| ACT ISCENE III | A council-chamber. | |
| | The DUKE and Senators sitting at a table; Officers attending | |
| DUKE OF VENICE | There is no composition in these news | |
| | That gives them credit. | |
| First Senator | Indeed, they are disproportion'd; | |
| | My letters say a hundred and seven galleys. | 5 |
| DUKE OF VENICE | And mine, a hundred and forty. | |
| Second Senator | And mine, two hundred: | |
| | But though they jump not on a just account,-- | |
| | As in these cases, where the aim reports, | |
| | 'Tis oft with difference--yet do they all confirm | 10 |
| | A Turkish fleet, and bearing up to Cyprus. | |
| DUKE OF VENICE | Nay, it is possible enough to judgment: | |
| | I do not so secure me in the error, | |
| | But the main article I do approve | |
| | In fearful sense. | 15 |
| Sailor | Within | |
| First Officer | A messenger from the galleys. | |
| | Enter a Sailor | |
| DUKE OF VENICE | Now, what's the business? | |
| Sailor | The Turkish preparation makes for Rhodes; | |
| | So was I bid report here to the state | |
| | By Signior Angelo. | 20 |
| DUKE OF VENICE | How say you by this change? | |
| First Senator | This cannot be, | |
| | By no assay of reason: 'tis a pageant, | |
| | To keep us in false gaze. When we consider | |
| | The importancy of Cyprus to the Turk, | 25 |
| | And let ourselves again but understand, | |
| | That as it more concerns the Turk than Rhodes, | |
| | So may he with more facile question bear it, | |
| | For that it stands not in such warlike brace, | |
| | But altogether lacks the abilities | 30 |
| | That Rhodes is dress'd in: if we make thought of this, | |
| | We must not think the Turk is so unskilful | |
| | To leave that latest which concerns him first, | |
| | Neglecting an attempt of ease and gain, | |
| | To wake and wage a danger profitless. | 35 |
| DUKE OF VENICE | Nay, in all confidence, he's not for Rhodes. | |
| First Officer | Here is more news. | |
| | Enter a Messenger | |
| Messenger | The Ottomites, reverend and gracious, | |
| | Steering with due course towards the isle of Rhodes, | |
| | Have there injointed them with an after fleet. | 40 |
| First Senator | Ay, so I thought. How many, as you guess? | |
| Messenger | Of thirty sail: and now they do restem | |
| | Their backward course, bearing with frank appearance | |
| | Their purposes toward Cyprus. Signior Montano, | |
| | Your trusty and most valiant servitor, | 45 |
| | With his free duty recommends you thus, | |
| | And prays you to believe him. | |
| DUKE OF VENICE | 'Tis certain, then, for Cyprus. | |
| | Marcus Luccicos, is not he in town? | |
| First Senator | He's now in Florence. | 50 |
| DUKE OF VENICE | Write from us to him; post-post-haste dispatch. | |
| First Senator | Here comes Brabantio and the valiant Moor. | |
| | Enter BRABANTIO, OTHELLO, IAGO, RODERIGO, and Officers | |
| DUKE OF VENICE | Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you | |
| | Against the general enemy Ottoman. | |
| | To BRABANTIO | |
| | I did not see you; welcome, gentle signior; | 55 |
| | We lack'd your counsel and your help tonight. | |
| BRABANTIO | So did I yours. Good your grace, pardon me; | |
| | Neither my place nor aught I heard of business | |
| | Hath raised me from my bed, nor doth the general care | |
| | Take hold on me, for my particular grief | 60 |
| | Is of so flood-gate and o'erbearing nature | |
| | That it engluts and swallows other sorrows | |
| | And it is still itself. | |
| DUKE OF VENICE | Why, what's the matter? | |
| BRABANTIO | My daughter! O, my daughter! | 65 |
| DUKE OF VENICE, Senator | Dead? | |
| BRABANTIO | Ay, to me; | |
| | She is abused, stol'n from me, and corrupted | |
| | By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks; | 70 |
| | For nature so preposterously to err, | |
| | Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense, | |
| | Sans witchcraft could not. | |
| DUKE OF VENICE | Whoe'er he be that in this foul proceeding | |
| | Hath thus beguiled your daughter of herself | 75 |
| | And you of her, the bloody book of law | |
| | You shall yourself read in the bitter letter | |
| | After your own sense, yea, though our proper son | |
| | Stood in your action. | |
| BRABANTIO | Humbly I thank your grace. | 80 |
| | Here is the man, this Moor, whom now, it seems, | |
| | Your special mandate for the state-affairs | |
| | Hath hither brought. | |
| DUKE OF VENICE, Senator | We are very sorry for't. | |
| DUKE OF VENICE | To OTHELLO | |
