Othello (Modern)
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1.3
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Enter Duke [and] Senators [set at a table, with lights] and officers.
325Duke There is no composition in these news
| ¶That gives them credit. | |
| ¶1 Senator | |
| Indeed, they are disproportioned; | |
¶My letters say a hundred and seven galleys.
| ¶Duke | |
| And mine a hundred forty. | |
| 3302. 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
¶A Turkish fleet, and bearing up to Cyprus.
335Duke 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.
340
Enter Sailor.
¶Officer A messenger from the galleys.
¶Duke Now, what's the business?
¶Sailor The Turkish preparation makes for Rhodes,
¶So was I bid report here to the state
345By Signor Angelo.
| ¶Duke | |
| How say you by this change? | |
| ¶1 Senator | |
| This cannot be, | |
¶By no assay of reason. 'Tis a pageant
¶To keep us in false gaze. When we consider
350Th'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,
355But altogether lacks th'abilities
¶That Rhodes is dressed in. If we make thought of this,
¶We must not think the Turk is so unskillful
¶To leave that latest which concerns him first,
¶Neglecting an attempt of ease and gain
360To wake and wage a danger profitless.
¶Duke Nay, in all confidence he's not for Rhodes.
¶Officer Here is more news.
¶
Enter a Messenger.
¶Messenger The Ottomites, reverend and gracious,
365Steering with due course toward the isle of Rhodes,
¶Have there injointed them with an after fleet.
¶1 Senator Ay, so I thought. How many, as you guess?
¶Messenger Of thirty sail; and now they do re-stem
¶Their backward course, bearing with frank appearance
370Their purposes toward Cyprus. Signor Montano,
¶Your trusty and most valiant servitor,
¶With his free duty, recommends you thus
¶And prays you to believe him.
¶Duke 'Tis certain then for Cyprus.
375Marcus Luccicos--is not he in town?
¶1 Senator He's now in Florence.
¶1 Senator Here comes Brabantio and the valiant Moor.
¶Duke Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you
¶Against the general enemy Ottoman.
¶[To Brabantio] I did not see you; welcome, gentle signor;
385We lacked 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
390Is of so floodgate and o'erbearing nature
¶That it engluts and swallows other sorrows,
| ¶And it is still itself. | |
| ¶Duke | |
| Why? What's the matter? | |
| ¶Brabantio | ||
| My daughter! Oh, my daughter! | ||
| 3951 Senator | ||
| Dead? | ||
| ¶Brabantio | ||
| Ay, to me. | ||
¶She is abused, stolen from me, and corrupted
¶By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks;
¶For nature so preposterously to err--
400Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense--
¶Sans witchcraft could not.
¶Duke Whoe'er he be that in this foul proceeding
¶Hath thus beguiled your daughter of herself,
¶And you of her, the bloody book of law
405You 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. | |
¶Here is the man--this Moor, whom now it seems
410Your special mandate for the state affairs
| ¶Hath hither brought. | |
| ¶All | |
| We are very sorry for't. | |
¶Duke What, in your own part, can you say to this?
¶Brabantio Nothing, but this is so.
415Othello Most potent, grave, and reverend signors,
¶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
420Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,
¶And little blessed with the soft phrase of peace--
¶For since these arms of mine had seven year's pith
¶Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used
¶Their dearest action in the tented field--
425And little of this great world can I speak
¶More than pertains to feats of broils and battle,
¶And therefore little shall I grace my cause
¶In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,
¶I will a round, unvarnished tale deliver
¶What conjuration, and what mighty magic--
¶For such proceeding I am charged withal--
| ¶I won his daughter. | |
| 435Brabantio | |
| A maiden never bold, | |
¶Of spirit so still and quiet that her motion
¶Blushed at herself, and she--in spite of nature,
¶Of years, of country, credit, everything--
¶To fall in love with what she feared to look on?
440It is a judgment maimed 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
445That with some mixtures powerful o'er the blood,
¶Or with some dram conjured to this effect,
| ¶He wrought upon her. | |
| ¶Duke | |
| To vouch this is no proof | |
¶Without more wider and more overt test
450Than these thin habits and poor likelihoods
¶Of modern seeming do prefer against him.
