Mess. The Ottomites, reverend and gracious, Steering with due course to the isle of Rhodes, Have there injointed them with an after-fleet.
1 Sen. Ay, so I thought.- How many, as you guess
Mess. Of thirty sail; and now do they restem
Their backward course, bearing with frank appearance
Their purposes toward Cyprus.-Seignior 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.-
Marcus Lucchesé, is he not in town?
1 Sen. He's now in Florence.
Duke. Write from us; wish him post-post-haste; despatch. 1 Sen. Here comes Brabantio, and the valiant Moor.
Enter BRABANTIO, OTHELLO, IAGO, RODERIGO, and Officers. Duke. Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you Against the general enemy Ottoman.
I did not see you; welcome, gentle seignior;
[To BRABANTIO. We lacked your counsel and your help to-night.
Bra. 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
Is 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?
Bra. My daughter! O my daughter!
She is abused, stolen from me, and corrupted
By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks.
For nature so preposterously to err,
Being 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.
You shall yourself read in the bitter letter,
After your own sense; yea, though our proper son
Stood in your action.
Bra.
Humbly I thank your grace.
Here is the man, this Moor; whom now, it seems,
Your special mandate, for the state affairs,
Hath hither brought.
Duke and Sen.
Duke. What, in your own part, can you say to this? [TO OTHELLO.
Bra. Nothing, but this is so.
Oth. Most potent, grave, and reverend seigniors,
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
Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,
And little blessed with the set 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;
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 unvarnished 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 with.
Bra.
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, every thing,-
To fall in love with what she feared to look on!
It 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 practices of cunning hell,
Why this should be. I therefore vouch again
That 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 certain and more overt test,
Than these thin habits, and poor likelihoods
Of modern seeming, do prefer against him.
1 Sen. But, Othello, speak.
Did you by indirect and forced courses
Subque and poison this young maid's affections?
Or came it by request, and such fair question
As soul to soul affordeth?
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,
The trust, the office, I do hold of you,
Not only take away, but let your sentence
Even fall upon my life.
Oth. 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,
And she in mine.
Duke. Say it, Othello.
Oth. Her father loved me; oft invited me;
Still questioned me the story of my life,
From year to year; the battles, sieges, fortunes,
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 spoke of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents, by flood, and field;
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 travel's history:
Wherein of antres vast, and deserts wild,
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. These things to hear,
Would Desdemona seriously incline:
But still the house affairs would draw her thence;
Which ever as she could with haste despatch,
She'd come again, and with a greedy ear,
Devour 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,
But 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 sighs:
She 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,
I 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;
Here 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,
Than their bare hands.
I pray you, hear her speak;
If she confess that she was half the wooer,
Destruction on my head, if my bad blame
Lights on the man!-Come hither, gentle mistress;
Do you perceive in all this noble company,
Where most you owe obedience?
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;
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,
So much I challenge that I may profess
Due to the Moor, my lord.
Bra.
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.—
Come 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;
For thy escape would teach me tyranny,
To hang clogs on them.-I have done, my lord.
Duke. Let me speak like yourself; and lay a sentence,
Which has a grise, or step, may help these lovers
Into your favor.
When 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,
Patience her injury a mockery makes.
The robbed, that smiles, steals something from the thief;
He robs himself, that spends a bootless grief.
Bra. 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;
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
That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear.
I humbly beseech you, proceed to the affairs of state.
Duke. 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 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 for-
tunes with this more stubborn and boisterous expedition.
Oth. The tyrant custom, most grave senators,
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
My thrice-driven bed of down. I do agnize
A natural and prompt alacrity,
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,
With such accommodation, and besort,
As levels with her breeding.
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