| BRABANTIO | Nothing, but this is so. | 85 |
| OTHELLO | Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors, | |
| | My very noble and approved good masters, | |
| | That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter, | |
| | It is most true; true, I have married her: | |
| | The very head and front of my offending | 90 |
| | Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech, | |
| | And little bless'd with the soft phrase of peace: | |
| | For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith, | |
| | Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used | |
| | Their dearest action in the tented field, | 95 |
| | And little of this great world can I speak, | |
| | More than pertains to feats of broil and battle, | |
| | And therefore little shall I grace my cause | |
| | In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience, | |
| | I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver | 100 |
| | Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms, | |
| | What conjuration and what mighty magic, | |
| | For such proceeding I am charged withal, | |
| | I won his daughter. | |
| BRABANTIO | A maiden never bold; | 105 |
| | Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion | |
| | Blush'd at herself; and she, in spite of nature, | |
| | Of years, of country, credit, every thing, | |
| | To fall in love with what she fear'd to look on! | |
| | It is a judgment maim'd and most imperfect | 110 |
| | That will confess perfection so could err | |
| | Against all rules of nature, and must be driven | |
| | To find out practises of cunning hell, | |
| | Why this should be. I therefore vouch again | |
| | That with some mixtures powerful o'er the blood, | 115 |
| | Or with some dram conjured to this effect, | |
| | He wrought upon her. | |
| DUKE OF VENICE | To vouch this, is no proof, | |
| | Without more wider and more overt test | |
| | Than these thin habits and poor likelihoods | 120 |
| | Of modern seeming do prefer against him. | |
| First Senator | But, Othello, speak: | |
| | Did you by indirect and forced courses | |
| | Subdue and poison this young maid's affections? | |
| | Or came it by request and such fair question | 125 |
| | As soul to soul affordeth? | |
| OTHELLO | I do beseech you, | |
| | Send for the lady to the Sagittary, | |
| | And let her speak of me before her father: | |
| | If you do find me foul in her report, | 130 |
| | The trust, the office I do hold of you, | |
| | Not only take away, but let your sentence | |
| | Even fall upon my life. | |
| DUKE OF VENICE | Fetch Desdemona hither. | |
| OTHELLO | Ancient, conduct them: you best know the place. | 135 |
| | Exeunt IAGO and Attendants | |
| | And, till she come, as truly as to heaven | |
| | I do confess the vices of my blood, | |
| | So justly to your grave ears I'll present | |
| | How I did thrive in this fair lady's love, | |
| | And she in mine. | 140 |
| DUKE OF VENICE | Say it, Othello. | |
| OTHELLO | Her father loved me; oft invited me; | |
| | Still question'd me the story of my life, | |
| | From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes, | |
| | That I have passed. | 145 |
| | I ran it through, even from my boyish days, | |
| | To the very moment that he bade me tell it; | |
| | Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances, | |
| | Of moving accidents by flood and field | |
| | Of hair-breadth scapes i' the imminent deadly breach, | 150 |
| | Of being taken by the insolent foe | |
| | And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence | |
| | And portance in my travels' history: | |
| | Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle, | |
| | Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven | 155 |
| | It was my hint to speak,--such was the process; | |
| | And of the Cannibals that each other eat, | |
| | The Anthropophagi and men whose heads | |
| | Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear | |
| | Would Desdemona seriously incline: | 160 |
| | But still the house-affairs would draw her thence: | |
| | Which ever as she could with haste dispatch, | |
| | She'ld come again, and with a greedy ear | |
| | Devour up my discourse: which I observing, | |
| | Took once a pliant hour, and found good means | 165 |
| | To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart | |
| | That I would all my pilgrimage dilate, | |
| | Whereof by parcels she had something heard, | |
| | But not intentively: I did consent, | |
| | And often did beguile her of her tears, | 170 |
