What, are you hurt, lieutenant?
Iago
What, are you hurt, lieutenant?
Cassio
Ay, past all surgery.
Iago
Marry, God forbid!
Cassio
Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have
lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of
myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation,
Iago, my reputation!
Iago
As I am an honest man, I thought you had
received some bodily wound. There is more sense
in that than in reputation. Reputation is an idle and
most false imposition, oft got without merit and lost
without deserving. You have lost no reputation at
all, unless you repute yourself such a loser. What,
man, there are ways to recover the General again!
You are but now cast in his mood—a punishment
more in policy than in malice, even so as one would
beat his offenseless dog to affright an imperious
lion. Sue to him again and he's yours.
Cassio
I will rather sue to be despised than to deceive
so good a commander with so slight, so drunken,
and so indiscreet an officer. Drunk? And speak
parrot? And squabble? Swagger? Swear? And discourse
fustian with one's own shadow? O thou
invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be
known by, let us call thee devil!
Iago
What was he that you followed with your sword?
What had he done to you?
Cassio
I know not.
Iago
Is ‘t possible?
Cassio
I remember a mass of things, but nothing
distinctly; a quarrel, but nothing wherefore. O
God, that men should put an enemy in their
mouths to steal away their brains! That we should
with joy, pleasance, revel, and applause transform
ourselves into beasts!
Iago
Why, but you are now well enough. How came
you thus recovered?
Cassio
It hath pleased the devil drunkenness to give
place to the devil wrath. One unperfectness shows
me another, to make me frankly despise myself.
Iago
Come, you are too severe a moraler. As the time,
the place, and the condition of this country stands,
I could heartily wish this had not so befallen. But
since it is as it is, mend it for your own good.
Cassio
I will ask him for my place again; he shall tell
me I am a drunkard! Had I as many mouths as
Hydra, such an answer would stop them all. To be
now a sensible man, by and by a fool, and presently
a beast! O, strange! Every inordinate cup is unblessed,
and the ingredient is a devil.
Iago
Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature,
if it be well used. Exclaim no more against it.