The Play's the Thing: Act IV scene i
[Enter DEAN and DRACO. DEAN paces around the stage like a gazelle on steroids,
never staying still for more than a few seconds.]
DRACO: Will you think so?
SEAMUS: [offstage] Hey! Think what? Did I miss something in between scenes?
How'd we get here?
LOCKHART: The magic of theatre, Mr. Finnegan. Now shut up.
DEAN: Think so, Iago!
COLIN: [offstage] Think what?
DRACO: What,
To kiss in private?
SEAMUS: [offstage, knowingly, to GINNY] That's the only way. McGonagall'd
stick us in detention for a week for doing it in public.
DEAN: An unauthorized kiss.
DRACO: Or to be naked with her friend in bed
An hour or more, not meaning any harm?
SEAMUS: That would be a waste of a perfectly good hour is what it would be.
DEAN: Naked in bed, Iago, and not mean harm!
It is hypocrisy against the devil:
They that mean virtuously, and yet do so,
The devil their virtue tempts, and they tempt heaven.
DRACO: So they do nothing, 'tis a venial slip:
But if I give my wife a handkerchief,--
DEAN: What then?
DRACO: Why, then, 'tis hers, my lord; and, being hers,
She may, I think, bestow't on any man.
HERMIONE: Good answer.
DEAN: She is protectress of her honour too:
May she give that?
DRACO: Her honour is an essence that's not seen;
They have it very oft that have it not:
But, for the handkerchief,--
DEAN: By heaven, I would most gladly have forgot it.
Thou said'st, it comes o'er my memory,
As doth the raven o'er the infected house,
Boding to all--he had my handkerchief.
SEAMUS: Is it just me, or is Othello making less and less sense?
DRACO: Ay, what of that?
DEAN: That's not so good now.
HARRY: [imitating DEAN] In fact, I'll even go so far as to say I'm displeased.
Yes. Definitely miffed.
DRACO: What,
If I had said I had seen him do you wrong?
Or heard him say,--as knaves be such abroad,
Who having, by their own importunate suit,
Or voluntary dotage of some mistress,
Convinced or supplied them, cannot choose
But they must blab--
HERMIONE: Oh, you're just being provocative now.
GOYLE: Huh?
HERMIONE: Basically, he just said, "Well, what if I told you he said your
mother dressed you funny?"
GOYLE: [impressed] Wow. You're smart.
DEAN: Hath he said any thing?
GOYLE: [helpfully] Your mum dresses you funny.
DRACO: He hath, my lord; but be you well assured,
No more than he'll unswear.
DEAN: What hath he said?
DRACO: 'Faith, that he did--I know not what he did.
HARRY: A little shaky on the dismount there, Iago.
DEAN: What? what?
DRACO: Lie--
DEAN: With her?
DRACO: With her, on her; what you will.
SEAMUS: Ooh, now we're getting somewhere! Do we get details?
DEAN: Lie with her! lie on her! We say lie on her, when
they belie her. Lie with her! that's fulsome.
--Handkerchief--confessions--handkerchief!--To
confess, and be hanged for his labour;--first, to be
hanged, and then to confess.--I tremble at it.
Nature would not invest herself in such shadowing
passion without some instruction. It is not words
that shake me thus. Pish! Noses, ears, and lips.
--Is't possible?--Confess--handkerchief!--O devil!--
[DEAN looks at his script, then shrugs and sits on the ground crosslegged and
shuts his eyes.]
DEAN: Ommmmm...
LOCKHART: Mr. Thomas, what exactly are you doing? In no instance does this
script call for transcendental meditation.
DEAN: I'm in a trance.
HERMIONE: Dean, that means an epileptic fit.
DEAN: Oh. [He immediately collapses over onto his side and starts flopping
around like a landed fish]
DRACO: Work on,
My medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught;
And many worthy and chaste dames even thus,
All guiltless, meet reproach. What, ho! my lord!
My lord, I say! Othello!
[Enter HARRY. DEAN's flopping around causes him to fall off the stage]
How now, Cassio!
HARRY: What's the matter?
DRACO: My lord is fall'n into an epilepsy:
This is his second fit; he had one yesterday.
[from in front of the stage come muffled sounds of pain]
HARRY: Rub him about the temples.
SEAMUS: [runs over to where DEAN is lying] Oh, sure, Harry. That's really
going to help.
DRACO: No, forbear;
The lethargy must have his quiet course:
If not, he foams at mouth and by and by
Breaks out to savage madness. Look he stirs:
Do you withdraw yourself a little while,
He will recover straight: when he is gone,
I would on great occasion speak with you.
[Exit HARRY. DEAN crawls back onto the stage]
How is it, general? have you not hurt your head?
SEAMUS: [offstage, darkly] No, but that's the only thing that's not gonna be
bruised tomorrow.
DEAN: Dost thou mock me?
RON: [offstage, sarcastically] Why, whatever gives you *that* idea?
DRACO: [slightly hurt] I mock you! no, by heaven.
Would you would bear your fortune like a man!
DEAN: A horned man's a monster and a beast.
GINNY: Well, that or has serious fashion issues.
DRACO: There's many a beast then in a populous city,
And many a civil monster.
DEAN: Did he confess it?
HARRY: Yes, he killed the butler in the water closet with the apple core. You
win.
DRACO: Good sir, be a man;
Think every bearded fellow that's but yoked
May draw with you: there's millions now alive
That nightly lie in those unproper beds
Which they dare swear peculiar: your case is better.
O, 'tis the spite of hell, the fiend's arch-mock,
To lip a wanton in a secure couch,
And to suppose her chaste! No, let me know;
And knowing what I am, I know what she shall be.
DEAN: O, thou art wise; 'tis certain.
RON: [darkly] A wise guy, maybe.
DRACO: Stand you awhile apart;
Confine yourself but in a patient list.
Whilst you were here o'erwhelmed with your grief--
A passion most unsuiting such a man--
Cassio came hither: I shifted him away,
And laid good 'scuse upon your ecstasy,
Bade him anon return and here speak with me;
The which he promised. Do but encave yourself,
And mark the fleers, the gibes, and notable scorns,
That dwell in every region of his face;
For I will make him tell the tale anew,
Where, how, how oft, how long ago, and when
He hath, and is again to cope your wife:
I say, but mark his gesture. Marry, patience;
Or I shall say you are all in all in spleen,
And nothing of a man.
DEAN: Dost thou hear, Iago?
I will be found most cunning in my patience;
But--dost thou hear?--most bloody.
SEAMUS: Nothing wrong with a *little* blood, Dean....
DRACO: That's not amiss;
But yet keep time in all. Will you withdraw?
[DEAN moves to far stage right]
Now will I question Cassio of Bianca,
A housewife that by selling her desires
Buys herself bread and clothes: it is a creature
That dotes on Cassio; as 'tis the strumpet's plague
To beguile many and be beguiled by one:
He, when he hears of her, cannot refrain
From the excess of laughter. Here he comes:
[Re-enter HARRY, stage left]
As he shall smile, Othello shall go mad;
And his unbookish jealousy must construe
Poor Cassio's smiles, gestures and light behavior,
Quite in the wrong. How do you now, lieutenant?
HARRY: The worser that you give me the addition
Whose want even kills me.
DRACO: [consolingly] Ply Desdemona well, and you are sure on't.
[He lowers his voice]
Now, if this suit lay in Bianca's power,
How quickly should you speed!
HARRY: Alas, poor caitiff!
DEAN: Look, how he laughs already!
DRACO: I never knew woman love man so.
HARRY: Alas, poor rogue! I think, i' faith, she loves me.
COLIN: Pansy?! No-one ever tells me *anything*....
DEAN: Now he denies it faintly, and laughs it out.
DRACO: Do you hear, Cassio?
DEAN: Now he importunes him
To tell it o'er: go to; well said, well said.
DRACO: She gives it out that you shall marry her:
Do you intend it?
[HARRY just laughs and shakes his head]
DEAN: Do you triumph, Roman? do you triumph?
COLIN: Harry's not Italian, Dean....
HARRY: I marry her! what? a customer! Prithee, bear some charity to my wit: do
not think it so unwholesome.
DEAN: So, so, so, so: they laugh that win.
SEAMUS: And losers weepers. So there.
DRACO: 'Faith, the cry goes that you shall marry her.
HARRY: Prithee, say true.
DRACO: I am a very villain else.
RON: You're a villain anyway. So what?
DEAN: Have you scored me? Well.
CRABBE: [panicked] We're 'posed to be keepin' score?!
HARRY: This is the monkey's own giving out: she is
persuaded I will marry her, out of her own love and
flattery, not out of my promise.
[DRACO laughs, turning one of his hand motions into a discreet beckoning to
DEAN]
DEAN: Iago beckons me; now he begins the story.
HARRY: She was here even now; she haunts me in every place. I was the
other day talking on the sea-bank with certain Venetians; and thither comes
the bauble, and, by this hand, she falls me thus about my neck--
DEAN: Crying 'O dear Cassio!' as it were: his gesture
imports it.
HARRY: So hangs, and lolls, and weeps upon me; so hales, and pulls me: ha,
ha, ha!
DEAN: Now he tells how she plucked him to my chamber. O, I see that nose of
yours, but not that dog I shall throw it to.
CRABBE: [hopeful] Puppy?
HARRY: Well, I must leave her company.
DRACO: Before me! look, where she comes. [under his breath] Hide me....
HARRY: [also under his breath] You have to suffer for your art, don't you know
that? [more loudly] 'Tis such another fitchew! marry a perfumed one.
[PANSY stomps onstage]
What do you mean by this haunting of me?
PANSY: [shrilly] Let the devil and his dam haunt you! What did you mean by
that same handkerchief you gave me even now? I was a fine fool to take it. I
must take out the work?--A likely piece of work, that you should find it
in your chamber, and not know who left it there! This is some minx's token,
and I must take out the work? There; give it your hobby-horse: wheresoever
you had it, I'll take out no work on't.
HARRY: How now, my sweet Bianca! how now! how now!
DEAN: By heaven, that should be my handkerchief!
PANSY: An you'll come to supper to-night, you may; an you will not, come when
you are next prepared for.
[She flounces offstage in a huff, leaving HARRY with the pink scarf]
GINNY: [mystified] How'd she get that back? Didn't Harry have it last?
DRACO: After her, after her.
HARRY: 'Faith, I must; she'll rail in the street else.
DRACO: Will you sup there?
HARRY: 'Faith, I intend so.
DRACO: Well, I may chance to see you; for I would very fain speak with you.
HARRY: Prithee, come; will you? [undertone] Don't leave me alone with
*her*....
SEAMUS: [offstage] Oops, Harry's lost it.[sing- songing] Harry... it's a
*play*... it's not *real*...Harry....
DRACO: [smiling] Go to; say no more.
[Exit HARRY, who gets as far away from PANSY as he can]
DEAN: [Advancing to center stage] How shall I murder him, Iago?
DRACO: Did you perceive how he laughed at his vice?
DEAN: O Iago!
DRACO: And did you see the handkerchief?
SEAMUS: Yeah, he sneezed in it. I saw him.
