him he had a passion for extremes, which was true. Apemantus even made a
pun, but there was no good laughter to be got out of Timon.
Finally, they lost their temper like two schoolboys, and Timon said he
was sorry to lose the stone which he flung at Apemantus, who left him
with an evil wish.
This was almost an “at home” day for Timon, for when Apemantus had
departed, he was visited by some robbers. They wanted gold.
“You want too much,” said Timon. “Here are water, roots and berries.”
“We are not birds and pigs,” said a robber.
“No, you are cannibals,” said Timon. “Take the gold, then, and may it
poison you! Henceforth rob one another.”
He spoke so frightfully to them that, though they went away with full
pockets, they almost repented of their trade. His last visitor on that
day of visits was his good steward Flavius. “My dearest master!” cried
he.
“Away! What are you?” said Timon.
“Have you forgotten me, sir?” asked Flavius, mournfully.
“I have forgotten all men,” was the reply; “and if you'll allow that you
are a man, I have forgotten you.”
“I was your honest servant,” said Flavius.
“Nonsense! I never had an honest man about me,” retorted Timon.
Flavius began to cry.
“What! shedding tears?” said Timon. “Come nearer, then. I will love you
because you are a woman, and unlike men, who only weep when they laugh
or beg.”
They talked awhile; then Timon said, “Yon gold is mine. I will make you
rich, Flavius, if you promise me to live by yourself and hate mankind.
I will make you very rich if you promise me that you will see the flesh
slide off the beggar's bones before you feed him, and let the debtor die
in jail before you pay his debt.”
Flavius simply said, “Let me stay to comfort you, my master.”
“If you dislike cursing, leave me,” replied Timon, and he turned his
back on Flavius, who went sadly back to Athens, too much accustomed to
obedience to force his services upon his ailing master.
The steward had accepted nothing, but a report got about that a mighty
nugget of gold had been given him by his former master, and Timon
therefore received more visitors. They were a painter and a poet, whom
he had patronized in his prosperity.
“Hail, worthy Timon!” said the poet. “We heard with astonishment how
your friends deserted you. No whip's large enough for their backs!”
“We have come,” put in the painter, “to offer our services.”
“You've heard that I have gold,” said Timon.
“There was a report,” said the painter, blushing; “but my friend and I
did not come for that.”
“Good honest men!” jeered Timon. “All the same, you shall have plenty of
gold if you will rid me of two villains.”
“Name them,” said his two visitors in one breath. “Both of you!”
answered Timon. Giving the painter a whack with a big stick, he said,
“Put that into your palette and make money out of it.” Then he gave a
whack to the poet, and said, “Make a poem out of that and get paid for
it. There's gold for you.”
They hurriedly withdrew.
Finally Timon was visited by two senators who, now that Athens was
threatened by Alcibiades, desired to have on their side this bitter
noble whose gold might help the foe.
“Forget your injuries,” said the first senator. “Athens offers you
dignities whereby you may honorably live.”
“Athens confesses that your merit was overlooked, and wishes to atone,
and more than atone, for her forgetfulness,” said the second senator.
“Worthy senators,” replied Timon, in his grim way, “I am almost weeping;
you touch me so! All I need are the eyes of a woman and the heart of a
fool.”
But the senators were patriots. They believed that this bitter man could
save Athens, and they would not quarrel with him. “Be our captain,”
they said, “and lead Athens against Alcibiades, who threatens to destroy
her.”
“Let him destroy the Athenians too, for all I care,” said Timon; and
seeing an evil despair in his face, they left him.
The senators returned to Athens, and soon afterwards trumpets were blown
before its walls. Upon the walls they stood and listened to Alcibiades,
who told them that wrong-doers should quake in their easy chairs. They
looked at his confident army, and were convinced that Athens must yield
if he assaulted it, therefore they used the voice that strikes deeper
than arrows.
“These walls of ours were built by the hands of men who never wronged
you, Alcibiades,” said the first senator.
“Enter,” said the second senator, “and slay every tenth man, if your
revenge needs human flesh.”
“Spare the cradle,” said the first senator.
“I ask only justice,” said Alcibiades. “If you admit my army, I will
inflict the penalty of your own laws upon any soldier who breaks them.”
At that moment a soldier approached Alcibiades, and said, “My noble
general, Timon is dead.” He handed Alcibiades a sheet of wax, saying,
“He is buried by the sea, on the beach, and over his grave is a stone
with letters on it which I cannot read, and therefore I have impressed
them on wax.”
