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Enter DUKE, Senators and Officers.
DUKE
1 There is no composition in these news
2 That gives them credit.
First Senator
2 Indeed, they are disproportion'd;
3 My letters say a hundred and seven galleys.
DUKE
4 And mine, a hundred and forty.
Second Senator
4 And mine, two hundred!
5 But though they jump not on a just account, —
6 As in these cases, where the aim reports,
7 'Tis oft with difference — yet do they all confirm
8 A Turkish fleet, and bearing up to Cyprus.
DUKE
9 Nay, it is possible enough to judgment:
10 I do not so secure me in the error
11 But the main article I do approve
12 In fearful sense.
Sailor (Within.)
12 What, ho! what, ho! what, ho!
Officer
13 A messenger from the galleys.
Enter SAILOR.
DUKE
13 Now, what's the business?
Sailor
14 The Turkish preparation makes for Rhodes;
15 So was I bid report here to the state
16 By Signior Angelo.
DUKE
17 How say you by this change?
First Senator
17 This cannot be,
18 By no assay of reason: 'tis a pageant,
19 To keep us in false gaze. When we consider
20 The importancy of Cyprus to the Turk,
21 And let ourselves again but understand,
22 That as it more concerns the Turk than Rhodes,
23 So may he with more facile question bear it,
24 For that it stands not in such warlike brace,
25 But altogether lacks the abilities
26 That Rhodes is dress'd in: if we make thought of this,
27 We must not think the Turk is so unskilful
28 To leave that latest which concerns him first,
29 Neglecting an attempt of ease and gain,
30 To wake and wage a danger profitless.
DUKE
31 Nay, in all confidence, he's not for Rhodes.
Officer
32 Here is more news.
Enter a MESSENGER.
Messenger
33 The Ottomites, reverend and gracious,
34 Steering with due course towards the isle of Rhodes,
35 Have there injointed them with an after fleet.
First Senator
36 Ay, so I thought. How many, as you guess?
Messenger
37 Of thirty sail: and now they do restem
38 Their backward course, bearing with frank appearance
39 Their purposes toward Cyprus. Signior Montano,
40 Your trusty and most valiant servitor,
41 With his free duty recommends you thus,
42 And prays you to believe him.
DUKE
43 'Tis certain, then, for Cyprus.
44 Marcus Luccicos, is not he in town?
First Senator
45 He's now in Florence.
DUKE
46 Write from us to him; post-post-haste. Dispatch!
First Senator
47 Here comes Brabantio and the valiant Moor.
Enter BRABANTIO, OTHELLO, CASSIO,
IAGO, RODERIGO, and OFFICERS.
DUKE
48 Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you
49 Against the general enemy Ottoman.
[To Brabantio.]
50 I did not see you; welcome, gentle signior;
51 We lack'd your counsel and your help tonight.
BRABANTIO
52 So did I yours. Good your grace, pardon me;
53 Neither my place nor aught I heard of business
54 Hath raised me from my bed, nor doth the general care
55 Take hold on me, for my particular grief
56 Is of so flood-gate and o'erbearing nature
57 That it engluts and swallows other sorrows
58 And it is still itself.
DUKE
58 Why, what's the matter?
BRABANTIO
59 My daughter! O, my daughter!
All
59 Dead?
BRABANTIO
59 Ay, to me;
60 She is abus'd, stol'n from me, and corrupted
61 By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks;
62 For nature so preposterously to err,
63 Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense,
64 Sans witchcraft could not.
DUKE
65 Whoe'er he be that in this foul proceeding
66 Hath thus beguiled your daughter of herself
67 And you of her, the bloody book of law
68 You shall yourself read in the bitter letter
69 After your own sense, yea, though our proper son
70 Stood in your action.
BRABANTIO
70 Humbly I thank your grace.
71 Here is the man, this Moor, whom now, it seems,
72 Your special mandate for the state-affairs
73 Hath hither brought.
All
73 We are very sorry for't.
DUKE [To Othello.]