DEAN: Was that mine?
SEAMUS: Well, it *was*. You sure you want it back now?
DRACO: Yours by this hand: and to see how he prizes the
foolish woman your wife! she gave it him, and he
hath given it his whore.
COLIN: Wow, when you put it like that, it sounds a little cold, doesn't it?
HERMIONE: Yes, Colin. Do you want to be gagged again?
COLIN: But I didn't do anything!
HERMIONE: Do you?
COLIN: [pouty] No.
HERMIONE: Then shut up.
DEAN: I would have him nine years a-killing.
A fine woman! a fair woman! a sweet woman!
DRACO: Nay, you must forget that.
SEAMUS: Yeah, it could spoil his whole plan if you don't.
DEAN: Ay, let her rot, and perish, and be damned to-night; for she shall
not live: no, my heart is turned to stone; I strike it, and it hurts my
hand. O, the world hath not a sweeter creature: she might lie by an
emperor's side and command him tasks.
DRACO: Nay, that's not your way.
SEAMUS: Wanna bet?
DEAN: Hang her! I do but say what she is: so delicate
with her needle: an admirable musician: O! she
will sing the savageness out of a bear: of so high
and plenteous wit and invention:--
DRACO: She's the worse for all this.
DEAN: O, a thousand thousand times: and then, of so
gentle a condition!
SEAMUS: Hey, I'm gentle!
DRACO: Ay, too gentle.
DEAN: Nay, that's certain: but yet the pity of it, Iago! O Iago, the pity of
it, Iago!
RON: Oh, the pain, the pain...
DRACO: If you are so fond over her iniquity, give her
patent to offend; for, if it touch not you, it comes
near nobody.
HARRY: Ha! Take that!
DEAN: I will chop her into messes: cuckold me!
DRACO: O, 'tis foul in her.
DEAN: With mine officer!
SEAMUS: More kink!
DRACO: That's fouler.
SEAMUS: Nuh-*uh*!
DEAN: Get me some poison, Iago; this night: I'll not
expostulate with her, lest her body and beauty
unprovide my mind again: this night, Iago.
DRACO: Do it not with poison, strangle her in her bed, even the bed she hath
contaminated.
HERMIONE: Poetic injustice....
DEAN: Good, good: the justice of it pleases: very good.
DRACO: And for Cassio, let me be his undertaker: you
shall hear more by midnight.
RON: Already got a headstone picked out and everything....
DEAN: Excellent good.
[There is a brief silence. DEAN frowns, then shrugs.]
...What trumpet is that same?
DRACO: Something from Venice, sure. 'Tis Lodovico
Come from the duke: and, see, your wife is with him.
[Enter NEVILLE with his teddy bear and GINNY. They are flanked by CRABBE and
GOYLE. CRABBE is scribbling in COLIN's script]
NEVILLE: Saveyouworthygeneral?
DEAN: With all my heart, sir.
NEVILLE: The...the...the.... [He goes white and sways on his feet]
HERMIONE: [encouragingly] Just relax, Neville. It'll be over soon.
NEVILLE: [speaking into his teddy bear] The duke and senators of Venice greet
you?
[Everyone stands still for a minute, then GOYLE, seized by a flash of
inspiration, takes NEVILLE's teddy bear and gives it to DEAN.]
NEVILLE: [shrieks] BOBO!!
DEAN: I kiss the instrument of their pleasures.
SEAMUS: [offstage, wide-eyed] No *wonder* the man's a general!
LOCKHART: Mind out of the gutter, if you please, Mr. Finnegan.
[DEAN holds the teddy bear at arm's length for a moment, then holds it up to his
ear as if listening to it]
GINNY: And what's the news, good cousin Lodovico?
DRACO: [bowing] I am very glad to see you, signior
Welcome to Cyprus.
NEVILLE: [grabbing at his teddy bear. DEAN dodges deftly out of the way] I
thank you How does Lieutenant Cassio?
DRACO: Lives, sir.
GINNY: Cousin, there's fall'n between him and my lord
An unkind breach: but you shall make all well.
DEAN: Are you sure of that?
GINNY: My lord?
DEAN: [To Bobo] 'This fail you not to do, as you will--'
NEVILLE: [tries again to get Bobo away from DEAN]
He did not call he's busy in the paper Is there division 'twixt my lord and
Cassio?
GINNY: A most unhappy one: I would do much
To atone them, for the love I bear to Cassio.
DEAN: [throttles Bobo] Fire and brimstone!
GINNY: [startled] My lord?
DEAN: [to Bobo] Are you wise?
GINNY: What, is he angry?
NEVILLE: May be the letter moved him For, as I think, they do command him
home Deputing Cassio in his government?
GINNY: Trust me, I am glad on't.
DEAN: Indeed!
GINNY: My lord?
DEAN: I am glad to see you mad.
COLIN: I didn't know teddy bears could get mad....
GINNY: Why, sweet Othello,--
DEAN: [Slaps her] Devil!
RON: Hey! Knock it off, Dean, or I swear I'll....
GINNY: I have not deserved this.
NEVILLE: My lord this would not be believed in Venice Though I should swear I
saw't 'tis very much Make her amends she weeps?
DEAN: [shaking Bobo, still gripping it firmly around the neck]
O devil, devil!
If that the earth could teem with woman's tears,
Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.
Out of my sight!
GINNY: I will not stay to offend you.
[Exit GINNY, massaging her face]
SEAMUS: Well, now both the Weasleys have been smacked in the face. Who's next,
then?
NEVILLE: Truly, an obedient lady I do beseech your lordship call her back?
DEAN: Mistress!
GINNY: [poking her head out onto the stage] My lord?
DEAN: What would you with her, sir?
SEAMUS: Ask a stupid question...
NEVILLE: [blushes and forgets stage fright] Who, I, my lord?
DEAN: Ay; you did wish that I would make her turn:
Sir, she can turn, and turn, and yet go on,
And turn again; and she can weep, sir, weep;
And she's obedient, as you say, obedient,
Very obedient. Proceed you in your tears.
Concerning this, sir,--O well-painted passion!--
I am commanded home. Get you away;
I'll send for you anon. Sir, I obey the mandate,
And will return to Venice. Hence, avaunt!
[Re-exit GINNY, in a huff]
Cassio shall have my place. And, sir, tonight,
I do entreat that we may sup together:
You are welcome, sir, to Cyprus.--Goats and monkeys!
[Exit DEAN, who immediately goes over to GINNY and begins apologizing. He gives
her Bobo the teddy bear]
GINNY: [sniffley] You just don't want Ron to beat you to a pulp.
DEAN: Well, there's that, too.
NEVILLE: Is this the noble Moor whom our full senate
Call all in all sufficient? Is this the nature
Whom passion could not shake? whose solid virtue
The shot of accident, nor dart of chance,
Could neither graze nor pierce?
HERMIONE: [impressed] Neville?
DRACO: He is much changed.
NEVILLE: Are his wits safe? is he not light of brain?
DRACO: He's that he is: I may not breathe my censure
What he might be: if what he might he is not,
I would to heaven he were!
NEVILLE: What, strike his wife!
DRACO: 'Faith, that was not so well; yet would I knew
That stroke would prove the worst!
NEVILLE: Is it his use?
Or did the letters work upon his blood,
And new-create this fault?
SEAMUS: Who are you and what did you do with the guy who threw up on Hermione's
shoes two acts ago?
DRACO: Alas, alas!
It is not honesty in me to speak
What I have seen and known. You shall observe him,
And his own courses will denote him so
That I may save my speech: do but go after,
And mark how he continues.
NEVILLE: [sadly] I am sorry that I am deceived in him.
[All exit. A round of applause goes up for NEVILLE, started by HARRY and DRACO]
HERMIONE: [kisses NEVILLE on the cheek] I knew you had it in you, Neville!
NEVILLE: ...It wasn't so bad... can I have Bobo back now?
GOYLE: I have a headache.
End scene I
A/N: It's getting harder to be funny, so this scene is *really* weird.
Sorry in advance.
The Play's the Thing: Act IV scene ii
[Enter DEAN and HERMIONE. DEAN is lagging a few paces behind HERMIONE, who
is walking around the stage in large circles]
DEAN: You have seen nothing then?
HERMIONE: Nor ever heard, nor ever did suspect.
RON: [imitating HERMIONE] I always wondered why my lady made me wear a
blindfold all the time...
DEAN: Yet, you have seen Cassio and she together.
SEAMUS: Threesome? Not fair! Harry, how come I wasn't invited?
HARRY: Wasn't it you who said last scene that this was just a play? It's
not real.
SEAMUS: That was then! This is...
DRACO: This is when your hormones go into overdrive, Finnegan?
HERMIONE: But then I saw no harm, and then I heard
Each syllable that breath made up between them.
DEAN: What, did they never whisper?
HERMIONE: Never, my lord.
DEAN: Nor send you out o' the way?
HERMIONE: Never.
RON: [imitating HERMIONE again] Although they did lock me in the closet
once...
COLIN: Wow! How'd you get out?
RON: I just... I just opened the door and out I came.
DRACO: Out of the mouths of babes....
DEAN: To fetch her fan, her gloves, her mask, nor nothing?
HERMIONE: Never, my lord.
SEAMUS: Desdemona wears a mask? I thought she was supposed to be pretty....
DEAN: That's strange.
SEAMUS: You're telling me.
HERMIONE: I durst, my lord, to wager she is honest,
Lay down my soul at stake: if you think other,
Remove your thought; it doth abuse your bosom.
If any wretch have put this in your head,
Let heaven requite it with the serpent's curse!
For, if she be not honest, chaste, and true,
There's no man happy; the purest of their wives
Is foul as slander.
SEAMUS: [whistles] Rise up, feminist agenda! Let us feel your teeth and
claws... and whips... and... ahem. [looks around] Did I say that out loud?
DEAN: Bid her come hither: go.
[Exit HERMIONE, with a curtsy]
She says enough; yet she's a simple bawd
That cannot say as much. This is a subtle whore,
A closet lock and key of villanous secrets
And yet she'll kneel and pray; I have seen her do't.
[Enter GINNY, followed closely by HERMIONE]
GINNY: My lord, what is your will?
DEAN: Pray, chuck, come hither.
GINNY: What is your pleasure?
SEAMUS: Well, *that* would take a while....
DEAN: Let me see your eyes;
Look in my face.
SEAMUS: No, no, no, you're starting all wrong!
GINNY: What horrible fancy's this?
DEAN: [To HERMIONE] Some of your function, mistress;
Leave procreants alone and shut the door;
Cough, or cry 'hem,' if any body come:
Your mystery, your mystery: nay, dispatch.
[Exit HERMIONE, curtsying again]
GINNY: Upon my knees, what doth your speech import?
I understand a fury in your words.
But not the words.
SEAMUS: On your knees? Now we're talking!
[RON casually puts SEAMUS in a headlock]
RON: You realize you're talking about my little sister... don't you, Seamus?
SEAMUS: [choking] Yeah... yeah... I'm just clowning, really! I'm sorry!
RON: [releasing him] That's better.
