head, isn't it?
DRACO: Do not rise yet.
SEAMUS: I knew it! I knew it! Should we be watching this, Prof... Mr.
Lockhart?
LOCKHART: You have a dirty mind, Mr. Finnegan. In other plays I'd encourage
it, but not in this one. Shut up.
[DRACO kneels next to DEAN]
DRACO: Witness, you ever-burning lights above,
You elements that clip us round about,
Witness that here Iago doth give up
The execution of his wit, hands, heart,
To wrong'd Othello's service! Let him command,
And to obey shall be in me remorse,
What bloody business ever.
[Both boys rise to their feet]
DEAN: I greet thy love,
Not with vain thanks, but with acceptance bounteous,
And will upon the instant put thee to't:
Within these three days let me hear thee say
That Cassio's not alive.
RON: [offstage, confused] 'If you love me, you'll kill him?' Is that what
he just said?
HARRY: Something like that.
DRACO: [bowing his head] My friend is dead; 'tis done at your request:
But let her live.
DEAN: Damn her, lewd minx! O, damn her!
Come, go with me apart; I will withdraw,
To furnish me with some swift means of death
For the fair devil. Now art thou my lieutenant.
DRACO: I am your own for ever.
RON: [disbelieving] He got promoted? He convinces the guy to kill his wife
and second-in-command and he gets *promoted* for it?
DRACO: What can I say, Weasley? People recognize talent.
RON: [muttering] This is *messed up*.
End scene iii
The Play's the Thing: Act III scene iv
[Enter GINNY, HERMIONE, and GOYLE, still wearing the stupid hat]
GINNY: [to GOYLE] Do you know, sirrah, where Lieutenant Cassio lies?
GOYLE: I dare not say he... lies any... where.
GINNY: Why, man?
GOYLE: He's a... sold-ier.... and for one to say a... sold-ier lies,
is... stabbing.
CRABBE: [offstage, to DRACO] Cassio's Potter, right?
DRACO: [shortly] Yes.
CRABBE: So why's Greg afraid of him?
DRACO: [in no mood to explain drama to one-half of the Thicky Twins] Because
he's a homicidal maniac.
GINNY: [ignoring the offstage conversation] Go to: where lodges he?
CRABBE: My mum told me to stand up to homicidal maniacs.
DRACO: Yes, well, this would be the mum that declared with total conviction
that you were a brilliant and handsome stallion of a man. I think her opinions
are somewhat suspect.
CRABBE: [grinning] I love my mum.
DRACO: And I love chocolate, but I don't ask its advice, do I?
GOYLE: To tell you where he... lodges, is to tell you... where I lie.
HARRY: [offstage] Is it my imagination, or is he getting better?
GINNY: Can any thing be made of this?
GOYLE: I know not... where he... lodges, and for me to... devise a...
lodging and say he... lies here or he lies... there, were
to lie in... mine own throat.
GINNY: Can you inquire him out, and be edified by report?
GOYLE: I will... cat-a-ch-eyes... the world for him... that is make...
questions, and by them... ants were.
GINNY: Seek him, bid him come hither: tell him I have
moved my lord on his behalf, and hope all will be well.
GOYLE: To do this is... within the... compass of man's... wit and...
there-fore... I will attempt the... doing it.
[GOYLE wanders offstage]
GINNY: Where should I lose that handkerchief, Emilia?
SEAMUS: You didn't lose it, remember? You dropped it when you tried to
bandage a headache, you...
HERMIONE: I know not, madam.
DEAN: Liar! She's a liar!
GINNY: Believe me, I had rather have lost my purse
Full of crusadoes: and, but my noble Moor
Is true of mind and made of no such baseness
As jealous creatures are, it were enough
To put him to ill thinking.
HERMIONE: Is he not jealous?
SEAMUS: Well, let's just consider that question....
GINNY: Who, he? I think the sun where he was born
Drew all such humours from him.
SEAMUS: Nice answer... but you're WRONG!
HERMIONE: Look, where he comes.
[Enter DEAN. His script is now sporting a bunny and something that could be
a teddy bear]
GINNY: [undertone, to HERMIONE] I will not leave him now till Cassio
Be call'd to him.
[louder, to DEAN]
How is't with you, my lord?
DEAN: Well, my good lady.
[Aside]
O, hardness to dissemble!--
How do you, Desdemona?
SEAMUS: ...Just to prove my mind isn't always in the gutter, I'm not gonna
say anything about that.
GINNY: Well, my good lord.
DEAN: Give me your hand: this hand is moist, my lady.
SEAMUS: [sarcastically] Ooh, the telling blow! She washed her hands! She
*never* did that in Venice...
GINNY: It yet hath felt no age nor known no sorrow.
DRACO: Well, not yet, anyway.