Alcibiades read from the sheet of wax this couplet--
“Here lie I, Timon, who, alive,
all living men did hate.
Pass by and say your worst; but pass,
and stay not here your gait.”
“Dead, then, is noble Timon,” said Alcibiades; and be entered Athens
with an olive branch instead of a sword.
So it was one of Timon's friends who was generous in a greater matter
than Timon's need; yet are the sorrow and rage of Timon remembered as a
warning lest another ingratitude should arise to turn love into hate.
OTHELLO
Four hundred years ago there lived in Venice an ensign named Iago, who
hated his general, Othello, for not making him a lieutenant. Instead of
Iago, who was strongly recommended, Othello had chosen Michael Cassio,
whose smooth tongue had helped him to win the heart of Desdemona. Iago
had a friend called Roderigo, who supplied him with money and felt he
could not be happy unless Desdemona was his wife.
Othello was a Moor, but of so dark a complexion that his enemies called
him a Blackamoor. His life had been hard and exciting. He had been
vanquished in battle and sold into slavery; and he had been a great
traveler and seen men whose shoulders were higher than their heads.
Brave as a lion, he had one great fault--jealousy. His love was a
terrible selfishness. To love a woman meant with him to possess her as
absolutely as he possessed something that did not live and think. The
story of Othello is a story of jealousy.
One night Iago told Roderigo that Othello had carried off Desdemona
without the knowledge of her father, Brabantio. He persuaded Roderigo
to arouse Brabantio, and when that senator appeared Iago told him
of Desdemona's elopement in the most unpleasant way. Though he was
Othello's officer, he termed him a thief and a Barbary horse.
Brabantio accused Othello before the Duke of Venice of using sorcery to
fascinate his daughter, but Othello said that the only sorcery he used
was his voice, which told Desdemona his adventures and hair-breadth
escapes. Desdemona was led into the council-chamber, and she explained
how she could love Othello despite his almost black face by saying, “I
saw Othello's visage in his mind.”
As Othello had married Desdemona, and she was glad to be his wife, there
was no more to be said against him, especially as the Duke wished him to
go to Cyprus to defend it against the Turks. Othello was quite ready to
go, and Desdemona, who pleaded to go with him, was permitted to join him
at Cyprus.
Othello's feelings on landing in this island were intensely joyful. “Oh,
my sweet,” he said to Desdemona, who arrived with Iago, his wife, and
Roderigo before him, “I hardly know what I say to you. I am in love with
my own happiness.”
News coming presently that the Turkish fleet was out of action, he
proclaimed a festival in Cyprus from five to eleven at night.
Cassio was on duty in the Castle where Othello ruled Cyprus, so Iago
decided to make the lieutenant drink too much. He had some difficulty,
as Cassio knew that wine soon went to his head, but servants brought
wine into the room where Cassio was, and Iago sang a drinking song, and
so Cassio lifted a glass too often to the health of the general.
When Cassio was inclined to be quarrelsome, Iago told Roderigo to say
something unpleasant to him. Cassio cudgeled Roderigo, who ran into the
presence of Montano, the ex-governor. Montano civilly interceded for
Roderigo, but received so rude an answer from Cassio that he said,
“Come, come, you're drunk!” Cassio then wounded him, and Iago sent
Roderigo out to scare the town with a cry of mutiny.
The uproar aroused Othello, who, on learning its cause, said, “Cassio, I
love thee, but never more be officer of mine.”
On Cassio and Iago being alone together, the disgraced man moaned about
his reputation. Iago said reputation and humbug were the same thing.
“O God,” exclaimed Cassio, without heeding him, “that men should put an
enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains!”
Iago advised him to beg Desdemona to ask Othello to pardon him. Cassio
was pleased with the advice, and next morning made his request to
Desdemona in the garden of the castle. She was kindness itself, and
said, “Be merry, Cassio, for I would rather die than forsake your
cause.”
Cassio at that moment saw Othello advancing with Iago, and retired
hurriedly.
Iago said, “I don't like that.”
“What did you say?” asked Othello, who felt that he had meant something
unpleasant, but Iago pretended he had said nothing. “Was not that Cassio
who went from my wife?” asked Othello, and Iago, who knew that it was
Cassio and why it was Cassio, said, “I cannot think it was Cassio who
stole away in that guilty manner.”