SEAMUS: [pulling out crossed fingers from behind his back and muttering
under his breath] Not.
DEAN: Why, what art thou?
DRACO: People are very fond of that question, for some reason.
GINNY: Your wife, my lord; your true
And loyal wife.
SEAMUS: That's what you think.
DEAN: Come, swear it, damn thyself
Lest, being like one of heaven, the devils themselves
Should fear to seize thee: therefore be double damn'd:
Swear thou art honest.
GINNY: Heaven doth truly know it.
SEAMUS: And a few other people do too, but we're not talking about that now,
are we?
DEAN: Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell.
SEAMUS: That's what I just said!
GINNY: To whom, my lord? with whom? how am I false?
SEAMUS: [running across the stage to get away from RON] The whipped cream
was going a bit far, Des.
DEAN: O Desdemona! away! away! away!
GINNY: Alas the heavy day! Why do you weep?
Am I the motive of these tears, my lord?
If haply you my father do suspect
An instrument of this your calling back,
Lay not your blame on me: If you have lost him,
Why, I have lost him too.
COLIN: What does your dad have to with anything, Ginny?
CRABBE: ...duckies...
COLIN: I don't think so... do people *get* this upset over ducks?
CRABBE: No, look. Duckies.
COLIN: Oh, hey! Look, I can draw an elephant.
DEAN: Had it pleased heaven
To try me with affliction; had they rain'd
All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head.
Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips,
Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes,
I should have found in some place of my soul
A drop of patience: but, alas, to make me
A fixed figure for the time of scorn
To point his slow unmoving finger at!
Yet could I bear that too; well, very well:
But there, where I have garner'd up my heart,
Where either I must live, or bear no life;
The fountain from the which my current runs,
Or else dries up; to be discarded thence!
Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads
To knot and gender in! Turn thy complexion there,
Patience, thou young and rose-lipp'd cherubin,--
Ay, there, look grim as hell!
HARRY: Not very subtle, is he?
DRACO: No, not really.
GINNY: I hope my noble lord esteems me honest.
SEAMUS: He doesn't!
DEAN: O, ay; as summer flies are in the shambles,
That quicken even with blowing. O thou weed,
Who art so lovely fair and smell'st so sweet
That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst
ne'er been born!
GINNY: Alas, what ignorant sin have I committed?
SEAMUS: I told you! The whipped cream was going too far!
[RON tackles SEAMUS from behind. They fight. Eventually the Luggage rouses
itself from where it's been sleeping and follows them around.]
LOCKHART: [to Luggage] Don't kill them until after the final performance,
all right? You can go hunt squirrels when we're done here.
DEAN: Was this fair paper, this most goodly book,
Made to write 'whore' upon? What committed!
Committed! O thou public commoner!
I should make very forges of my cheeks,
That would to cinders burn up modesty,
Did I but speak thy deeds. What committed!
Heaven stops the nose at it and the moon winks,
The bawdy wind that kisses all it meets
Is hush'd within the hollow mine of earth,
And will not hear it. What committed!
Impudent strumpet!
GINNY: By heaven, you do me wrong.
DEAN: Are you not a strumpet?
GINNY: No, as I am a Christian:
If to preserve this vessel for my lord
From any other foul unlawful touch
Be not to be a strumpet, I am none.
DEAN: What, not a whore?
[SEAMUS makes some weak gurgling sounds around the gag RON has forced into
his mouth. The Luggage is circling him like a vulture]
GINNY: No, as I shall be saved.
DEAN: Is't possible?
GINNY: O, heaven forgive us!
DEAN: I cry you mercy, then:
I took you for that cunning whore of Venice
That married with Othello.
[Raising his voice]
You, mistress,
That have the office opposite to Saint Peter,
And keep the gate of hell!
RON: Does anyone but me think that's a little harsh?
[Re-enter HERMIONE, trying very hard not to look angry]
DEAN: You, you, ay, you!
We have done our course; there's money for your pains:
I pray you, turn the key and keep our counsel.
[Exit DEAN off the front of the stage with a dramatic swirl of his cloak]
HERMIONE: Alas, what does this gentleman conceive?
How do you, madam? how do you, my good lady?
GINNY: 'Faith, half asleep.
HERMIONE: Good madam, what's the matter with my lord?
GINNY: With who?
HERMIONE: Why, with my lord, madam.
GINNY: Who is thy lord?
SEAMUS: [undoing the gag] Is that a trick question? Ron, next time tie up
my hands if you want me to stay gagged, okay?
HERMIONE: He that is yours, sweet lady.
GINNY: I have none: do not talk to me, Emilia;
I cannot weep; nor answer have I none,
But what should go by water. Prithee, tonight
Lay on my bed my wedding sheets: remember;
And call thy husband hither.
RON: Even one word, Seamus, and you're not going to escape short of someone
getting through me to untie you.
SEAMUS: ...Promise?
HERMIONE: Here's a change indeed!
[Exit HERMIONE]
GINNY: 'Tis meet I should be used so, very meet.
How have I been behaved, that he might stick
The small'st opinion on my least misuse?
[Re-enter HERMIONE with DRACO]
DRACO: What is your pleasure, madam?
How is't with you?
SEAMUS: A little... [glances at RON] disappointing, actually. [to RON]
See, I can behave!
RON: Hmp. I'll believe that when you keep it up.
GINNY: I cannot tell. Those that do teach young babes
Do it with gentle means and easy tasks:
He might have chid me so; for, in good faith,
I am a child to chiding.
DRACO: What's the matter, lady?
HARRY: Stabbing pains... right here....
RON: Harry! Not you too!
HARRY: What?
HERMIONE: Alas, Iago, my lord hath so bewhored her.
Thrown such despite and heavy terms upon her,
As true hearts cannot bear.
SEAMUS: Bewhored? That's a word? I wonder if I can work it into a History
of Magic report.
GINNY: Am I that name, Iago?
DRACO: What name, fair lady?
HARRY: Desdemona. Is she?
GINNY: Such as she says my lord did say I was.
SEAMUS: Come on... you can say it, you're a big girl....
HERMIONE: He call'd her whore: a beggar in his drink
Could not have laid such terms upon his callat.
SEAMUS: See? Hermione can say it.
DRACO: Why did he so?
GINNY: I do not know; I am sure I am none such.
DRACO: Do not weep, do not weep. Alas the day!
HERMIONE: Hath she forsook so many noble matches,
Her father and her country and her friends,
To be call'd whore? would it not make one weep?
GINNY: It is my wretched fortune.
DRACO: Beshrew him for't!
How comes this trick upon him?
RON: Oh, silly us. We thought *you* set him up!
GINNY: Nay, heaven doth know.
HERMIONE: I will be hang'd, if some eternal villain,
Some busy and insinuating rogue,
Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office,
Have not devised this slander; I'll be hang'd else.
RON: Could it be that you're *married* to the little ferret? Hmmm....
SEAMUS: Don't mince words, Hermione! Say what you mean!
DRACO: Fie, there is no such man; it is impossible.
GINNY: If any such there be, heaven pardon him!
HERMIONE: A halter pardon him! and hell gnaw his bones!
Why should he call her whore? who keeps her company?
What place? what time? what form? what likelihood?
The Moor's abused by some most villanous knave,
Some base notorious knave, some scurvy fellow.
O heaven, that such companions thou'ldst unfold,
And put in every honest hand a whip
To lash the rascals naked through the world
Even from the east to the west!
DRACO: Speak within door.
HERMIONE: O, fie upon them! Some such squire he was
That turn'd your wit the seamy side without,
And made you to suspect me with the Moor.
COLIN: You and Dean? But I thought....
RON: [darkly] You thought what?
SEAMUS: [grinning] Yes, what?
COLIN: [miserably] No-one ever tells me *anything*.
DRACO: You are a fool; go to.
GINNY: O good Iago,
What shall I do to win my lord again?
Good friend, go to him; for, by this light of heaven,
I know not how I lost him. Here I kneel:
If e'er my will did trespass 'gainst his love,
Either in discourse of thought or actual deed,
Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense,
Delighted them in any other form;
Or that I do not yet, and ever did.
And ever will--though he do shake me off
To beggarly divorcement--love him dearly,
Comfort forswear me! Unkindness may do much;
And his unkindness may defeat my life,
But never taint my love. I cannot say 'whore:'
It does abhor me now I speak the word;
To do the act that might the addition earn
Not the world's mass of vanity could make me.
DRACO: I pray you, be content; 'tis but his humour:
The business of the state does him offence,
And he does chide with you.
GINNY: If 'twere no other--
DRACO: 'Tis but so, I warrant.
HARRY: Sure. Go believe a supervillain, see what we care.
[NEVILLE fetches Bobo from where GINNY dropped it between scenes and in so
doing trips over his own feet with a loud crash]
DRACO: Hark, how these instruments summon to supper!
The messengers of Venice stay the meat;
Go in, and weep not; all things shall be well.
[Exit HERMIONE and GINNY. GINNY is crying a little too hard and her face is
beginning to get blotchy. Enter RON]
DRACO: How now, Roderigo!
RON: I do not find that thou dealest justly with me.
SEAMUS: No, really?
DRACO: What in the contrary?
RON: Every day thou daffest me with some device, Iago;
and rather, as it seems to me now, keepest from me
all conveniency than suppliest me with the least
advantage of hope. I will indeed no longer endure
it, nor am I yet persuaded to put up in peace what
already I have foolishly suffered.
DRACO: Will you hear me, Roderigo?
SEAMUS: Sadly, yes.
RON: 'Faith, I have heard too much, for your words and
performances are no kin together.
DRACO: You charge me most unjustly.
DEAN: [aggrieved] Everyone wants the discount rate....
RON: With nought but truth. I have wasted myself out of
my means. The jewels you have had from me to
deliver to Desdemona would half have corrupted a
votarist: you have told me she hath received them
and returned me expectations and comforts of sudden
respect and acquaintance, but I find none.
DRACO: Well; go to; very well.
RON: Very well! go to! I cannot go to, man; nor 'tis
not very well: nay, I think it is scurvy, and begin
to find myself fobbed in it.
GOYLE: [helpfully] Vitamin C'll clear that scurvy right up.
DRACO: Very well.
RON: I tell you 'tis not very well. I will make myself
known to Desdemona: if she will return me my
jewels, I will give over my suit and repent my
unlawful solicitation; if not, assure yourself I
will seek satisfaction of you.
DRACO: You have said now.
RON: Ay, and said nothing but what I protest intendment of doing.
DEAN: Huh?
DRACO: Why, now I see there's mettle in thee, and even from
this instant to build on thee a better opinion than
ever before. Give me thy hand, Roderigo: thou hast
taken against me a most just exception; but yet, I
protest, I have dealt most directly in thy affair.
SEAMUS: *Now* is the time to drown kittens and blind puppies!
CRABBE: Puppies! Don't hurt the puppies! [He starts to cry.]
RON: It hath not appeared.