74 What, in your own part, can you say to this?
BRABANTIO
75 Nothing, but this is so.
OTHELLO
76 Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,
77 My very noble and approv'd good masters,
78 That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter,
79 It is most true; true, I have married her:
80 The very head and front of my offending
81 Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,
82 And little bless'd with the soft phrase of peace:
83 For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith,
84 Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used
85 Their dearest action in the tented field,
86 And little of this great world can I speak,
87 More than pertains to feats of broil and battle,
88 And therefore little shall I grace my cause
89 In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,
90 I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver
91 Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms,
92 What conjuration and what mighty magic,
93 For such proceeding I am charged withal,
94 I won his daughter.
BRABANTIO
94 A maiden never bold;
95 Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion
96 Blush'd at herself; and she, in spite of nature,
97 Of years, of country, credit, every thing,
98 To fall in love with what she fear'd to look on!
99 It is a judgment maim'd and most imperfect
100 That will confess perfection so could err
101 Against all rules of nature, and must be driven
102 To find out practises of cunning hell,
103 Why this should be. I therefore vouch again
104 That with some mixtures powerful o'er the blood,
105 Or with some dram conjur'd to this effect,
106 He wrought upon her.
DUKE
106 To vouch this, is no proof,
107 Without more wider and more overt test
108 Than these thin habits and poor likelihoods
109 Of modern seeming do prefer against him.
First Senator
110 But, Othello, speak:
111 Did you by indirect and forced courses
112 Subdue and poison this young maid's affections?
113 Or came it by request and such fair question
114 As soul to soul affordeth?
OTHELLO
114 I do beseech you,
115 Send for the lady to the Sagittary,
116 And let her speak of me before her father:
117 If you do find me foul in her report,
118 The trust, the office I do hold of you,
119 Not only take away, but let your sentence
120 Even fall upon my life.
DUKE
120 Fetch Desdemona hither.
OTHELLO
121 Ancient, conduct them: you best know the place.
[Exeunt IAGO and Attendants.]
122 And, till she come, as truly as to heaven
123 I do confess the vices of my blood,
124 So justly to your grave ears I'll present
125 How I did thrive in this fair lady's love,
126 And she in mine.
DUKE
127 Say it, Othello.
OTHELLO
128 Her father loved me; oft invited me;
129 Still question'd me the story of my life,
130 From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,
131 That I have passed.
132 I ran it through, even from my boyish days,
133 To the very moment that he bade me tell it;
134 Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,
135 Of moving accidents by flood and field
136 Of hair-breadth scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,
137 Of being taken by the insolent foe
138 And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence
139 And portance in my travels' history:
140 Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,
141 Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven
142 It was my hint to speak, — such was the process;
143 And of the Cannibals that each other eat,
144 The Anthropophagi and men whose heads
145 Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear
146 Would Desdemona seriously incline:
147 But still the house-affairs would draw her thence:
148 Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,
149 She'ld come again, and with a greedy ear
150 Devour up my discourse: which I observing,
151 Took once a pliant hour, and found good means
152 To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart
153 That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,
154 Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
155 But not intentively: I did consent,
156 And often did beguile her of her tears,
157 When I did speak of some distressful stroke
158 That my youth suffer'd. My story being done,
159 She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:
160 She swore, in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange,
161 'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:
162 She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd
163 That heaven had made her such a man: she thank'd me,
164 And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,
165 I should but teach him how to tell my story.
166 And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:
167 She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd,
168 And I loved her that she did pity them.
169 This only is the witchcraft I have used:
170 Here comes the lady; let her witness it.
Enter DESDEMONA, IAGO, ATTENDANTS.