| | When I did speak of some distressful stroke | |
| | That my youth suffer'd. My story being done, | |
| | She gave me for my pains a world of sighs: | |
| | She swore, in faith, twas strange, 'twas passing strange, | |
| | 'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful: | 175 |
| | She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd | |
| | That heaven had made her such a man: she thank'd me, | |
| | And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her, | |
| | I should but teach him how to tell my story. | |
| | And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake: | 180 |
| | She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd, | |
| | And I loved her that she did pity them. | |
| | This only is the witchcraft I have used: | |
| | Here comes the lady; let her witness it. | |
| | Enter DESDEMONA, IAGO, and Attendants | |
| DUKE OF VENICE | I think this tale would win my daughter too. | 185 |
| | Good Brabantio, | |
| | Take up this mangled matter at the best: | |
| | Men do their broken weapons rather use | |
| | Than their bare hands. | |
| BRABANTIO | I pray you, hear her speak: | 190 |
| | If she confess that she was half the wooer, | |
| | Destruction on my head, if my bad blame | |
| | Light on the man! Come hither, gentle mistress: | |
| | Do you perceive in all this noble company | |
| | Where most you owe obedience? | 195 |
| DESDEMONA | My noble father, | |
| | I do perceive here a divided duty: | |
| | To you I am bound for life and education; | |
| | My life and education both do learn me | |
| | How to respect you; you are the lord of duty; | 200 |
| | I am hitherto your daughter: but here's my husband, | |
| | And so much duty as my mother show'd | |
| | To you, preferring you before her father, | |
| | So much I challenge that I may profess | |
| | Due to the Moor my lord. | 205 |
| BRABANTIO | God be wi' you! I have done. | |
| | Please it your grace, on to the state-affairs: | |
| | I had rather to adopt a child than get it. | |
| | Come hither, Moor: | |
| | I here do give thee that with all my heart | 210 |
| | Which, but thou hast already, with all my heart | |
| | I would keep from thee. For your sake, jewel, | |
| | I am glad at soul I have no other child: | |
| | For thy escape would teach me tyranny, | |
| | To hang clogs on them. I have done, my lord. | 215 |
| DUKE OF VENICE | Let me speak like yourself, and lay a sentence, | |
| | Which, as a grise or step, may help these lovers | |
| | Into your favour. | |
| | When remedies are past, the griefs are ended | |
| | By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended. | 220 |
| | To mourn a mischief that is past and gone | |
| | Is the next way to draw new mischief on. | |
| | What cannot be preserved when fortune takes | |
| | Patience her injury a mockery makes. | |
| | The robb'd that smiles steals something from the thief; | 225 |
| | He robs himself that spends a bootless grief. | |
| BRABANTIO | 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, | 230 |
| | But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow | |
| | That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow. | |
| | These sentences, to sugar, or to gall, | |
| | Being strong on both sides, are equivocal: | |
| | But words are words; I never yet did hear | 235 |
| | That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear. | |
| | I humbly beseech you, proceed to the affairs of state. | |
| DUKE OF VENICE | The Turk with a most mighty preparation makes for | |
| | Cyprus. Othello, the fortitude of the place is best | |
| | known to you; and though we have there a substitute | 240 |
| | of most allowed sufficiency, yet opinion, a | |
| | sovereign mistress of effects, throws a more safer | |
| | voice on you: you must therefore be content to | |
| | slubber the gloss of your new fortunes with this | |
| | more stubborn and boisterous expedition. | 245 |
| OTHELLO | The tyrant custom, most grave senators, | |
| | Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war | |
| | My thrice-driven bed of down: I do agnise | |
| | A natural and prompt alacrity | |
| | I find in hardness, and do undertake | 250 |
| | These present wars against the Ottomites. | |
| | Most humbly therefore bending to your state, | |
| | I crave fit disposition for my wife. | |
| | Due reference of place and exhibition, | |
| | With such accommodation and besort | 255 |
| | As levels with her breeding. | |
| DUKE OF VENICE | If you please, | |
| | Be't at her father's. | |
| BRABANTIO | I'll not have it so. | |
| OTHELLO | Nor I. | 260 |
| DESDEMONA | Nor I; I would not there reside, | |
| | To put my father in impatient thoughts | |
| | By being in his eye. Most gracious duke, | |
| | To my unfolding lend your prosperous ear; | |
| | And let me find a charter in your voice, | 265 |
| | To assist my simpleness. | |
| DUKE OF VENICE | What would You, Desdemona? | |
| DESDEMONA | That I did love the Moor to live with him, | |
| | My downright violence and storm of fortunes | |
| | May trumpet to the world: my heart's subdued | 270 |
| | Even to the very quality of my lord: | |
| | I saw Othello's visage in his mind, | |
| | And to his honour and his valiant parts | |
| | Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate. | |
| | So that, dear lords, if I be left behind, | 275 |
| | A moth of peace, and he go to the war, | |
| | The rites for which I love him are bereft me, | |
| | And I a heavy interim shall support | |
| | By his dear absence. Let me go with him. | |
| OTHELLO | Let her have your voices. | 280 |
| | Vouch with me, heaven, I therefore beg it not, | |
| | To please the palate of my appetite, | |
| | Nor to comply with heat--the young affects | |
| | In me defunct--and proper satisfaction. | |
| | But to be free and bounteous to her mind: | 285 |
| | And heaven defend your good souls, that you think | |
| | I will your serious and great business scant | |
| | For she is with me: no, when light-wing'd toys | |
| | Of feather'd Cupid seal with wanton dullness | |
| | My speculative and officed instruments, | 290 |
| | That my disports corrupt and taint my business, | |
| | Let housewives make a skillet of my helm, | |
| | And all indign and base adversities | |
| | Make head against my estimation! | |
| DUKE OF VENICE | Be it as you shall privately determine, | 295 |
| | Either for her stay or going: the affair cries haste, | |
| | And speed must answer it. | |
| First Senator | You must away to-night. | |
| OTHELLO | With all my heart. | |
| DUKE OF VENICE | At nine i' the morning here we'll meet again. | 300 |
| | Othello, leave some officer behind, | |
| | And he shall our commission bring to you; | |
| | With such things else of quality and respect | |
| | As doth import you. | |
| OTHELLO | So please your grace, my ancient; | 305 |
| | A man he is of honest and trust: | |
| | To his conveyance I assign my wife, | |
| | With what else needful your good grace shall think | |
| | To be sent after me. | |
| DUKE OF VENICE | Let it be so. | 310 |
| | Good night to every one. | |
| | To BRABANTIO | |
| | And, noble signior, | |
| | If virtue no delighted beauty lack, | |
| | Your son-in-law is far more fair than black. | |
| First Senator | Adieu, brave Moor, use Desdemona well. | 315 |
| BRABANTIO | Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see: | |
| | She has deceived her father, and may thee. | |
| | Exeunt DUKE OF VENICE, Senators, Officers, &c | |
| OTHELLO | My life upon her faith! Honest Iago, | |
| | My Desdemona must I leave to thee: | |
| | I prithee, let thy wife attend on her: | 320 |
| | And bring them after in the best advantage. | |
| | Come, Desdemona: I have but an hour | |
| | Of love, of worldly matters and direction, | |
| | To spend with thee: we must obey the time. | |
| | Exeunt OTHELLO and DESDEMONA | |
| RODERIGO | Iago,-- | 325 |
| IAGO | What say'st thou, noble heart? | |
| RODERIGO | What will I do, thinkest thou? | |
| IAGO | Why, go to bed, and sleep. | |
| RODERIGO | I will incontinently drown myself. | |
| IAGO | If thou dost, I shall never love thee after. Why, | 330 |
| | thou silly gentleman! | |
| RODERIGO | It is silliness to live when to live is torment; and | |
| | then have we a prescription to die when death is our physician. | |
| IAGO | O villainous! I have looked upon the world for four | |
| | times seven years; and since I could distinguish | 335 |
| | betwixt a benefit and an injury, I never found man | |
| | that knew how to love himself. Ere I would say, I | |
| | would drown myself for the love of a guinea-hen, I | |
| | would change my humanity with a baboon. | |
| RODERIGO | What should I do? I confess it is my shame to be so | 340 |
| | fond; but it is not in my virtue to amend it. | |
| IAGO | Virtue! a fig! 'tis in ourselves that we are thus | |
| | or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which | |
| | our wills are gardeners: so that if we will plant | |
| | nettles, or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up | 345 |
| | thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs, or | |
| | distract it with many, either to have it sterile | |
| | with idleness, or manured with industry, why, the | |
| | power and corrigible authority of this lies in our | |
| | wills. If the balance of our lives had not one | 350 |
| | scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the | |
| | blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us | |
| | to most preposterous conclusions: but we have | |
| | reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal | |
| | stings, our unbitted lusts, whereof I take this that | 355 |
| | you call love to be a sect or scion. | |
| RODERIGO | It cannot be. | |
| IAGO | It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of | |
| | the will. Come, be a man. Drown thyself! drown | |
| | cats and blind puppies. I have professed me thy | 360 |
| | friend and I confess me knit to thy deserving with | |
| | cables of perdurable toughness; I could never | |
| | better stead thee than now. Put money in thy | |
| | purse; follow thou the wars; defeat thy favour with | |
| | an usurped beard; I say, put money in thy purse. It | 365 |
| | cannot be that Desdemona should long continue her | |
| | love to the Moor,-- put money in thy purse,--nor he | |
| | his to her: it was a violent commencement, and thou | |
| | shalt see an answerable sequestration:--put but | |
| | money in thy purse. These Moors are changeable in | 370 |
| | their wills: fill thy purse with money:--the food | |
| | that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be | |
| | to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida. She must | |
| | change for youth: when she is sated with his body, | |
| | she will find the error of her choice: she must | 375 |
| | have change, she must: therefore put money in thy | |
| | purse. If thou wilt needs damn thyself, do it a | |
| | more delicate way than drowning. Make all the money | |
| | thou canst: if sanctimony and a frail vow betwixt | |
| | an erring barbarian and a supersubtle Venetian not | 380 |
| | too hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell, thou | |
| | shalt enjoy her; therefore make money. A pox of | |
| | drowning thyself! it is clean out of the way: seek | |
| | thou rather to be hanged in compassing thy joy than | |
| | to be drowned and go without her. | 385 |
| RODERIGO | Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend on | |
| | the issue? | |
| IAGO | Thou art sure of me:--go, make money:--I have told | |
| | thee often, and I re-tell thee again and again, I | |
| | hate the Moor: my cause is hearted; thine hath no | 390 |
| | less reason. Let us be conjunctive in our revenge | |
| | against him: if thou canst cuckold him, thou dost | |
| | thyself a pleasure, me a sport. There are many | |
| | events in the womb of time which will be delivered. | |
| | Traverse! go, provide thy money. We will have more | 395 |
| | of this to-morrow. Adieu. | |
| RODERIGO | Where shall we meet i' the morning? | |
| IAGO | At my lodging. | |
| RODERIGO | I'll be with thee betimes. | |
| IAGO | Go to; farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo? | 400 |
| RODERIGO | What say you? | |
| IAGO | No more of drowning, do you hear? | |
| RODERIGO | I am changed: I'll go sell all my land. | |
| | Exit | |
| IAGO | Thus do I ever make my fool my purse: | |
| | For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane, | 405 |
| | If I would time expend with such a snipe. | |
| | But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor: | |
| | And it is thought abroad, that 'twixt my sheets | |
| | He has done my office: I know not if't be true; | |
| | But I, for mere suspicion in that kind, | 410 |
| | Will do as if for surety. He holds me well; | |
| | The better shall my purpose work on him. | |
| | Cassio's a proper man: let me see now: | |
| | To get his place and to plume up my will | |
| | In double knavery--How, how? Let's see:-- | 415 |
| | After some time, to abuse Othello's ear | |
| | That he is too familiar with his wife. | |
| | He hath a person and a smooth dispose | |
| | To be suspected, framed to make women false. | |
| | The Moor is of a free and open nature, | 420 |
| | That thinks men honest that but seem to be so, | |
| | And will as tenderly be led by the nose | |
| | As asses are. | |
| | I have't. It is engender'd. Hell and night | |
| | Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light. | 425 |
| | Exit | |