DRACO: I grant indeed it hath not appeared, and your
suspicion is not without wit and judgment. But,
Roderigo, if thou hast that in thee indeed, which I
have greater reason to believe now than ever, I mean
purpose, courage and valour, this night show it: if
thou the next night following enjoy not Desdemona,
take me from this world with treachery and devise
engines for my life.
SEAMUS: And I have some lovely oceanfront property in Austria if you want
it...
RON: Well, what is it? is it within reason and compass?
DRACO: Sir, there is especial commission come from Venice
to depute Cassio in Othello's place.
RON: Is that true? why, then Othello and Desdemona
return again to Venice.
DRACO: O, no; he goes into Mauritania and takes away with
him the fair Desdemona, unless his abode be
lingered here by some accident: wherein none can be
so determinate as the removing of Cassio.
RON: How do you mean, removing of him?
DRACO: Why, by making him uncapable of Othello's place;
knocking out his brains.
SEAMUS: Pink slips are so passe.
RON: And that you would have me to do?
DRACO: Ay, if you dare do yourself a profit and a right.
He sups to-night with a harlotry, and thither will I
go to him: he knows not yet of his horrorable
fortune. If you will watch his going thence, which
I will fashion to fall out between twelve and one,
you may take him at your pleasure: I will be near
to second your attempt, and he shall fall between
us. Come, stand not amazed at it, but go along with
me; I will show you such a necessity in his death
that you shall think yourself bound to put it on
him. It is now high suppertime, and the night grows
to waste: about it.
RON: I will hear further reason for this.
DEAN: DO you really think it'll help? he's been twisting you around his
little finger through the entire play!
DRACO: And you shall be satisfied.
[Exit both DRACO and DEAN. SEAMUS, offstage, is holding a coil of rope.]
SEAMUS: See, if you want someone to stay gagged, you need to tie them up
like that, Ron.
RON: Yeah, but I'm not gagged.
SEAMUS: Do you want to be?
RON: No, not really.
SEAMUS: Don't complain then. Now try and escape. It's part of the fun.
DRACO: I'm not asking. I'm really not asking.
DEAN: Seamus, is that a half-hitch?
SEAMUS: No, a granny...
HERMIONE: You've done it all wrong. See, it's like *this*...
RON: Ow! Hermione!
HARRY: I'm not asking either.
End scene ii
The Play's the Thing: Act IV scene iii
[Enter DEAN, NEVILLE, GINNY, and HERMIONE. RON is still tied up offstage,
but now he's gagged and trying to escape]
NEVILLE: I do beseech you, sir, trouble yourself no further.
RON: grft!
COLIN: Now you know how I felt! Are you sorry?
RON: nrgl!
COLIN: Say you're sorry and I'll untie you...
HARRY: He's gagged, Colin. How can he say he's sorry?
SEAMUS: Pay no attention to Harry, Colin. He's a wet blanket, always trying
to ruin our fun.
DEAN: O, pardon me: 'twill do me good to walk.
NEVILLE: Madam, good night; I humbly thank your ladyship.
GINNY: Your honour is most welcome.
SEAMUS: But I'd rather have your body...
DEAN: Will you walk, sir?
O,--Desdemona,--
GINNY: My lord?
DEAN: Get you to bed on the instant; I will be returned
forthwith: dismiss your attendant there: look it be done.
SEAMUS: See? That's your problem, Dean, you're so narrow-minded....
GINNY: I will, my lord.
SEAMUS: Spoilsport.
[Exit DEAN and NEVILLE. DEAN immediately goes over to watch RON trying to
escape his bonds.]
HERMIONE: How goes it now? he looks gentler than he did.
SEAMUS: He's not coming at me with a broadsword any more, and that's usually
a plus.
GINNY: He says he will return incontinent:
He hath commanded me to go to bed,
And bade me to dismiss you.
DEAN: I should say so, if he's returning incontinent. To and from the
chamber pot all night long... it won't be pretty.
SEAMUS: Oh, I don't know about *that*.
HERMIONE: Dismiss me!
SEAMUS: Fired, pink slip, join the unemployment brigade, clean out your
desk, see the security guys for a full cavity search, the works.
GINNY: It was his bidding: therefore, good Emilia,.
Give me my nightly wearing, and adieu:
We must not now displease him.
HERMIONE: I would you had never seen him!
DEAN: That's low, Hermione!
GINNY: So would not I
my love doth so approve him,
That even his stubbornness, his cheques, his frowns--
Prithee, unpin me,--have grace and favour in them.
HERMIONE: I have laid those sheets you bade me on the bed.
SEAMUS: The silk ones with the leopard pattern, right?
COLIN: What bed?
GINNY: All's one. Good faith, how foolish are our minds!
If I do die before thee prithee, shroud me
In one of those same sheets.
SEAMUS: Ooh, nice image....
DEAN: [offstage, in an undertone] Note to self, find Mum's old sheets in the
attic. The ones I'm not supposed to know about.... [louder] Hey, Crabbe,
can I borrow your quill?
CRABBE: No. Drawing kitties.
RON: ngh! smscrpt!
HERMIONE: Come, come you talk.
SEAMUS: Well, he gets points for trying, anyway... hey, Neville, where'd you
learn how to gag people like that?
GINNY: My mother had a maid call'd Barbara:
She was in love, and he she loved proved mad
And did forsake her: she had a song of 'willow;'
An old thing 'twas, but it express'd her fortune,
And she died singing it: that song to-night
Will not go from my mind; I have much to do,
But to go hang my head all at one side,
And sing it like poor Barbara. Prithee, dispatch.
HARRY: Sure. Girl falls for crazy guy then kills herself. Why *not* sing
her favorite song when you're depressed?
HERMIONE: Shall I go fetch your night-gown?
SEAMUS: Only if you can't find the French maid's outfit....
GINNY: No, unpin me here.
SEAMUS: Yes! Do that! Forget the maid's outfit!
GINNY: This Lodovico is a proper man.
HERMIONE: A very handsome man.
GINNY: He speaks well.
HERMIONE: I know a lady in Venice would have walked barefoot
to Palestine for a touch of his nether lip.
GINNY: [Singing. She has a very poor voice] The poor soul sat sighing by a
sycamore tree,
Sing all a green willow:
Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,
Sing willow, willow, willow:
The fresh streams ran by her, and murmur'd her moans;
Sing willow, willow, willow;
Her salt tears fell from her, and soften'd the stones;
Lay by these:--
Sing willow, willow, willow;
[Everyone offstage except DEAN and GOYLE claps their hands over their ears]
SEAMUS: Banshee!
DEAN: [all starry eyed] Beautiful, isn't it...?
SEAMUS: [looks scared] I need a countercurse over here! Now! She did
somethign to Dean's ears! And I like his ears!
LOCKHART: Singing double... definitely a singing double....
PANSY: I'll do it!
DRACO: You have a worse voice than she does.
PANSY: Are you suggesting you do it?
GINNY: [to HERMIONE, speaking] Prithee, hie thee; he'll come anon:--
HARRY: [eagerly] Dean, get onstage *now*! I don't care about the script!
Keep her from singing any more!
DEAN: You say that like it would be a good thing.
GINNY: [Singing again. Her voice isn't any better] Sing all a green willow
must be my garland.
Let nobody blame him; his scorn I approve,-
[Speaking again] Nay, that's not next.--Hark! who is't that knocks?
SEAMUS: It's Dean! It's Dean! Stop singing!
HERMIONE: It's the wind.
SEAMUS: [muttering] Traitor.
GINNY: [Singing] I call'd my love false love; but what said he then?
Sing willow, willow, willow:
If I court moe women, you'll couch with moe men!
GOYLE: [entranced] Pretty....
GINNY: [speaking normally] So, get thee gone; good night. My eyes do itch;
Doth that bode weeping?
DEAN: Well, I feel like crying.
DRACO: You speak for all of us, but we have different reasons.
HERMIONE: 'Tis neither here nor there.
GINNY: I have heard it said so. O, these men, these men!
Dost thou in conscience think,--tell me, Emilia,--
That there be women do abuse their husbands
In such gross kind?
HERMIONE: There be some such, no question.
SEAMUS: Do you have addresses?
GINNY: Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?
HERMIONE: Why, would not you?
GINNY: No, by this heavenly light!
HERMIONE: Nor I neither by this heavenly light;
I might do't as well i' the dark.
SEAMUS: Ooh... Can I have that in writing, Hermione?
GINNY: Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?
HERMIONE: The world's a huge thing: it is a great price.
For a small vice.
SEAMUS: [injured] Small?
HARRY: Hermione calls 'em like she sees 'em, Seamus.
GINNY: In troth, I think thou wouldst not.
HERMIONE: In troth, I think I should; and undo't when I had
done. Marry, I would not do such a thing for a
joint-ring, nor for measures of lawn, nor for
gowns, petticoats, nor caps, nor any petty
exhibition; but for the whole world,--why, who would
not make her husband a cuckold to make him a
monarch? I should venture purgatory for't.
GINNY: Beshrew me, if I would do such a wrong
For the whole world.
HERMIONE: Why the wrong is but a wrong i' the world: and
having the world for your labour, tis a wrong in your
own world, and you might quickly make it right.
SEAMUS: Make it right, Hermione! You go, girlfr- Did I say that out loud?
GINNY: I do not think there is any such woman.
DRACO: Naive much?
HERMIONE: Yes, a dozen; and as many to the vantage as would
store the world they played for.
But I do think it is their husbands' faults
If wives do fall: say that they slack their duties,
And pour our treasures into foreign laps,
Or else break out in peevish jealousies,
Throwing restraint upon us; or say they strike us,
Or scant our former having in despite;
Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace,
Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know
Their wives have sense like them: they see and smell
And have their palates both for sweet and sour,
As husbands have. What is it that they do
When they change us for others? Is it sport?
I think it is: and doth affection breed it?
I think it doth: is't frailty that thus errs?
It is so too: and have not we affections,
Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?
Then let them use us well: else let them know,
The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.
HARRY: Sure, blame the man.
SEAMUS: [all starry-eyed] Ooh, more feminism... when are you going to start
wearing black leather, Hermione?
GINNY: Good night, good night: heaven me such uses send,
Not to pick bad from bad, but by bad mend!
[Exit HERMIONE and GINNY. Offstage, a small crowd has formed around RON and
is watching his renewed struggles avidly]
SEAMUS: Cute, isn't he? I thought he'd be loose by now...
DRACO: You should untie him. He has to go onstage next scene.
SEAMUS: You mean he can't do it like that?
DRACO: No. I have to kill him, so he needs to twitch at least a little.
DEAN: Well, what if we just ungag him?
COLIN: No! I worked really hard on that gag!
SEAMUS: [looking at RON thoughtfully] How do you feel about handcuffs?
NEVILLE: [without thinking] They chafe... [Everyone stares at him] oh, you
weren't talking to me, were you? Never mind....
DRACO: Handcuffs are fine.
[SEAMUS grins. RON tries to crawl away without the use of his arms or legs]
SEAMUS: Come on, Ron, you'll enjoy it....
HERMIONE: [to LOCKHART] Did you spike that pumpkin juice?
LOCKHART: Miss Granger, I'm surprised. Whatever makes you think that?