DUKE
171 I think this tale would win my daughter too.
172 Good Brabantio,
173 Take up this mangled matter at the best:
174 Men do their broken weapons rather use
175 Than their bare hands.
BRABANTIO
175 I pray you, hear her speak:
176 If she confess that she was half the wooer,
177 Destruction on my head, if my bad blame
178 Light on the man! Come hither, gentle mistress:
179 Do you perceive in all this noble company
180 Where most you owe obedience?
DESDEMONA
180 My noble father,
181 I do perceive here a divided duty:
182 To you I am bound for life and education;
183 My life and education both do learn me
184 How to respect you; you are the lord of duty;
185 I am hitherto your daughter: but here's my husband,
186 And so much duty as my mother show'd
187 To you, preferring you before her father,
188 So much I challenge that I may profess
189 Due to the Moor, my lord.
BRABANTIO
189 God be with you! I have done.
190 Please it your grace, on to the state affairs:
191 I had rather to adopt a child than get it.
192 Come hither, Moor:
193 I here do give thee that with all my heart
194 Which, but thou hast already, with all my heart
195 I would keep from thee. For your sake, jewel,
196 I am glad at soul I have no other child:
197 For thy escape would teach me tyranny,
198 To hang clogs on them. I have done, my lord.
DUKE
199 Let me speak like yourself, and lay a sentence,
200 Which, as a grise or step, may help these lovers
201 Into your favor.
202 When remedies are past, the griefs are ended
203 By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended.
204 To mourn a mischief that is past and gone
205 Is the next way to draw new mischief on.
206 What cannot be preserved when fortune takes
207 Patience her injury a mockery makes.
208 The robb'd that smiles steals something from the thief;
209 He robs himself that spends a bootless grief.
BRABANTIO
210 So let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile;
211 We lose it not, so long as we can smile.
212 He bears the sentence well that nothing bears
213 But the free comfort which from thence he hears,
214 But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow
215 That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow.
216 These sentences, to sugar, or to gall,
217 Being strong on both sides, are equivocal:
218 But words are words; I never yet did hear
219 That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear.
220 I humbly beseech you, proceed to the affairs of state.
DUKE
221 The Turk with a most mighty preparation makes for
222 Cyprus. Othello, the fortitude of the place is best
223 known to you; and though we have there a substitute
224 of most allow'd sufficiency, yet opinion, a
225 sovereign mistress of effects, throws a more safer
226 voice on you: you must therefore be content to
227 slubber the gloss of your new fortunes with this
228 more stubborn and boisterous expedition.
OTHELLO
229 The tyrant custom, most grave senators,
230 Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
231 My thrice-driven bed of down: I do agnize
232 A natural and prompt alacrity
233 I find in hardness, and do undertake
234 These present wars against the Ottomites.
235 Most humbly therefore bending to your state,
236 I crave fit disposition for my wife.
237 Due reference of place and exhibition,
238 With such accommodation and besort
239 As levels with her breeding.
DUKE
239 If you please,
240 Be't at her father's.
BRABANTIO
240 I'll not have it so.
OTHELLO
241 Nor I.
DESDEMONA
241 Nor I; I would not there reside,
242 To put my father in impatient thoughts
243 By being in his eye. Most gracious duke,
244 To my unfolding lend your prosperous ear;
245 And let me find a charter in your voice,
246 To assist my simpleness.
DUKE
247 What would You, Desdemona?
DESDEMONA
248 That I did love the Moor to live with him,
249 My downright violence and storm of fortunes
250 May trumpet to the world. My heart's subdued
251 Even to the very quality of my lord:
252 I saw Othello's visage in his mind,
253 And to his honor and his valiant parts
254 Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.
255 So that, dear lords, if I be left behind,
256 A moth of peace, and he go to the war,
257 The rites for which I love him are bereft me,
258 And I a heavy interim shall support
259 By his dear absence. Let me go with him.
OTHELLO
260 Let her have your voices.
261 Vouch with me, heaven, I therefore beg it not,
262 To please the palate of my appetite,
263 Nor to comply with heat — the young affects
264 In me defunct — and proper satisfaction.
265 But to be free and bounteous to her mind:
266 And heaven defend your good souls, that you think
267 I will your serious and great business scant
268 For she is with me: no, when light-wing'd toys
269 Of feather'd Cupid seal with wanton dullness
270 My speculative and officed instruments,
271 That my disports corrupt and taint my business,
272 Let housewives make a skillet of my helm,
273 And all indign and base adversities
274 Make head against my estimation!
DUKE
275 Be it as you shall privately determine,
276 Either for her stay or going: the affair cries haste,
277 And speed must answer it.
First Senator
277 You must away tonight.
DESDEMONA
278 Tonight, my lord?
DUKE
278 This night.
OTHELLO
278 With all my heart.
DUKE
279 At nine i' the morning here we'll meet again.
280 Othello, leave some officer behind,
281 And he shall our commission bring to you;
282 With such things else of quality and respect
283 As doth import you.
OTHELLO
283 So please your grace, my ancient;
284 A man he is of honesty and trust.
285 To his conveyance I assign my wife,
286 With what else needful your good grace shall think
287 To be sent after me.
DUKE
287 Let it be so.
288 Good night to every one.
[To Brabantio.]
288 And, noble signior,
289 If virtue no delighted beauty lack,
290 Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.
First Senator
291 Adieu, brave Moor, use Desdemona well.
BRABANTIO
292 Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see:
293 She has deceived her father, and may thee.
Exeunt [Duke, Senators, Officers, &c.]
OTHELLO
294 My life upon her faith! Honest Iago,
295 My Desdemona must I leave to thee:
296 I prithee, let thy wife attend on her:
297 And bring them after in the best advantage.
298 Come, Desdemona: I have but an hour
299 Of love, of worldly matters and direction,
300 To spend with thee: we must obey the time.
Exit [with Desdemona].
