Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare - William Shakespeare (best romantic books to read TXT) 📗

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 wrongdoers 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. lago 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 pernutted 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