End Act IV
[Enter DEAN and DRACO. DEAN paces around the stage like a gazelle on steroids,
never staying still for more than a few seconds.]
DRACO: Will you think so?
SEAMUS: [offstage] Hey! Think what? Did I miss something in between scenes?
How'd we get here?
LOCKHART: The magic of theatre, Mr. Finnegan. Now shut up.
DEAN: Think so, Iago!
COLIN: [offstage] Think what?
DRACO: What,
To kiss in private?
SEAMUS: [offstage, knowingly, to GINNY] That's the only way. McGonagall'd
stick us in detention for a week for doing it in public.
DEAN: An unauthorized kiss.
DRACO: Or to be naked with her friend in bed
An hour or more, not meaning any harm?
SEAMUS: That would be a waste of a perfectly good hour is what it would be.
DEAN: Naked in bed, Iago, and not mean harm!
It is hypocrisy against the devil:
They that mean virtuously, and yet do so,
The devil their virtue tempts, and they tempt heaven.
DRACO: So they do nothing, 'tis a venial slip:
But if I give my wife a handkerchief,--
DEAN: What then?
DRACO: Why, then, 'tis hers, my lord; and, being hers,
She may, I think, bestow't on any man.
HERMIONE: Good answer.
DEAN: She is protectress of her honour too:
May she give that?
DRACO: Her honour is an essence that's not seen;
They have it very oft that have it not:
But, for the handkerchief,--
DEAN: By heaven, I would most gladly have forgot it.
Thou said'st, it comes o'er my memory,
As doth the raven o'er the infected house,
Boding to all--he had my handkerchief.
SEAMUS: Is it just me, or is Othello making less and less sense?
DRACO: Ay, what of that?
DEAN: That's not so good now.
HARRY: [imitating DEAN] In fact, I'll even go so far as to say I'm displeased.
Yes. Definitely miffed.
DRACO: What,
If I had said I had seen him do you wrong?
Or heard him say,--as knaves be such abroad,
Who having, by their own importunate suit,
Or voluntary dotage of some mistress,
Convinced or supplied them, cannot choose
But they must blab--
HERMIONE: Oh, you're just being provocative now.
GOYLE: Huh?
HERMIONE: Basically, he just said, "Well, what if I told you he said your
mother dressed you funny?"
GOYLE: [impressed] Wow. You're smart.
DEAN: Hath he said any thing?
GOYLE: [helpfully] Your mum dresses you funny.
DRACO: He hath, my lord; but be you well assured,
No more than he'll unswear.
DEAN: What hath he said?
DRACO: 'Faith, that he did--I know not what he did.
HARRY: A little shaky on the dismount there, Iago.
DEAN: What? what?
DRACO: Lie--
DEAN: With her?
DRACO: With her, on her; what you will.
SEAMUS: Ooh, now we're getting somewhere! Do we get details?
DEAN: Lie with her! lie on her! We say lie on her, when
they belie her. Lie with her! that's fulsome.
--Handkerchief--confessions--handkerchief!--To
confess, and be hanged for his labour;--first, to be
hanged, and then to confess.--I tremble at it.
Nature would not invest herself in such shadowing
passion without some instruction. It is not words
that shake me thus. Pish! Noses, ears, and lips.
--Is't possible?--Confess--handkerchief!--O devil!--
[DEAN looks at his script, then shrugs and sits on the ground crosslegged and
shuts his eyes.]
DEAN: Ommmmm...
LOCKHART: Mr. Thomas, what exactly are you doing? In no instance does this
script call for transcendental meditation.
DEAN: I'm in a trance.
HERMIONE: Dean, that means an epileptic fit.
DEAN: Oh. [He immediately collapses over onto his side and starts flopping
around like a landed fish]
DRACO: Work on,
My medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught;
And many worthy and chaste dames even thus,
All guiltless, meet reproach. What, ho! my lord!
My lord, I say! Othello!
[Enter HARRY. DEAN's flopping around causes him to fall off the stage]
How now, Cassio!
HARRY: What's the matter?
DRACO: My lord is fall'n into an epilepsy:
This is his second fit; he had one yesterday.
[from in front of the stage come muffled sounds of pain]
HARRY: Rub him about the temples.
SEAMUS: [runs over to where DEAN is lying] Oh, sure, Harry. That's really
going to help.
DRACO: No, forbear;
The lethargy must have his quiet course:
If not, he foams at mouth and by and by
Breaks out to savage madness. Look he stirs:
Do you withdraw yourself a little while,
He will recover straight: when he is gone,
I would on great occasion speak with you.
[Exit HARRY. DEAN crawls back onto the stage]
How is it, general? have you not hurt your head?
SEAMUS: [offstage, darkly] No, but that's the only thing that's not gonna be
bruised tomorrow.
DEAN: Dost thou mock me?
RON: [offstage, sarcastically] Why, whatever gives you *that* idea?
DRACO: [slightly hurt] I mock you! no, by heaven.
Would you would bear your fortune like a man!
DEAN: A horned man's a monster and a beast.
GINNY: Well, that or has serious fashion issues.
DRACO: There's many a beast then in a populous city,
And many a civil monster.
DEAN: Did he confess it?
HARRY: Yes, he killed the butler in the water closet with the apple core. You
win.
DRACO: Good sir, be a man;
Think every bearded fellow that's but yoked
May draw with you: there's millions now alive
That nightly lie in those unproper beds
Which they dare swear peculiar: your case is better.
O, 'tis the spite of hell, the fiend's arch-mock,
To lip a wanton in a secure couch,
And to suppose her chaste! No, let me know;
And knowing what I am, I know what she shall be.
DEAN: O, thou art wise; 'tis certain.
RON: [darkly] A wise guy, maybe.
DRACO: Stand you awhile apart;
Confine yourself but in a patient list.
Whilst you were here o'erwhelmed with your grief--
A passion most unsuiting such a man--
Cassio came hither: I shifted him away,
And laid good 'scuse upon your ecstasy,
Bade him anon return and here speak with me;
The which he promised. Do but encave yourself,
And mark the fleers, the gibes, and notable scorns,
That dwell in every region of his face;
For I will make him tell the tale anew,
Where, how, how oft, how long ago, and when
He hath, and is again to cope your wife:
I say, but mark his gesture. Marry, patience;
Or I shall say you are all in all in spleen,
And nothing of a man.
DEAN: Dost thou hear, Iago?
I will be found most cunning in my patience;
But--dost thou hear?--most bloody.
SEAMUS: Nothing wrong with a *little* blood, Dean....
DRACO: That's not amiss;
But yet keep time in all. Will you withdraw?
[DEAN moves to far stage right]
Now will I question Cassio of Bianca,
A housewife that by selling her desires
Buys herself bread and clothes: it is a creature
That dotes on Cassio; as 'tis the strumpet's plague
To beguile many and be beguiled by one:
He, when he hears of her, cannot refrain
From the excess of laughter. Here he comes:
[Re-enter HARRY, stage left]
As he shall smile, Othello shall go mad;
And his unbookish jealousy must construe
Poor Cassio's smiles, gestures and light behavior,
Quite in the wrong. How do you now, lieutenant?
HARRY: The worser that you give me the addition
Whose want even kills me.
DRACO: [consolingly] Ply Desdemona well, and you are sure on't.
[He lowers his voice]
Now, if this suit lay in Bianca's power,
How quickly should you speed!
HARRY: Alas, poor caitiff!
DEAN: Look, how he laughs already!
DRACO: I never knew woman love man so.
HARRY: Alas, poor rogue! I think, i' faith, she loves me.
COLIN: Pansy?! No-one ever tells me *anything*....
DEAN: Now he denies it faintly, and laughs it out.
DRACO: Do you hear, Cassio?
DEAN: Now he importunes him
To tell it o'er: go to; well said, well said.
DRACO: She gives it out that you shall marry her:
Do you intend it?
[HARRY just laughs and shakes his head]
DEAN: Do you triumph, Roman? do you triumph?
COLIN: Harry's not Italian, Dean....
HARRY: I marry her! what? a customer! Prithee, bear some charity to my wit: do
not think it so unwholesome.
DEAN: So, so, so, so: they laugh that win.
SEAMUS: And losers weepers. So there.
DRACO: 'Faith, the cry goes that you shall marry her.
HARRY: Prithee, say true.
DRACO: I am a very villain else.
RON: You're a villain anyway. So what?
DEAN: Have you scored me? Well.
CRABBE: [panicked] We're 'posed to be keepin' score?!
HARRY: This is the monkey's own giving out: she is
persuaded I will marry her, out of her own love and
flattery, not out of my promise.
[DRACO laughs, turning one of his hand motions into a discreet beckoning to
DEAN]
DEAN: Iago beckons me; now he begins the story.
HARRY: She was here even now; she haunts me in every place. I was the
other day talking on the sea-bank with certain Venetians; and thither comes
the bauble, and, by this hand, she falls me thus about my neck--
DEAN: Crying 'O dear Cassio!' as it were: his gesture
imports it.
HARRY: So hangs, and lolls, and weeps upon me; so hales, and pulls me: ha,
ha, ha!
DEAN: Now he tells how she plucked him to my chamber. O, I see that nose of
yours, but not that dog I shall throw it to.
CRABBE: [hopeful] Puppy?
HARRY: Well, I must leave her company.
DRACO: Before me! look, where she comes. [under his breath] Hide me....
HARRY: [also under his breath] You have to suffer for your art, don't you know
that? [more loudly] 'Tis such another fitchew! marry a perfumed one.
[PANSY stomps onstage]
What do you mean by this haunting of me?
PANSY: [shrilly] Let the devil and his dam haunt you! What did you mean by
that same handkerchief you gave me even now? I was a fine fool to take it. I
must take out the work?--A likely piece of work, that you should find it
in your chamber, and not know who left it there! This is some minx's token,
and I must take out the work? There; give it your hobby-horse: wheresoever
you had it, I'll take out no work on't.
HARRY: How now, my sweet Bianca! how now! how now!
DEAN: By heaven, that should be my handkerchief!
PANSY: An you'll come to supper to-night, you may; an you will not, come when
you are next prepared for.
[She flounces offstage in a huff, leaving HARRY with the pink scarf]
GINNY: [mystified] How'd she get that back? Didn't Harry have it last?
DRACO: After her, after her.
HARRY: 'Faith, I must; she'll rail in the street else.
DRACO: Will you sup there?
HARRY: 'Faith, I intend so.
DRACO: Well, I may chance to see you; for I would very fain speak with you.
HARRY: Prithee, come; will you? [undertone] Don't leave me alone with
*her*....
SEAMUS: [offstage] Oops, Harry's lost it.[sing- songing] Harry... it's a
*play*... it's not *real*...Harry....
DRACO: [smiling] Go to; say no more.
[Exit HARRY, who gets as far away from PANSY as he can]
DEAN: [Advancing to center stage] How shall I murder him, Iago?
DRACO: Did you perceive how he laughed at his vice?
DEAN: O Iago!
DRACO: And did you see the handkerchief?
SEAMUS: Yeah, he sneezed in it. I saw him.
DEAN: Was that mine?
SEAMUS: Well, it *was*. You sure you want it back now?
DRACO: Yours by this hand: and to see how he prizes the
foolish woman your wife! she gave it him, and he
hath given it his whore.
COLIN: Wow, when you put it like that, it sounds a little cold, doesn't it?
HERMIONE: Yes, Colin. Do you want to be gagged again?
COLIN: But I didn't do anything!
HERMIONE: Do you?
COLIN: [pouty] No.
HERMIONE: Then shut up.
DEAN: I would have him nine years a-killing.
A fine woman! a fair woman! a sweet woman!
DRACO: Nay, you must forget that.
SEAMUS: Yeah, it could spoil his whole plan if you don't.
DEAN: Ay, let her rot, and perish, and be damned to-night; for she shall
not live: no, my heart is turned to stone; I strike it, and it hurts my
hand. O, the world hath not a sweeter creature: she might lie by an
emperor's side and command him tasks.
DRACO: Nay, that's not your way.
SEAMUS: Wanna bet?
DEAN: Hang her! I do but say what she is: so delicate
with her needle: an admirable musician: O! she
will sing the savageness out of a bear: of so high
and plenteous wit and invention:--
DRACO: She's the worse for all this.
DEAN: O, a thousand thousand times: and then, of so
gentle a condition!
SEAMUS: Hey, I'm gentle!
DRACO: Ay, too gentle.
DEAN: Nay, that's certain: but yet the pity of it, Iago! O Iago, the pity of
it, Iago!
RON: Oh, the pain, the pain...
DRACO: If you are so fond over her iniquity, give her
patent to offend; for, if it touch not you, it comes
near nobody.
HARRY: Ha! Take that!
DEAN: I will chop her into messes: cuckold me!
DRACO: O, 'tis foul in her.
DEAN: With mine officer!
SEAMUS: More kink!
DRACO: That's fouler.
SEAMUS: Nuh-*uh*!
DEAN: Get me some poison, Iago; this night: I'll not
expostulate with her, lest her body and beauty
unprovide my mind again: this night, Iago.
DRACO: Do it not with poison, strangle her in her bed, even the bed she hath
contaminated.
HERMIONE: Poetic injustice....
DEAN: Good, good: the justice of it pleases: very good.
DRACO: And for Cassio, let me be his undertaker: you
shall hear more by midnight.
RON: Already got a headstone picked out and everything....
DEAN: Excellent good.
[There is a brief silence. DEAN frowns, then shrugs.]
...What trumpet is that same?
DRACO: Something from Venice, sure. 'Tis Lodovico
Come from the duke: and, see, your wife is with him.
[Enter NEVILLE with his teddy bear and GINNY. They are flanked by CRABBE and
GOYLE. CRABBE is scribbling in COLIN's script]
NEVILLE: Saveyouworthygeneral?
DEAN: With all my heart, sir.
NEVILLE: The...the...the.... [He goes white and sways on his feet]
HERMIONE: [encouragingly] Just relax, Neville. It'll be over soon.
NEVILLE: [speaking into his teddy bear] The duke and senators of Venice greet
you?
[Everyone stands still for a minute, then GOYLE, seized by a flash of
inspiration, takes NEVILLE's teddy bear and gives it to DEAN.]
NEVILLE: [shrieks] BOBO!!
DEAN: I kiss the instrument of their pleasures.
SEAMUS: [offstage, wide-eyed] No *wonder* the man's a general!
LOCKHART: Mind out of the gutter, if you please, Mr. Finnegan.
[DEAN holds the teddy bear at arm's length for a moment, then holds it up to his
ear as if listening to it]
GINNY: And what's the news, good cousin Lodovico?
DRACO: [bowing] I am very glad to see you, signior
Welcome to Cyprus.
NEVILLE: [grabbing at his teddy bear. DEAN dodges deftly out of the way] I
thank you How does Lieutenant Cassio?
DRACO: Lives, sir.
GINNY: Cousin, there's fall'n between him and my lord
An unkind breach: but you shall make all well.
DEAN: Are you sure of that?
GINNY: My lord?
DEAN: [To Bobo] 'This fail you not to do, as you will--'
NEVILLE: [tries again to get Bobo away from DEAN]
He did not call he's busy in the paper Is there division 'twixt my lord and
Cassio?
GINNY: A most unhappy one: I would do much
To atone them, for the love I bear to Cassio.
DEAN: [throttles Bobo] Fire and brimstone!
GINNY: [startled] My lord?
DEAN: [to Bobo] Are you wise?
GINNY: What, is he angry?
NEVILLE: May be the letter moved him For, as I think, they do command him
home Deputing Cassio in his government?
GINNY: Trust me, I am glad on't.
DEAN: Indeed!
GINNY: My lord?
DEAN: I am glad to see you mad.
COLIN: I didn't know teddy bears could get mad....
GINNY: Why, sweet Othello,--
DEAN: [Slaps her] Devil!
RON: Hey! Knock it off, Dean, or I swear I'll....
GINNY: I have not deserved this.
NEVILLE: My lord this would not be believed in Venice Though I should swear I
saw't 'tis very much Make her amends she weeps?
DEAN: [shaking Bobo, still gripping it firmly around the neck]
O devil, devil!
If that the earth could teem with woman's tears,
Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.
Out of my sight!
GINNY: I will not stay to offend you.
[Exit GINNY, massaging her face]
SEAMUS: Well, now both the Weasleys have been smacked in the face. Who's next,
then?
NEVILLE: Truly, an obedient lady I do beseech your lordship call her back?
DEAN: Mistress!
GINNY: [poking her head out onto the stage] My lord?
DEAN: What would you with her, sir?
SEAMUS: Ask a stupid question...
NEVILLE: [blushes and forgets stage fright] Who, I, my lord?
DEAN: Ay; you did wish that I would make her turn:
Sir, she can turn, and turn, and yet go on,
And turn again; and she can weep, sir, weep;
And she's obedient, as you say, obedient,
Very obedient. Proceed you in your tears.
Concerning this, sir,--O well-painted passion!--
I am commanded home. Get you away;
I'll send for you anon. Sir, I obey the mandate,
And will return to Venice. Hence, avaunt!
[Re-exit GINNY, in a huff]
Cassio shall have my place. And, sir, tonight,
I do entreat that we may sup together:
You are welcome, sir, to Cyprus.--Goats and monkeys!
[Exit DEAN, who immediately goes over to GINNY and begins apologizing. He gives
her Bobo the teddy bear]
GINNY: [sniffley] You just don't want Ron to beat you to a pulp.
DEAN: Well, there's that, too.
NEVILLE: Is this the noble Moor whom our full senate
Call all in all sufficient? Is this the nature
Whom passion could not shake? whose solid virtue
The shot of accident, nor dart of chance,
Could neither graze nor pierce?
HERMIONE: [impressed] Neville?
DRACO: He is much changed.
NEVILLE: Are his wits safe? is he not light of brain?
DRACO: He's that he is: I may not breathe my censure
What he might be: if what he might he is not,
I would to heaven he were!
NEVILLE: What, strike his wife!
DRACO: 'Faith, that was not so well; yet would I knew
That stroke would prove the worst!
NEVILLE: Is it his use?
Or did the letters work upon his blood,
And new-create this fault?
SEAMUS: Who are you and what did you do with the guy who threw up on Hermione's
shoes two acts ago?
DRACO: Alas, alas!
It is not honesty in me to speak
What I have seen and known. You shall observe him,
And his own courses will denote him so
That I may save my speech: do but go after,
And mark how he continues.
NEVILLE: [sadly] I am sorry that I am deceived in him.
[All exit. A round of applause goes up for NEVILLE, started by HARRY and DRACO]
HERMIONE: [kisses NEVILLE on the cheek] I knew you had it in you, Neville!
NEVILLE: ...It wasn't so bad... can I have Bobo back now?
GOYLE: I have a headache.
End scene I
A/N: It's getting harder to be funny, so this scene is *really* weird.
Sorry in advance.
The Play's the Thing: Act IV scene ii
[Enter DEAN and HERMIONE. DEAN is lagging a few paces behind HERMIONE, who
is walking around the stage in large circles]
DEAN: You have seen nothing then?
HERMIONE: Nor ever heard, nor ever did suspect.
RON: [imitating HERMIONE] I always wondered why my lady made me wear a
blindfold all the time...
DEAN: Yet, you have seen Cassio and she together.
SEAMUS: Threesome? Not fair! Harry, how come I wasn't invited?
HARRY: Wasn't it you who said last scene that this was just a play? It's
not real.
SEAMUS: That was then! This is...
DRACO: This is when your hormones go into overdrive, Finnegan?
HERMIONE: But then I saw no harm, and then I heard
Each syllable that breath made up between them.
DEAN: What, did they never whisper?
HERMIONE: Never, my lord.
DEAN: Nor send you out o' the way?
HERMIONE: Never.
RON: [imitating HERMIONE again] Although they did lock me in the closet
once...
COLIN: Wow! How'd you get out?
RON: I just... I just opened the door and out I came.
DRACO: Out of the mouths of babes....
DEAN: To fetch her fan, her gloves, her mask, nor nothing?
HERMIONE: Never, my lord.
SEAMUS: Desdemona wears a mask? I thought she was supposed to be pretty....
DEAN: That's strange.
SEAMUS: You're telling me.
HERMIONE: I durst, my lord, to wager she is honest,
Lay down my soul at stake: if you think other,
Remove your thought; it doth abuse your bosom.
If any wretch have put this in your head,
Let heaven requite it with the serpent's curse!
For, if she be not honest, chaste, and true,
There's no man happy; the purest of their wives
Is foul as slander.
SEAMUS: [whistles] Rise up, feminist agenda! Let us feel your teeth and
claws... and whips... and... ahem. [looks around] Did I say that out loud?
DEAN: Bid her come hither: go.
[Exit HERMIONE, with a curtsy]
She says enough; yet she's a simple bawd
That cannot say as much. This is a subtle whore,
A closet lock and key of villanous secrets
And yet she'll kneel and pray; I have seen her do't.
[Enter GINNY, followed closely by HERMIONE]
GINNY: My lord, what is your will?
DEAN: Pray, chuck, come hither.
GINNY: What is your pleasure?
SEAMUS: Well, *that* would take a while....
DEAN: Let me see your eyes;
Look in my face.
SEAMUS: No, no, no, you're starting all wrong!
GINNY: What horrible fancy's this?
DEAN: [To HERMIONE] Some of your function, mistress;
Leave procreants alone and shut the door;
Cough, or cry 'hem,' if any body come:
Your mystery, your mystery: nay, dispatch.
[Exit HERMIONE, curtsying again]
GINNY: Upon my knees, what doth your speech import?
I understand a fury in your words.
But not the words.
SEAMUS: On your knees? Now we're talking!
[RON casually puts SEAMUS in a headlock]
RON: You realize you're talking about my little sister... don't you, Seamus?
SEAMUS: [choking] Yeah... yeah... I'm just clowning, really! I'm sorry!
RON: [releasing him] That's better.
SEAMUS: [pulling out crossed fingers from behind his back and muttering
under his breath] Not.
