Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare Part 19

There was never in all Iago's villainy one moment of wavering. If there had been he might have wavered then.

"Strangle her," he said; and "Good, good!" said his miserable dupe.

The pair were still talking murder when Desdemona appeared with a relative of Desdemona's father, called Lodovico, who bore a letter for Oth.e.l.lo from the Duke of Venice. The letter recalled Oth.e.l.lo from Cyprus, and gave the governors.h.i.+p to Ca.s.sio.

Luckless Desdemona seized this unhappy moment to urge once more the suit of Ca.s.sio.

"Fire and brimstone!" shouted Oth.e.l.lo.

"It may be the letter agitates him," explained Lodovico to Desdemona, and he told her what it contained.

"I am glad," said Desdemona. It was the first bitter speech that Oth.e.l.lo's unkindness had wrung out of her.

"I am glad to see you lose your temper," said Oth.e.l.lo.

"Why, sweet Oth.e.l.lo?" she asked, sarcastically; and Oth.e.l.lo slapped her face.

Now was the time for Desdemona to have saved her life by separation, but she knew not her peril--only that her love was wounded to the core. "I have not deserved this," she said, and the tears rolled slowly down her face.

Lodovico was shocked and disgusted. "My lord," he said, "this would not be believed in Venice. Make her amends;" but, like a madman talking in his nightmare, Oth.e.l.lo poured out his foul thought in ugly speech, and roared, "Out of my sight!"

"I will not stay to offend you," said his wife, but she lingered even in going, and only when he shouted "Avaunt!" did she leave her husband and his guests.

Oth.e.l.lo then invited Lodovico to supper, adding, "You are welcome, sir, to Cyprus. Goats and monkeys!" Without waiting for a reply he left the company.

Distinguished visitors detest being obliged to look on at family quarrels, and dislike being called either goats or monkeys, and Lodovico asked Iago for an explanation.

True to himself, Iago, in a round-about way, said that Oth.e.l.lo was worse than he seemed, and advised them to study his behavior and save him from the discomfort of answering any more questions.

He proceeded to tell Roderigo to murder Ca.s.sio. Roderigo was out of tune with his friend. He had given Iago quant.i.ties of jewels for Desdemona without effect; Desdemona had seen none of them, for Iago was a thief.

Iago smoothed him with a lie, and when Ca.s.sio was leaving Bianca's house, Roderigo wounded him, and was wounded in return. Ca.s.sio shouted, and Lodovico and a friend came running up. Ca.s.sio pointed out Roderigo as his a.s.sailant, and Iago, hoping to rid himself of an inconvenient friend, called him "Villain!" and stabbed him, but not to death.

At the Castle, Desdemona was in a sad mood. She told Emilia that she must leave her; her husband wished it. "Dismiss me!" exclaimed Emilia.

"It was his bidding, said Desdemona; we must not displease him now."

She sang a song which a girl had sung whose lover had been base to her--a song of a maiden crying by that tree whose boughs droop as though it weeps, and she went to bed and slept.

She woke with her husband's wild eyes upon her. "Have you prayed to-night?" he asked; and he told this blameless and sweet woman to ask G.o.d's pardon for any sin she might have on her conscience. "I would not kill thy soul," he said.

He told her that Ca.s.sio had confessed, but she knew Ca.s.sio had nought to confess that concerned her. She said that Ca.s.sio could not say anything that would damage her. Oth.e.l.lo said his mouth was stopped.

Then Desdemona wept, but with violent words, in spite of all her pleading, Oth.e.l.lo pressed upon her throat and mortally hurt her.

Then with boding heart came Emilia, and besought entrance at the door, and Oth.e.l.lo unlocked it, and a voice came from the bed saying, "A guiltless death I die."

"Who did it?" cried Emilia; and the voice said, "n.o.body--I myself.

Farewell!"

"'Twas I that killed her," said Oth.e.l.lo.

He poured out his evidence by that sad bed to the people who came running in, Iago among them; but when he spoke of the handkerchief, Emilia told the truth.

And Oth.e.l.lo knew. "Are there no stones in heaven but thunderbolts?" he exclaimed, and ran at Iago, who gave Emilia her death-blow and fled.

But they brought him back, and the death that came to him later on was a relief from torture.

They would have taken Oth.e.l.lo back to Venice to try him there, but he escaped them on his sword. "A word or two before you go," he said to the Venetians in the chamber. "Speak of me as I was--no better, no worse.

Say I cast away the pearl of pearls, and wept with these hard eyes; and say that, when in Aleppo years ago I saw a Turk beating a Venetian, I took him by the throat and smote him thus."

With his own hand he stabbed himself to the heart; and ere he died his lips touched the face of Desdemona with despairing love.

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

There lived in Padua a gentleman named Baptista, who had two fair daughters. The eldest, Katharine, was so very cross and ill-tempered, and unmannerly, that no one ever dreamed of marrying her, while her sister, Bianca, was so sweet and pretty, and pleasant-spoken, that more than one suitor asked her father for her hand. But Baptista said the elder daughter must marry first.

So Bianca's suitors decided among themselves to try and get some one to marry Katharine--and then the father could at least be got to listen to their suit for Bianca.

A gentleman from Verona, named Petruchio, was the one they thought of, and, half in jest, they asked him if he would marry Katharine, the disagreeable scold. Much to their surprise he said yes, that was just the sort of wife for him, and if Katharine were handsome and rich, he himself would undertake soon to make her good-tempered.

Petruchio began by asking Baptista's permission to pay court to his gentle daughter Katharine--and Baptista was obliged to own that she was anything but gentle. And just then her music master rushed in, complaining that the naughty girl had broken her lute over his head, because he told her she was not playing correctly.

"Never mind," said Petruchio, "I love her better than ever, and long to have some chat with her."

When Katharine came, he said, "Good-morrow, Kate--for that, I hear, is your name."

"You've only heard half," said Katharine, rudely.

"Oh, no," said Petruchio, "they call you plain Kate, and bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the shrew, and so, hearing your mildness praised in every town, and your beauty too, I ask you for my wife."

"Your wife!" cried Kate. "Never!" She said some extremely disagreeable things to him, and, I am sorry to say, ended by boxing his ears.

"If you do that again, I'll cuff you," he said quietly; and still protested, with many compliments, that he would marry none but her.

When Baptista came back, he asked at once--

"How speed you with my daughter?"

"How should I speed but well," replied Petruchio--"how, but well?"

"How now, daughter Katharine?" the father went on.

"I don't think," said Katharine, angrily, "you are acting a father's part in wis.h.i.+ng me to marry this mad-cap ruffian."