Willow Song: Maggie Smith and Joyce Redman in Laurence Olivier's "Othello" (1965)

From Act IV, Scene 3, of William Shakespeare’s “Othello” (1965), in which Emilia (Joyce Redman) prepares Desdemona (Maggie Smith) for bed, and the latter sings the “Willow Song.”

Below, the text of the scene as taken from the Folger Library. There are a couple tiny discrepancies with what is spoken in the movie, and a few small cuts.

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 bade me to dismiss you.

EMILIA
Dismiss me?

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 favor in them.

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 thee, prithee, shroud me
In one of those same sheets.

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.

EMILIA Shall I go fetch your nightgown?

DESDEMONA No, unpin me here.
This Lodovico is a proper man.

EMILIA A very handsome man.

DESDEMONA He speaks well.

EMILIA I know a lady in Venice would have walked
barefoot to Palestine for a touch of his nether lip.

DESDEMONA, singing
The poor soul sat sighing by a sycamore tree,
Sing all a green willow.
Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,
Sing willow, willow, willow.
The fresh streams ran by her and murmured her
moans,
Sing willow, willow, willow;
Her salt tears fell from her, and softened the
stones—

Lay by these.

Sing willow, willow, willow.

Prithee hie thee! He’ll come anon.

Sing all a green willow must be my garland.
Let nobody blame him, his scorn I approve.

Nay, that’s not next. Hark, who is ’t that knocks?

EMILIA It’s the wind.

DESDEMONA
I called my love false love, but what said he then?
Sing willow, willow, willow.
If I court more women, you’ll couch with more
men.—

So, get thee gone. Good night. Mine eyes do itch;
Doth that bode weeping?

EMILIA ’Tis neither here nor there.

DESDEMONA
I have heard it said so. O these men, these men!