DEAN: Why, what art thou?
DRACO: People are very fond of that question, for some reason.
GINNY: Your wife, my lord; your true
And loyal wife.
SEAMUS: That's what you think.
DEAN: Come, swear it, damn thyself
Lest, being like one of heaven, the devils themselves
Should fear to seize thee: therefore be double damn'd:
Swear thou art honest.
GINNY: Heaven doth truly know it.
SEAMUS: And a few other people do too, but we're not talking about that now,
are we?
DEAN: Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell.
SEAMUS: That's what I just said!
GINNY: To whom, my lord? with whom? how am I false?
SEAMUS: [running across the stage to get away from RON] The whipped cream
was going a bit far, Des.
DEAN: O Desdemona! away! away! away!
GINNY: Alas the heavy day! Why do you weep?
Am I the motive of these tears, my lord?
If haply you my father do suspect
An instrument of this your calling back,
Lay not your blame on me: If you have lost him,
Why, I have lost him too.
COLIN: What does your dad have to with anything, Ginny?
CRABBE: ...duckies...
COLIN: I don't think so... do people *get* this upset over ducks?
CRABBE: No, look. Duckies.
COLIN: Oh, hey! Look, I can draw an elephant.
DEAN: Had it pleased heaven
To try me with affliction; had they rain'd
All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head.
Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips,
Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes,
I should have found in some place of my soul
A drop of patience: but, alas, to make me
A fixed figure for the time of scorn
To point his slow unmoving finger at!
Yet could I bear that too; well, very well:
But there, where I have garner'd up my heart,
Where either I must live, or bear no life;
The fountain from the which my current runs,
Or else dries up; to be discarded thence!
Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads
To knot and gender in! Turn thy complexion there,
Patience, thou young and rose-lipp'd cherubin,--
Ay, there, look grim as hell!
HARRY: Not very subtle, is he?
DRACO: No, not really.
GINNY: I hope my noble lord esteems me honest.
SEAMUS: He doesn't!
DEAN: O, ay; as summer flies are in the shambles,
That quicken even with blowing. O thou weed,
Who art so lovely fair and smell'st so sweet
That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst
ne'er been born!
GINNY: Alas, what ignorant sin have I committed?
SEAMUS: I told you! The whipped cream was going too far!
[RON tackles SEAMUS from behind. They fight. Eventually the Luggage rouses
itself from where it's been sleeping and follows them around.]
LOCKHART: [to Luggage] Don't kill them until after the final performance,
all right? You can go hunt squirrels when we're done here.
DEAN: Was this fair paper, this most goodly book,
Made to write 'whore' upon? What committed!
Committed! O thou public commoner!
I should make very forges of my cheeks,
That would to cinders burn up modesty,
Did I but speak thy deeds. What committed!
Heaven stops the nose at it and the moon winks,
The bawdy wind that kisses all it meets
Is hush'd within the hollow mine of earth,
And will not hear it. What committed!
Impudent strumpet!
GINNY: By heaven, you do me wrong.
DEAN: Are you not a strumpet?
GINNY: No, as I am a Christian:
If to preserve this vessel for my lord
From any other foul unlawful touch
Be not to be a strumpet, I am none.
DEAN: What, not a whore?
[SEAMUS makes some weak gurgling sounds around the gag RON has forced into
his mouth. The Luggage is circling him like a vulture]
GINNY: No, as I shall be saved.
DEAN: Is't possible?
GINNY: O, heaven forgive us!
DEAN: I cry you mercy, then:
I took you for that cunning whore of Venice
That married with Othello.
[Raising his voice]
You, mistress,
That have the office opposite to Saint Peter,
And keep the gate of hell!
RON: Does anyone but me think that's a little harsh?
[Re-enter HERMIONE, trying very hard not to look angry]
DEAN: You, you, ay, you!
We have done our course; there's money for your pains:
I pray you, turn the key and keep our counsel.
[Exit DEAN off the front of the stage with a dramatic swirl of his cloak]
HERMIONE: Alas, what does this gentleman conceive?
How do you, madam? how do you, my good lady?
GINNY: 'Faith, half asleep.
HERMIONE: Good madam, what's the matter with my lord?
GINNY: With who?
HERMIONE: Why, with my lord, madam.
GINNY: Who is thy lord?
SEAMUS: [undoing the gag] Is that a trick question? Ron, next time tie up
my hands if you want me to stay gagged, okay?
HERMIONE: He that is yours, sweet lady.
GINNY: I have none: do not talk to me, Emilia;
I cannot weep; nor answer have I none,
But what should go by water. Prithee, tonight
Lay on my bed my wedding sheets: remember;
And call thy husband hither.
RON: Even one word, Seamus, and you're not going to escape short of someone
getting through me to untie you.
SEAMUS: ...Promise?
HERMIONE: Here's a change indeed!
[Exit HERMIONE]
GINNY: 'Tis meet I should be used so, very meet.
How have I been behaved, that he might stick
The small'st opinion on my least misuse?
[Re-enter HERMIONE with DRACO]
DRACO: What is your pleasure, madam?
How is't with you?
SEAMUS: A little... [glances at RON] disappointing, actually. [to RON]
See, I can behave!
RON: Hmp. I'll believe that when you keep it up.
GINNY: I cannot tell. Those that do teach young babes
Do it with gentle means and easy tasks:
He might have chid me so; for, in good faith,
I am a child to chiding.
DRACO: What's the matter, lady?
HARRY: Stabbing pains... right here....
RON: Harry! Not you too!
HARRY: What?
HERMIONE: Alas, Iago, my lord hath so bewhored her.
Thrown such despite and heavy terms upon her,
As true hearts cannot bear.
SEAMUS: Bewhored? That's a word? I wonder if I can work it into a History
of Magic report.
GINNY: Am I that name, Iago?
DRACO: What name, fair lady?
HARRY: Desdemona. Is she?
GINNY: Such as she says my lord did say I was.
SEAMUS: Come on... you can say it, you're a big girl....
HERMIONE: He call'd her whore: a beggar in his drink
Could not have laid such terms upon his callat.
SEAMUS: See? Hermione can say it.
DRACO: Why did he so?
GINNY: I do not know; I am sure I am none such.
DRACO: Do not weep, do not weep. Alas the day!
HERMIONE: Hath she forsook so many noble matches,
Her father and her country and her friends,
To be call'd whore? would it not make one weep?
GINNY: It is my wretched fortune.
DRACO: Beshrew him for't!
How comes this trick upon him?
RON: Oh, silly us. We thought *you* set him up!
GINNY: Nay, heaven doth know.
HERMIONE: I will be hang'd, if some eternal villain,
Some busy and insinuating rogue,
Some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office,
Have not devised this slander; I'll be hang'd else.
RON: Could it be that you're *married* to the little ferret? Hmmm....
SEAMUS: Don't mince words, Hermione! Say what you mean!
DRACO: Fie, there is no such man; it is impossible.
GINNY: If any such there be, heaven pardon him!
HERMIONE: A halter pardon him! and hell gnaw his bones!
Why should he call her whore? who keeps her company?
What place? what time? what form? what likelihood?
The Moor's abused by some most villanous knave,
Some base notorious knave, some scurvy fellow.
O heaven, that such companions thou'ldst unfold,
And put in every honest hand a whip
To lash the rascals naked through the world
Even from the east to the west!
DRACO: Speak within door.
HERMIONE: O, fie upon them! Some such squire he was
That turn'd your wit the seamy side without,
And made you to suspect me with the Moor.
COLIN: You and Dean? But I thought....
RON: [darkly] You thought what?
SEAMUS: [grinning] Yes, what?
COLIN: [miserably] No-one ever tells me *anything*.
DRACO: You are a fool; go to.
GINNY: O good Iago,
What shall I do to win my lord again?
Good friend, go to him; for, by this light of heaven,
I know not how I lost him. Here I kneel:
If e'er my will did trespass 'gainst his love,
Either in discourse of thought or actual deed,
Or that mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense,
Delighted them in any other form;
Or that I do not yet, and ever did.
And ever will--though he do shake me off
To beggarly divorcement--love him dearly,
Comfort forswear me! Unkindness may do much;
And his unkindness may defeat my life,
But never taint my love. I cannot say 'whore:'
It does abhor me now I speak the word;
To do the act that might the addition earn
Not the world's mass of vanity could make me.
DRACO: I pray you, be content; 'tis but his humour:
The business of the state does him offence,
And he does chide with you.
GINNY: If 'twere no other--
DRACO: 'Tis but so, I warrant.
HARRY: Sure. Go believe a supervillain, see what we care.
[NEVILLE fetches Bobo from where GINNY dropped it between scenes and in so
doing trips over his own feet with a loud crash]
DRACO: Hark, how these instruments summon to supper!
The messengers of Venice stay the meat;
Go in, and weep not; all things shall be well.
[Exit HERMIONE and GINNY. GINNY is crying a little too hard and her face is
beginning to get blotchy. Enter RON]
DRACO: How now, Roderigo!
RON: I do not find that thou dealest justly with me.
SEAMUS: No, really?
DRACO: What in the contrary?
RON: Every day thou daffest me with some device, Iago;
and rather, as it seems to me now, keepest from me
all conveniency than suppliest me with the least
advantage of hope. I will indeed no longer endure
it, nor am I yet persuaded to put up in peace what
already I have foolishly suffered.
DRACO: Will you hear me, Roderigo?
SEAMUS: Sadly, yes.
RON: 'Faith, I have heard too much, for your words and
performances are no kin together.
DRACO: You charge me most unjustly.
DEAN: [aggrieved] Everyone wants the discount rate....
RON: With nought but truth. I have wasted myself out of
my means. The jewels you have had from me to
deliver to Desdemona would half have corrupted a
votarist: you have told me she hath received them
and returned me expectations and comforts of sudden
respect and acquaintance, but I find none.
DRACO: Well; go to; very well.
RON: Very well! go to! I cannot go to, man; nor 'tis
not very well: nay, I think it is scurvy, and begin
to find myself fobbed in it.
GOYLE: [helpfully] Vitamin C'll clear that scurvy right up.
DRACO: Very well.
RON: I tell you 'tis not very well. I will make myself
known to Desdemona: if she will return me my
jewels, I will give over my suit and repent my
unlawful solicitation; if not, assure yourself I
will seek satisfaction of you.
DRACO: You have said now.
RON: Ay, and said nothing but what I protest intendment of doing.
DEAN: Huh?
DRACO: Why, now I see there's mettle in thee, and even from
this instant to build on thee a better opinion than
ever before. Give me thy hand, Roderigo: thou hast
taken against me a most just exception; but yet, I
protest, I have dealt most directly in thy affair.
SEAMUS: *Now* is the time to drown kittens and blind puppies!
CRABBE: Puppies! Don't hurt the puppies! [He starts to cry.]
RON: It hath not appeared.
DRACO: I grant indeed it hath not appeared, and your
suspicion is not without wit and judgment. But,
Roderigo, if thou hast that in thee indeed, which I
have greater reason to believe now than ever, I mean
purpose, courage and valour, this night show it: if
thou the next night following enjoy not Desdemona,
take me from this world with treachery and devise
engines for my life.