Desdemona told Othello that it was grief and humility which made Cassio
retreat at his approach. She reminded him how Cassio had taken his part
when she was still heart-free, and found fault with her Moorish lover.
Othello was melted, and said, “I will deny thee nothing,” but Desdemona
told him that what she asked was as much for his good as dining.
Desdemona left the garden, and Iago asked if it was really true that
Cassio had known Desdemona before her marriage.
“Yes,” said Othello.
“Indeed,” said Iago, as though something that had mystified him was now
very clear.
“Is he not honest?” demanded Othello, and Iago repeated the adjective
inquiringly, as though he were afraid to say “No.”
“What do you mean?” insisted Othello.
To this Iago would only say the flat opposite of what he said to Cassio.
He had told Cassio that reputation was humbug. To Othello he said, “Who
steals my purse steals trash, but he who filches from me my good name
ruins me.”
At this Othello almost leapt into the air, and Iago was so confident
of his jealousy that he ventured to warn him against it. Yes, it was no
other than Iago who called jealousy “the green-eyed monster which doth
mock the meat it feeds on.”
Iago having given jealousy one blow, proceeded to feed it with the
remark that Desdemona deceived her father when she eloped with Othello.
“If she deceived him, why not you?” was his meaning.
Presently Desdemona re-entered to tell Othello that dinner was ready.
She saw that he was ill at ease. He explained it by a pain in his
forehead. Desdemona then produced a handkerchief, which Othello
had given her. A prophetess, two hundred years old, had made this
handkerchief from the silk of sacred silkworms, dyed it in a
liquid prepared from the hearts of maidens, and embroidered it with
strawberries. Gentle Desdemona thought of it simply as a cool, soft
thing for a throbbing brow; she knew of no spell upon it that would work
destruction for her who lost it. “Let me tie it round your head,” she
said to Othello; “you will be well in an hour.” But Othello pettishly
said it was too small, and let it fall. Desdemona and he then went
indoors to dinner, and Emilia picked up the handkerchief which Iago had
often asked her to steal.
She was looking at it when Iago came in. After a few words about it he
snatched it from her, and bade her leave him.
In the garden he was joined by Othello, who seemed hungry for the worst
lies he could offer. He therefore told Othello that he had seen Cassio
wipe his mouth with a handkerchief, which, because it was spotted with
strawberries, he guessed to be one that Othello had given his wife.
The unhappy Moor went mad with fury, and Iago bade the heavens witness
that he devoted his hand and heart and brain to Othello's service. “I
accept your love,” said Othello. “Within three days let me hear that
Cassio is dead.”
Iago's next step was to leave Desdemona's handkerchief in Cassio's room.
Cassio saw it, and knew it was not his, but he liked the strawberry
pattern on it, and he gave it to his sweetheart Bianca and asked her to
copy it for him.
Iago's next move was to induce Othello, who had been bullying Desdemona
about the handkerchief, to play the eavesdropper to a conversation
between Cassio and himself. His intention was to talk about Cassio's
sweetheart, and allow Othello to suppose that the lady spoken of was
Desdemona.
“How are you, lieutenant?” asked Iago when Cassio appeared.
“The worse for being called what I am not,” replied Cassio, gloomily.
“Keep on reminding Desdemona, and you'll soon be restored,” said Iago,
adding, in a tone too low for Othello to hear, “If Bianca could set the
matter right, how quickly it would mend!”
“Alas! poor rogue,” said Cassio, “I really think she loves me,” and like
the talkative coxcomb he was, Cassio was led on to boast of Bianca's
fondness for him, while Othello imagined, with choked rage, that he
prattled of Desdemona, and thought, “I see your nose, Cassio, but not
the dog I shall throw it to.”
Othello was still spying when Bianca entered, boiling over with the idea
that Cassio, whom she considered her property, had asked her to copy the
embroidery on the handkerchief of a new sweetheart. She tossed him the
handkerchief with scornful words, and Cassio departed with her.
Othello had seen Bianca, who was in station lower, in beauty and speech
inferior far, to Desdemona and he began in spite of himself to praise
his wife to the villain before him. He praised her skill with the
needle, her voice that could “sing the savageness out of a bear,” her
wit, her sweetness, the fairness of her skin. Every time he praised
her Iago said something that made him remember his anger and utter it
foully, and yet he must needs praise her, and say, “The pity of it,
Iago! O Iago, the pity of it, Iago!”