DEAN: This argues fruitfulness and liberal heart:
Hot, hot, and moist: this hand of yours requires
A sequester from liberty, fasting and prayer,
Much castigation, exercise devout;
For here's a young and sweating devil here,
That commonly rebels. 'Tis a good hand,
A frank one.
SEAMUS: Wow, you got all that from her hand?
GINNY: You may, indeed, say so;
For 'twas that hand that gave away my heart.
DEAN: A liberal hand: the hearts of old gave hands;
But our new heraldry is hands, not hearts.
SEAMUS: Are they even talking about the same thing?
CRABBE: [who has SEAMUS's script] ...Can't draw puppies....
GINNY: I cannot speak of this. Come now, your promise.
DEAN: What promise, chuck?
DRACO: Now *there's* a nickname to set a girl's heart aflutter...
HARRY: It's better than some, isn't it?
GINNY: I have sent to bid Cassio come speak with you.
DEAN: I have a salt and sorry rheum offends me;
Lend me thy handkerchief.
SEAMUS: Smooooth, Dean. Now sneeze on her.
GINNY: Here, my lord. [She mimes handing him a handkerchief]
DEAN: That which I gave you.
HARRY: Yeah, he wants the scarf.
DRACO: [snickering] Well, sometimes soldiers just want to feel pretty.
GINNY: I have it not about me.
DEAN: Not?
GINNY: No, indeed, my lord.
DEAN: That is a fault.
That handkerchief
Did an Egyptian to my mother give;
She was a charmer, and could almost read
The thoughts of people: she told her, while
she kept it,
'Twould make her amiable and subdue my father
Entirely to her love, but if she lost it
Or made gift of it, my father's eye
Should hold her loathed and his spirits should hunt
After new fancies: she, dying, gave it me;
And bid me, when my fate would have me wive,
To give it her. I did so: and take heed on't;
Make it a darling like your precious eye;
To lose't or give't away were such perdition
As nothing else could match.
DRACO: [reading ahead. He raises one eyebrow, impressed] You're not wrong.
GINNY: Indeed! is't true?
DEAN: Most veritable; therefore look to't well.
GINNY: Then would to God I had never seen't!
DEAN: Ha! wherefore?
GINNY: Why do you speak so startingly and rash?
DEAN: Is't lost? is't gone? speak, is it out o'the way?
GINNY: Heaven bless us!
DEAN: Say you?
SEAMUS: You!
GINNY: It is not lost, but what an if it were?
SEAMUS: Wrong answer!
DEAN: How!
SEAMUS: How!
GINNY: I say, it is not lost.
DEAN: Fetch't, let me see't.
GINNY: Why, so I can, sir, but I will not now.
This is a trick to put me from my suit:
Pray you, let Cassio be received again.
DEAN: Fetch me the handkerchief, my mind misgives.
GINNY: Come, come;
You'll never meet a more sufficient man.
HARRY: [offstage] Now I *know* they're not talking about the same thing.
DEAN: The handkerchief!
GINNY: I pray, talk me of Cassio.
DEAN: The handkerchief!
GINNY: A man that all his time
Hath founded his good fortunes on your love,
Shared dangers with you,--
DEAN: The handkerchief!
SEAMUS: The handkerchief!
HARRY: Echo!
GINNY: In sooth, you are to blame.
DEAN: Away!
SEAMUS: The handkerchief!
[DEAN stomps offstage]
HERMIONE: Is not this man jealous?
GINNY: I ne'er saw this before.
Sure, there's some wonder in this handkerchief:
I am most unhappy in the loss of it.
HERMIONE: [consolingly] 'Tis not a year or two shows us a man:
They are all but stomachs, and we all but food;
To eat us hungerly, and when they are full,
They belch us. Look you, Cassio and my husband!
[Enter DRACO and HARRY, walking together]
DRACO: There is no other way; 'tis she must do't:
And, lo, the happiness! go, and importune her.
GINNY: How now, good Cassio! what's the news with you?
HARRY: [bowing] Madam, my former suit: I do beseech you
That by your virtuous means I may again
Exist, and be a member of his love
Whom I with all the office of my heart
Entirely honour: I would not be delay'd.
If my offence be of such mortal kind
That nor my service past, nor present sorrows,
Nor purposed merit in futurity,
Can ransom me into his love again,
But to know so must be my benefit;
So shall I clothe me in a forced content,
And shut myself up in some other course,
To fortune's alms.
SEAMUS: I prefer cotton, myself....
GINNY: Alas, thrice-gentle Cassio!
My advocation is not now in tune;
My lord is not my lord; nor should I know him,
Were he in favour as in humour alter'd.