SEAMUS: And I have some lovely oceanfront property in Austria if you want
it...
RON: Well, what is it? is it within reason and compass?
DRACO: Sir, there is especial commission come from Venice
to depute Cassio in Othello's place.
RON: Is that true? why, then Othello and Desdemona
return again to Venice.
DRACO: O, no; he goes into Mauritania and takes away with
him the fair Desdemona, unless his abode be
lingered here by some accident: wherein none can be
so determinate as the removing of Cassio.
RON: How do you mean, removing of him?
DRACO: Why, by making him uncapable of Othello's place;
knocking out his brains.
SEAMUS: Pink slips are so passe.
RON: And that you would have me to do?
DRACO: Ay, if you dare do yourself a profit and a right.
He sups to-night with a harlotry, and thither will I
go to him: he knows not yet of his horrorable
fortune. If you will watch his going thence, which
I will fashion to fall out between twelve and one,
you may take him at your pleasure: I will be near
to second your attempt, and he shall fall between
us. Come, stand not amazed at it, but go along with
me; I will show you such a necessity in his death
that you shall think yourself bound to put it on
him. It is now high suppertime, and the night grows
to waste: about it.
RON: I will hear further reason for this.
DEAN: DO you really think it'll help? he's been twisting you around his
little finger through the entire play!
DRACO: And you shall be satisfied.
[Exit both DRACO and DEAN. SEAMUS, offstage, is holding a coil of rope.]
SEAMUS: See, if you want someone to stay gagged, you need to tie them up
like that, Ron.
RON: Yeah, but I'm not gagged.
SEAMUS: Do you want to be?
RON: No, not really.
SEAMUS: Don't complain then. Now try and escape. It's part of the fun.
DRACO: I'm not asking. I'm really not asking.
DEAN: Seamus, is that a half-hitch?
SEAMUS: No, a granny...
HERMIONE: You've done it all wrong. See, it's like *this*...
RON: Ow! Hermione!
HARRY: I'm not asking either.
End scene ii
The Play's the Thing: Act IV scene iii
[Enter DEAN, NEVILLE, GINNY, and HERMIONE. RON is still tied up offstage,
but now he's gagged and trying to escape]
NEVILLE: I do beseech you, sir, trouble yourself no further.
RON: grft!
COLIN: Now you know how I felt! Are you sorry?
RON: nrgl!
COLIN: Say you're sorry and I'll untie you...
HARRY: He's gagged, Colin. How can he say he's sorry?
SEAMUS: Pay no attention to Harry, Colin. He's a wet blanket, always trying
to ruin our fun.
DEAN: O, pardon me: 'twill do me good to walk.
NEVILLE: Madam, good night; I humbly thank your ladyship.
GINNY: Your honour is most welcome.
SEAMUS: But I'd rather have your body...
DEAN: Will you walk, sir?
O,--Desdemona,--
GINNY: My lord?
DEAN: Get you to bed on the instant; I will be returned
forthwith: dismiss your attendant there: look it be done.
SEAMUS: See? That's your problem, Dean, you're so narrow-minded....
GINNY: I will, my lord.
SEAMUS: Spoilsport.
[Exit DEAN and NEVILLE. DEAN immediately goes over to watch RON trying to
escape his bonds.]
HERMIONE: How goes it now? he looks gentler than he did.
SEAMUS: He's not coming at me with a broadsword any more, and that's usually
a plus.
GINNY: He says he will return incontinent:
He hath commanded me to go to bed,
And bade me to dismiss you.
DEAN: I should say so, if he's returning incontinent. To and from the
chamber pot all night long... it won't be pretty.
SEAMUS: Oh, I don't know about *that*.
HERMIONE: Dismiss me!
SEAMUS: Fired, pink slip, join the unemployment brigade, clean out your
desk, see the security guys for a full cavity search, the works.
GINNY: It was his bidding: therefore, good Emilia,.
Give me my nightly wearing, and adieu:
We must not now displease him.
HERMIONE: I would you had never seen him!
DEAN: That's low, Hermione!
GINNY: So would not I
my love doth so approve him,
That even his stubbornness, his cheques, his frowns--
Prithee, unpin me,--have grace and favour in them.
HERMIONE: I have laid those sheets you bade me on the bed.
SEAMUS: The silk ones with the leopard pattern, right?
COLIN: What bed?
GINNY: All's one. Good faith, how foolish are our minds!
If I do die before thee prithee, shroud me
In one of those same sheets.
SEAMUS: Ooh, nice image....
DEAN: [offstage, in an undertone] Note to self, find Mum's old sheets in the
attic. The ones I'm not supposed to know about.... [louder] Hey, Crabbe,
can I borrow your quill?
CRABBE: No. Drawing kitties.
RON: ngh! smscrpt!
HERMIONE: Come, come you talk.
SEAMUS: Well, he gets points for trying, anyway... hey, Neville, where'd you
learn how to gag people like that?
GINNY: My mother had a maid call'd Barbara:
She was in love, and he she loved proved mad
And did forsake her: she had a song of 'willow;'
An old thing 'twas, but it express'd her fortune,
And she died singing it: that song to-night
Will not go from my mind; I have much to do,
But to go hang my head all at one side,
And sing it like poor Barbara. Prithee, dispatch.
HARRY: Sure. Girl falls for crazy guy then kills herself. Why *not* sing
her favorite song when you're depressed?
HERMIONE: Shall I go fetch your night-gown?
SEAMUS: Only if you can't find the French maid's outfit....
GINNY: No, unpin me here.
SEAMUS: Yes! Do that! Forget the maid's outfit!
GINNY: This Lodovico is a proper man.
HERMIONE: A very handsome man.
GINNY: He speaks well.
HERMIONE: I know a lady in Venice would have walked barefoot
to Palestine for a touch of his nether lip.
GINNY: [Singing. She has a very poor voice] The poor soul sat sighing by a
sycamore tree,
Sing all a green willow:
Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,
Sing willow, willow, willow:
The fresh streams ran by her, and murmur'd her moans;
Sing willow, willow, willow;
Her salt tears fell from her, and soften'd the stones;
Lay by these:--
Sing willow, willow, willow;
[Everyone offstage except DEAN and GOYLE claps their hands over their ears]
SEAMUS: Banshee!
DEAN: [all starry eyed] Beautiful, isn't it...?
SEAMUS: [looks scared] I need a countercurse over here! Now! She did
somethign to Dean's ears! And I like his ears!
LOCKHART: Singing double... definitely a singing double....
PANSY: I'll do it!
DRACO: You have a worse voice than she does.
PANSY: Are you suggesting you do it?
GINNY: [to HERMIONE, speaking] Prithee, hie thee; he'll come anon:--
HARRY: [eagerly] Dean, get onstage *now*! I don't care about the script!
Keep her from singing any more!
DEAN: You say that like it would be a good thing.
GINNY: [Singing again. Her voice isn't any better] Sing all a green willow
must be my garland.
Let nobody blame him; his scorn I approve,-
[Speaking again] Nay, that's not next.--Hark! who is't that knocks?
SEAMUS: It's Dean! It's Dean! Stop singing!
HERMIONE: It's the wind.
SEAMUS: [muttering] Traitor.
GINNY: [Singing] I call'd my love false love; but what said he then?
Sing willow, willow, willow:
If I court moe women, you'll couch with moe men!
GOYLE: [entranced] Pretty....
GINNY: [speaking normally] So, get thee gone; good night. My eyes do itch;
Doth that bode weeping?
DEAN: Well, I feel like crying.
DRACO: You speak for all of us, but we have different reasons.
HERMIONE: 'Tis neither here nor there.
GINNY: I have heard it said so. O, these men, these men!
Dost thou in conscience think,--tell me, Emilia,--
That there be women do abuse their husbands
In such gross kind?
HERMIONE: There be some such, no question.
SEAMUS: Do you have addresses?
GINNY: Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?
HERMIONE: Why, would not you?
GINNY: No, by this heavenly light!
HERMIONE: Nor I neither by this heavenly light;
I might do't as well i' the dark.
SEAMUS: Ooh... Can I have that in writing, Hermione?
GINNY: Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?
HERMIONE: The world's a huge thing: it is a great price.
For a small vice.
SEAMUS: [injured] Small?
HARRY: Hermione calls 'em like she sees 'em, Seamus.
GINNY: In troth, I think thou wouldst not.
HERMIONE: In troth, I think I should; and undo't when I had
done. Marry, I would not do such a thing for a
joint-ring, nor for measures of lawn, nor for
gowns, petticoats, nor caps, nor any petty
exhibition; but for the whole world,--why, who would
not make her husband a cuckold to make him a
monarch? I should venture purgatory for't.
GINNY: Beshrew me, if I would do such a wrong
For the whole world.
HERMIONE: Why the wrong is but a wrong i' the world: and
having the world for your labour, tis a wrong in your
own world, and you might quickly make it right.
SEAMUS: Make it right, Hermione! You go, girlfr- Did I say that out loud?
GINNY: I do not think there is any such woman.
DRACO: Naive much?
HERMIONE: Yes, a dozen; and as many to the vantage as would
store the world they played for.
But I do think it is their husbands' faults
If wives do fall: say that they slack their duties,
And pour our treasures into foreign laps,
Or else break out in peevish jealousies,
Throwing restraint upon us; or say they strike us,
Or scant our former having in despite;
Why, we have galls, and though we have some grace,
Yet have we some revenge. Let husbands know
Their wives have sense like them: they see and smell
And have their palates both for sweet and sour,
As husbands have. What is it that they do
When they change us for others? Is it sport?
I think it is: and doth affection breed it?
I think it doth: is't frailty that thus errs?
It is so too: and have not we affections,
Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?
Then let them use us well: else let them know,
The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.
HARRY: Sure, blame the man.
SEAMUS: [all starry-eyed] Ooh, more feminism... when are you going to start
wearing black leather, Hermione?
GINNY: Good night, good night: heaven me such uses send,
Not to pick bad from bad, but by bad mend!
[Exit HERMIONE and GINNY. Offstage, a small crowd has formed around RON and
is watching his renewed struggles avidly]
SEAMUS: Cute, isn't he? I thought he'd be loose by now...
DRACO: You should untie him. He has to go onstage next scene.
SEAMUS: You mean he can't do it like that?
DRACO: No. I have to kill him, so he needs to twitch at least a little.
DEAN: Well, what if we just ungag him?
COLIN: No! I worked really hard on that gag!
SEAMUS: [looking at RON thoughtfully] How do you feel about handcuffs?
NEVILLE: [without thinking] They chafe... [Everyone stares at him] oh, you
weren't talking to me, were you? Never mind....
DRACO: Handcuffs are fine.
[SEAMUS grins. RON tries to crawl away without the use of his arms or legs]
SEAMUS: Come on, Ron, you'll enjoy it....
HERMIONE: [to LOCKHART] Did you spike that pumpkin juice?
LOCKHART: Miss Granger, I'm surprised. Whatever makes you think that?
End Act IV