The Tragedy Of Othello, The Moor Of Venice

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