¶1 Senator But, Othello, speak:
¶Did you by indirect and forcèd courses
¶Subdue and poison this young maid's affections?
455Or 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;
460If 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 | |
| Fetch Desdemona hither. | |
[Exeunt two or three officers.]
[Exit Iago.]
¶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
470How I did thrive in this fair lady's love,
| ¶And she in mine. | |
| ¶Duke | |
| Say it, Othello. | |
¶Othello Her father loved, oft invited me,
¶Still questioned me, the story of my life
475From year to year--the battles, sieges, fortunes
¶That I have passed.
¶I ran it through, even from my boyish day
¶To th'very moment that he bade me tell it--
¶Wherein I spoke of most disastrous chances,
480Of moving accidents by flood and field,
¶Of hair-breadth scapes i'th'imminent deadly breach;
¶Of being taken by the insolent foe
¶And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence
¶And portance in my traveler's history,
485Wherein of antars vast and deserts idle,
¶Rough quarries, rocks, hills whose head touch heaven,
¶It was my hint to speak--such was my process--
¶And of the cannibals that each other eat,
¶The anthropophagi, and men whose heads
490Grew beneath their shoulders. These things to hear
¶Would Desdemona seriously incline,
¶But still the house affairs would draw her thence,
¶Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,
¶She'd come again and with a greedy ear
495Devour up my discourse; which I, observing,
¶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,
500But not intentively. I did consent,
¶And often did beguile her of her tears
¶When I did speak of some distressful stroke
¶That my youth suffered. My story being done,
¶She gave me for my pains a world of kisses;
505She swore in faith 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange;
¶'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful.
¶She wished she had not heard it, yet she wished
¶That heaven had made her such a man. She thanked me,
¶And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,
510I should but teach him how to tell my story
¶And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake.
¶She loved me for the dangers I had passed,
¶And I loved her that she did pity them.
¶This only is the witchcraft I have used.
515Here comes the lady; let her witness it.
¶
Enter Desdemona, Iago, [and] attendants.
¶Duke 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
| 520Than their bare hands. | |
| ¶Brabantio | |
| 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.
525Do you perceive in all this noble company
| ¶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;
530My life and education both do learn me
¶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 showed
¶To you, preferring you before her father,
535So much I challenge that I may profess
¶Due to the Moor my lord.
¶Brabantio God be with you; I have done.
¶Please it your grace, on to the state affairs.
¶I had rather to adopt a child than get it.
540Come hither, Moor.
¶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,
545For thy escape would teach me tyranny
¶To hang clogs on them. I have done, my lord.
¶Which as a grise or step may help these lovers
549.1Into your favor.
550When remedies are past, the griefs are ended
¶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,
555Patience her injury a mockery makes.
¶The robbed 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.
560He bears the sentence well that nothing bears,
¶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,
565Being strong on both sides, are equivocal.
¶But words are words; I never yet did hear
¶That the bruised heart was piercèd through the ear.
¶I humbly beseech you proceed to th'affairs of state.
¶Duke The Turk with a most mighty preparation 570makes for Cyprus. Othello, the fortitude of the place is ¶best known to you; and though we have there a ¶substitute of most allowed sufficiency, yet opinion, a more ¶sovereign mistress of effects, throws a more safer ¶voice on you. You must therefore be content to slubber 575the gloss of your new fortunes with this 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 agnize
580A natural and prompt alacrity
¶I find in hardness, and do undertake
¶This present war against the Ottomites.
¶Most humbly therefore bending to your state,
¶I crave fit disposition for my wife,
585Due reference of place and exhibition,
¶With such accommodation and besort
¶As levels with her breeding.
| ¶Duke | |
| Why, at her father's. | |
| ¶Brabantio | |
| I will not have it so. | |
590Othello Nor I.
¶Desdemona Nor would I there reside
¶To put my father in impatient thoughts
¶By being in his eye. Most gracious duke,
¶To my unfolding lend your prosperous ear,
595And let me find a charter in your voice
| ¶T'assist my simpleness. | |
| ¶Duke | |
| What would you, Desdemona? | |
¶Desdemona That I love the Moor to live with him,
¶My downright violence and storm of fortunes
600May 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 honors and his valiant parts
¶Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.