RODERIGO
301 Iago, —
IAGO
302 What say'st thou, noble heart?
RODERIGO
303 What will I do, thinkest thou?
IAGO
304 Why, go to bed, and sleep.
RODERIGO
305 I will incontinently drown myself.
IAGO
306 If thou dost, I shall never love thee after. Why,
307 thou silly gentleman?
RODERIGO
308 It is silliness to live when to live is torment; and
309 then have we a prescription to die when death is
310 our physician.
IAGO
311 O villainous! I have looked upon the world for four
312 times seven years; and since I could distinguish
313 betwixt a benefit and an injury, I never found man
314 that knew how to love himself. Ere I would say, I
315 would drown myself for the love of a guinea-hen, I
316 would change my humanity with a baboon.
RODERIGO
317 What should I do? I confess it is my shame to be so
318 fond; but it is not in my virtue to amend it.
IAGO
319 Virtue! a fig! 'tis in ourselves that we are thus or
320 thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our
321 wills are gardeners: so that if we will plant nettles,
322 or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up tine, supply
323 it with one gender of herbs, or distract it with many,
324 either to have it sterile with idleness, or manured with
325 industry, why, the power and corrigible authority of
326 this lies in our wills. If the balance of our lives had not
327 one scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the
328 blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us
329 to most preposterous conclusions: but we have
330 reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal
331 stings, our unbitted lusts, whereof I take this that
332 you call love to be a sect or scion.
RODERIGO
333 It cannot be!
IAGO
334 It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of
335 the will. Come, be a man. Drown thyself! drown
336 cats and blind puppies. I have professed me thy
337 friend and I confess me knit to thy deserving with
338 cables of perdurable toughness; I could never
339 better stead thee than now. Put money in thy
340 purse; follow thou the wars; defeat thy favor with
341 an usurped beard; I say, put money in thy purse. It
342 cannot be that Desdemona should long continue her
343 love to the Moor, — put money in thy purse, — nor he
344 his to her: it was a violent commencement, and thou
345 shalt see an answerable sequestration: — put but
346 money in thy purse. These Moors are changeable in
347 their wills: fill thy purse with money: — the food
348 that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be
349 to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida. She must
350 change for youth: when she is sated with his body,
351 she will find the error of her choice: she must
352 have change, she must: therefore put money in thy
353 purse. If thou wilt needs damn thyself, do it a
354 more delicate way than drowning. Make all the money
355 thou canst: if sanctimony and a frail vow betwixt
356 an erring barbarian and a supersubtle Venetian not
357 too hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell, thou
358 shalt enjoy her; therefore make money. A pox of
359 drowning thyself! it is clean out of the way: seek
360 thou rather to be hanged in compassing thy joy than
361 to be drowned and go without her.
RODERIGO
362 Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend on
363 the issue?
IAGO
364 Thou art sure of me: — go, make money: — I have told
365 thee often, and I re-tell thee again and again, I
366 hate the Moor: my cause is hearted; thine hath no
367 less reason. Let us be conjunctive in our revenge
368 against him: if thou canst cuckold him, thou dost
369 thyself a pleasure, me a sport. There are many
370 events in the womb of time which will be delivered.
371 Traverse! go, provide thy money. We will have more
372 of this tomorrow. Adieu.
RODERIGO
373 Where shall we meet i' the morning?
IAGO
374 At my lodging.
RODERIGO
375 I'll be with thee betimes.
IAGO
376 Go to; farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo?
RODERIGO
377 What say you?
IAGO
378 No more of drowning, do you hear?
RODERIGO
379 I am chang'd.
IAGO
380 Go to, farewell. Put money enough in your
381 purse.
RODERIGO
382 I'll sell all my land.
Exit.
IAGO
383 Thus do I ever make my fool my purse:
384 For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane,
385 If I would time expend with such a snipe,
386 But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor:
387 And it is thought abroad, that 'twixt my sheets
388 He has done my office: I know not if't be true;
389 But I, for mere suspicion in that kind,
390 Will do as if for surety. He holds me well;
391 The better shall my purpose work on him.
392 Cassio's a proper man: let me see now:
393 To get his place and to plume up my will
394 In double knavery — How, how? Let's see: —
395 After some time, to abuse Othello's ear
396 That he is too familiar with his wife.
397 He hath a person and a smooth dispose
398 To be suspected, framed to make women false.
399 The Moor is of a free and open nature,
400 That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
401 And will as tenderly be led by the nose
402 As asses are.
403 I have't. It is engender'd. Hell and night
404 Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.
[Exit.]
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