The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice: ACT I , SCENE III. A council-chamber.

The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice: ACT I


	Introduction

	ACT I

		SCENE I. Venice. A street.

		SCENE II. Another street.

		SCENE III. A council-chamber.

	ACT II

	ACT III

	ACT IV

	ACT V

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SCENE 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.

DUKE OF VENICE

5 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.

Sailor

15 (Within) What, ho! what, ho! what, ho!

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
20    By Signior Angelo.

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
25    The importancy of Cyprus to the Turk,
      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,
30    But altogether lacks the abilities
      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,
35    To wake and wage a danger profitless.

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,
40    Have there injointed them with an after fleet.

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,
45    Your trusty and most valiant servitor,
      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

50 He's now in Florence.

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

55 I did not see you; welcome, gentle signior;
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
60    Take hold on me, for my particular grief
      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

65 My daughter! O, my daughter!

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) What, in your own part, can you say to this?

BRABANTIO

85 Nothing, but this is so.

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:
90    The very head and front of my offending
      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
95    Their dearest action in the tented field,
      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,
100   I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver
      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

105   A maiden never bold;
      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!
110   It is a judgment maim'd and most imperfect
      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
115   That with some mixtures powerful o'er the blood,
      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
120   Than these thin habits and poor likelihoods
      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?
125   Or came it by request and such fair question
      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:
130   If you do find me foul in her report,
      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

135 Ancient, conduct them: you best know the place.

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,
140   And she in mine.

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,
145   That I have passed.
      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
150   Of hair-breadth scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,
      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,
155   Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven
      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
160   Would Desdemona seriously incline:
      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,
165   Took once a pliant hour, and found good means
      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,
170   And often did beguile her of her tears,
      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,
175   'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:
      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.
180   And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:
      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

185   I think this tale would win my daughter too.
      Good Brabantio,
      Take up this mangled matter at the best:
      Men do their broken weapons rather use
      Than their bare hands.

BRABANTIO

190   I pray you, hear her speak:
      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
195   Where most you owe obedience?

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
200   How to respect you; you are the lord of duty;
      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
205   Due to the Moor my lord.

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:
210   I here do give thee that with all my heart
      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,
215   To hang clogs on them. I have done, my lord.

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
220   By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended.
      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.
225   The robb'd that smiles steals something from the thief;
      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
230   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.
      These sentences, to sugar, or to gall,
      Being strong on both sides, are equivocal:
235   But words are words; I never yet did hear
      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
240   known to you; and though we have there a substitute
      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
245   more stubborn and boisterous expedition.

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
250   I find in hardness, and do undertake
      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,
255   With such accommodation and besort
      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

260 Nor I.

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;
265   And let me find a charter in your voice,
      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
270   May trumpet to the world: my heart's subdued
      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.
275   So that, dear lords, if I be left behind,
      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

280   Let her have your voices.
      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.
285   But to be free and bounteous to her mind:
      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
290   My speculative and officed instruments,
      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

295   Be it as you shall privately determine,
      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

300   At nine i' the morning here we'll meet again.
      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

305   So please your grace, my ancient;
      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

310 Let it be so.
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

315 Adieu, brave Moor, use Desdemona well.

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:
320   I prithee, let thy wife attend on her:
      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

325 Iago,--

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

330 If thou dost, I shall never love thee after. Why,
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
335   times seven years; and since I could distinguish
      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

340 What should I do? I confess it is my shame to be so
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
345   nettles, or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up
      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
350   wills. If the balance of our lives had not one
      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
355   stings, our unbitted lusts, whereof I take this that
      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
360   cats and blind puppies. I have professed me thy
      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
365   an usurped beard; I say, put money in thy purse. It
      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
370   money in thy purse. These Moors are changeable in
      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,
375   she will find the error of her choice: she must
      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
380   an erring barbarian and a supersubtle Venetian not
      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
385   to be drowned and go without her.

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
390   hate the Moor: my cause is hearted; thine hath no
      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.
395   Traverse! go, provide thy money. We will have more
      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

400 Go to; farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo?

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:
405   For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane,
      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;
410   But I, for mere suspicion in that kind,
      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
415   In double knavery--How, how? Let's see:--
      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.
420   The Moor is of a free and open nature,
      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
425   Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.

Exit

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