605So that, dear lords, if I be left behind,
¶A moth of peace, and he go to the war,
¶The rites for why I love him are bereft me,
¶And I a heavy interim shall support
¶By his dear absence. Let me go with him.
610Othello Let her have your voice.
¶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 my defunct and proper satisfaction,
615But 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
¶When she is with me. No, when light-winged toys
¶Of feathered Cupid seel with wanton dullness
620My 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.
625Duke Be it as you shall privately determine,
¶Either for her stay or going. Th'affair cries haste,
| ¶And speed must answer it. | |
| ¶1 Senator | |
| You must away tonight. | |
| 628.1Desdemona | ||
| Tonight, my lord? | ||
| ¶Duke | ||
| This night. | ||
| ¶Othello | ||
| With all my heart. | ||
630Duke At nine i'th'morning here we'll meet again.
¶Othello, leave some officer behind
¶And he shall our commission bring to you,
¶And such things else of quality and respect
| ¶As doth import you. | |
| 635Othello | |
| So please your grace, my ancient-- | |
¶A man he is of honesty and trust--
¶To his conveyance I assign my wife,
¶With what else needful your good grace shall think
| ¶To be sent after me. | |
| 640Duke | |
| Let it be so. | |
¶Good night to everyone, and, noble signor,
¶If virtue no delighted beauty lack,
¶Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.
¶1 Senator Adieu, brave Moor, use Desdemona well.
645Brabantio Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see;
¶She has deceived her father and may thee.
Exeunt [Duke, Senators, Brabantio, Cassio, Sailor, Messenger, officers, and attendants].
¶Othello My life upon her faith! Honest Iago,
¶My Desdemona must I leave to thee.
¶I prithee let thy wife attend on her,
650And bring them after in the best advantage.
¶Come Desdemona, I have but an hour
¶Of love, of worldly matter and direction
¶To spend with thee. We must obey the time.
Exeunt [Othello and Desdemona].
¶Roderigo Iago.
655Iago What sayst thou, noble heart?
¶Roderigo What will I do, think'st thou?
¶Iago Why go to bed and sleep.
¶Roderigo I will incontinently drown myself.
¶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 665for four 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.
670Roderigo 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 675nettles 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 wills. If the brain of our lives 680had 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 ¶stings, our unbitted lusts--whereof I take this that you 685call 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 friend, 690and 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 favor with an usurped beard. I say, ¶put money in thy purse. It cannot be long that Desdemona 695should continue her love to the Moor--put money in ¶thy purse--nor he his to her. It was a violent ¶commencement in her, and thou shalt see an answerable ¶sequestration --put but money in thy purse. These Moors ¶are changeable in their wills--fill thy purse with money. 700The 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 errors of her choice. Therefore put ¶money in thy purse. If thou wilt needs damn thyself, do 705it a more delicate way than drowning. Make all the ¶money thou canst. If sanctimony and a frail vow ¶betwixt an erring barbarian and super-subtle Venetian be ¶not too hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell, thou ¶shalt enjoy her. Therefore make money. A pox of 710drowning 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.
715Iago Thou art sure of me--go make money--I have ¶told thee often, and I retell thee again and again: I ¶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 720pleasure, 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 of this ¶tomorrow. Adieu.
¶Roderigo Where shall we meet i'th'morning?
725Iago At my lodging.
¶Roderigo I'll be with thee betimes.
¶Iago Go to, farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo?
727.1Roderigo What say you?
¶Iago No more of drowning, do you hear?
¶Roderigo I am changed.
¶Iago Go to, farewell. Put money enough in your purse.
¶Roderigo I'll sell all my land.
Exit [Roderigo].
¶Iago Thus do I ever make my fool my purse;
730For I mine own gained 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's done my office. I know not if't be true,
735But 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
740In double knavery . . . How? How? Let's see . . .
¶After some time to abuse Othello's ears
¶That he is too familiar with his wife.
¶He hath a person and a smooth dispose
¶To be suspected, framed to make women false.
745The Moor is of a free and open nature
¶That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
¶I have't. It is engendered. Hell and night
750Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.
Exit [Iago].