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 Othello from the Duke of Venice. The letter recalled Othello from
Cyprus, and gave the governorship to Cassio.
Luckless Desdemona seized this unhappy moment to urge once more the suit
of Cassio.
“Fire and brimstone!” shouted Othello.
“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
Othello's unkindness had wrung out of her.
“I am glad to see you lose your temper,” said Othello.
“Why, sweet Othello?” she asked, sarcastically; and Othello 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, Othello 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.
Othello 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 Othello 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 Cassio. Roderigo was out of tune
with his friend. He had given Iago quantities 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 Cassio was leaving Bianca's
house, Roderigo wounded him, and was wounded in return. Cassio shouted,
and Lodovico and a friend came running up. Cassio pointed out Roderigo
as his assailant, 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
God's pardon for any sin she might have on her conscience. “I would not
kill thy soul,” he said.
He told her that Cassio had confessed, but she knew Cassio had nought to
confess that concerned her. She said that Cassio could not say anything
that would damage her. Othello said his mouth was stopped.
Then Desdemona wept, but with violent words, in spite of all her
pleading, Othello pressed upon her throat and mortally hurt her.
Then with boding heart came Emilia, and besought entrance at the door,
and Othello unlocked it, and a voice came from the bed saying, “A
guiltless death I die.”
“Who did it?” cried Emilia; and the voice said, “Nobody--I myself.
Farewell!”
“'Twas I that killed her,” said Othello.
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 Othello 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 Othello 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 wishing me to marry this mad-cap ruffian.”
“Ah!” said Petruchio, “you and all the world would talk amiss of her.
You should see how kind she is to me when we are alone. In short, I will
go off to Venice to buy fine things for our wedding--for--kiss me, Kate!
we will be married on Sunday.”
With that, Katharine flounced out of the room by one door in a violent
temper, and he, laughing, went out by the other. But whether she fell in
love with Petruchio, or whether she was only glad to meet a man who was
not afraid of her, or whether she was flattered that, in spite of her
rough words and spiteful usage, he still desired her for his wife--she
did indeed marry him on Sunday, as he had sworn she should.
To vex and humble Katharine's naughty, proud spirit, he was late at the
wedding, and when he came, came wearing such shabby clothes that she was
ashamed to be seen with him. His servant was dressed in the same shabby
way, and the horses they rode were the sport of everyone they passed.
And, after the marriage, when should have been the wedding breakfast,
Petruchio carried his wife away, not allowing her to eat or
drink--saying that she was his now, and he could do as he liked with
her.
And his manner was so violent, and he behaved all through his wedding in
so mad and dreadful a manner, that Katharine trembled and went with him.
He mounted her on a stumbling, lean, old horse, and they journeyed by
rough muddy ways to Petruchio's house, he scolding and snarling all the
way.
She was terribly tired when she reached her new home, but Petruchio was
determined that she should neither eat nor sleep that night, for he had
made up his mind to teach his bad-tempered wife a lesson she would never
forget.
So he welcomed her kindly to his house, but when supper was served
he found fault with everything--the meat was burnt, he said, and
ill-served, and he loved her far too much to let her eat anything but
the best. At last Katharine, tired out with her journey, went supperless
to bed. Then her husband, still telling her how he loved her, and how
anxious he was that she should sleep well, pulled her bed to pieces,
throwing the pillows and bedclothes on the floor, so that she could not
go to bed at all, and still kept growling and scolding at the servants
so that Kate might see how unbeautiful a thing ill-temper was.
The next day, too, Katharine's food was all found fault with, and caught
away before she could touch a mouthful, and she was sick and giddy for
want of sleep. Then she said to one of the servants--
“I pray thee go and get me some repast. I care not what.”
“What say you to a neat's foot?” said the servant.
Katharine said “Yes,” eagerly; but the servant, who was in his master's
secret, said he feared it was not good for hasty-tempered people. Would
she like tripe?
“Bring it me,” said Katharine.
“I don't think that is good for hasty-tempered people,” said the
servant. “What do you say to a dish of beef and mustard?”
“I love it,” said Kate.
“But mustard is too hot.”
“Why, then, the beef, and let the mustard go,” cried Katharine, who was
getting hungrier and hungrier.