1 What cannot be preserved when fortune takes, Patience her injury a mockery makes.
2 Marry, patience, Or I shall say you are all in all in spleen, And nothing of a man.
3 Let it not gall your patience, good Iago, That I extend my manners; 'tis my breeding That gives me this bold show of courtesy.'
4 My lord shall never rest, I'll watch him tame, and talk him out of patience; His bed shall seem a school, his board a shrift; I'll intermingle everything he does With Cassio's suit.
5 But men are men; the best sometimes forget; Though Cassio did some little wrong to him, As men in rage strike those that wish them best, Yet surely Cassio, I believe, receiv'd From him that fled some strange indignity, Which patience could not pass.
6 Had it pleas'd heaven To try me with affliction, had they rain'd All kinds of sores and shames on my bare head, Steep'd me in poverty to the very lips, Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes, I should have found in some place of my soul A drop of patience.
7 So let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile, We lose it not so long as we can smile; He bears the sentence well, that nothing bears But the free comfort which from thence he hears; But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow.