Emilia
How goes it now? He looks gentler than he did.
Desdemona
He says he will return incontinent,
And hath commanded me to go to bed,
And bid me to dismiss you.
Emilia
Dismiss me?
Why do you think Emilia questions that she should be dismissed?
Desdemona
It was his bidding: therefore, good Emilia,
Give me my nightly wearing, and adieu.
We must not now displease him.
Emilia
I would you had never seen him.
Desdemona
So would not I: my love doth so approve him
That even his stubbornness, his checks, his frowns —
Prithee, unpin me — have grace and favour in them.
Because I love Othello, and have entrusted myself to his care, I see what’s good in him even when he is stubborn or rude or disapproving of me.
Emilia
I have laid those sheets you bade me, on the bed.
Desdemona
All’s one.— Good faith, how foolish are our minds!
If I do die before, prithee shroud me
In one of those same sheets.
Wrap me up ready to be buried.
Emilia
Come, come, you talk.
Desdemona
My mother had a maid called Barbary:
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 expressed her fortune,
And she died singing it. That song tonight
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 Barbary. Prithee, dispatch.
Barbary is a name that has a suggestion of North Africa, or Barbary coast.
She used to sing a song about 'willow', a tree used to symbolise lost or unrequited love.
Why do you think this song might be on Desdemona’s mind? How might remembering the song make her feel?
Emilia
Shall I go fetch your nightgown?
Desdemona
No, unpin me here.
(Text edited for rehearsals by Iqbal Khan)