So help me every spirit sanctified,
As I have spoken for you all my best
And stood within the blank of his displeasure
For my free speech! you must awhile be patient:
What I can do I will; and more I will
Than for myself I dare: let that suffice you.
DRACO: Is my lord angry?
SEAMUS: Sure, act like you don't know. Can't anyone else see thorugh this
guy?
HERMIONE: He went hence but now,
And certainly in strange unquietness.
CRABBE: [offstage] Here. It doesn't look much like a puppy.
NEVILLE: [hesitantly] Ummm... thanks....
DRACO: Can he be angry? I have seen the cannon,
When it hath blown his ranks into the air,
And, like the devil, from his very arm
Puff'd his own brother:--and can he be angry?
Something of moment then: I will go meet him:
There's matter in't indeed, if he be angry.
GINNY: [gratefully] I prithee, do so.
SEAMUS: Oh sure. Give him an inch and he'll hang you with it.
[Exit DRACO]
GINNY: Something, sure, of state,
Either from Venice, or some unhatch'd practise
Made demonstrable here in Cyprus to him,
Hath puddled his clear spirit: and in such cases
Men's natures wrangle with inferior things,
Though great ones are their object. 'Tis even so;
For let our finger ache, and it indues
Our other healthful members even to that sense
Of pain: nay, we must think men are not gods,
Nor of them look for such observances
As fit the bridal. Beshrew me much, Emilia,
I was, unhandsome warrior as I am,
Arraigning his unkindness with my soul;
But now I find I had suborn'd the witness,
And he's indicted falsely.
SEAMUS: Nice thought... but you're WRONG!
HERMIONE: Pray heaven it be state-matters, as you think,
And no conception nor no jealous toy
Concerning you.
GINNY: Alas the day! I never gave him cause.
DEAN: That's what *you* think.
HERMIONE: But jealous souls will not be answer'd so;
They are not ever jealous for the cause,
But jealous for they are jealous: 'tis a monster
Begot upon itself, born on itself.
GINNY: Heaven keep that monster from Othello's mind!
HARRY: [muttering] Too late.
HERMIONE: [kicks HARRY in the shins, discreetly] Lady, amen.
GINNY: I will go seek him. Cassio, walk hereabout:
If I do find him fit, I'll move your suit
And seek to effect it to my uttermost.
HARRY: [bows] I humbly thank your ladyship..
[GINNY sweeps dramatically offstage, followed by HERMIONE. Enter PANSY]
PANSY: [in an irritating simpering half-whine] Save you, friend Cassio!
HARRY: [wincing] What make you from home?
How is it with you, my most fair Bianca?
I' faith, sweet love, I was coming to your house.
RON: Now *that* is acting.
PANSY: [still in the irritating simpering half-whine]
And I was going to your lodging, Cassio.
What, keep a week away? seven days and nights?
Eight score eight hours? and lovers' absent hours,
More tedious than the dial eight score times?
O weary reckoning!
HARRY: Pardon me, Bianca:
I have this while with leaden thoughts been press'd:
But I shall, in a more continuate time,
Strike off this score of absence. Sweet Bianca,
[hands her teh filmy pink scarf]
Take me this work out.
PANSY: [whining irritatingly and simpering] O Cassio, whence came this?
This is some token from a newer friend:
To the felt absence now I feel a cause:
Is't come to this? Well, well.
SEAMUS: That's... not her *normal* voice, is it?
DRACO: ...I'm afraid it is.
HARRY: Go to, woman!
Throw your vile guesses in the devil's teeth,
From whence you have them. You are jealous now
That this is from some mistress, some remembrance:
No, in good troth, Bianca.
PANSY: Why, whose is it?
HARRY: I know not, sweet: I found it in my chamber.
I like the work well: ere it be demanded--
As like enough it will--I'ld have it copied:
Take it, and do't; and leave me for this time.
PANSY: Leave you! wherefore?
HARRY: I do attend here on the general;
And think it no addition, nor my wish,
To have him see me woman'd.
PANSY: Why, I pray you?
SEAMUS: He can't take your *voice* any more, Pansy! Do you need a sign or
something?
HARRY: Not that I love you not.
DRACO: Even though that's the case...
PANSY: But that you do not love me.
I pray you, bring me on the way a little,
And say if I shall see you soon at night.
HARRY: 'Tis but a little way that I can bring you;
For I attend here: but I'll see you soon.
PANSY: 'Tis very good; I must be circumstanced.
[Exit HARRY and PANSY. PANSY keeps the scarf in her hands, but as she passes
by, DRACO takes it away. She doesn't notice. DRACO hands the scarf to HARRY]
DRACO: Here. She'd only lose it.
HARRY: Thanks... [tosses it around his neck playfully] There. What do you
think?
DRACO: Pink isn't your color.
RON: I'm going to be sick....
End Act III