ACT 1. SCENE I. Venice. A street.
Enter Roderigo and Iago
Roderigo
- (Tush) never tell me; I take it much unkindly
- That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse
- As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.
Iago
- (S'blood), but you will not hear me!
- If ever I did dream of such a matter,
- Abhor me.
Roderigo
- Thou toldst me thou didst hold him in thy hate.
Iago
- Despise me
- If I do not. Three great ones of the city,
- In personal suit to make me his lieutenant,
- Off-capped to him; and, by the faith of man,
- I know my price, I am worth no worse a place.
- But he, as loving his own pride and purposes,
- Evades them with a bombast circumstance,
- Horribly stuff'd with epithets of war,
- (And, in conclusion),
- Nonsuits my mediators. For, "Certes," says he,
- "I have already chose my officer."
- And what was he?
- Forsooth, a great arithmetician,
- One Michael Cassio, a Florentine,
- A fellow almost damned in a fair wife;
- That never set a squadron in the field,
- Nor the division of a battle knows
- More than a spinster -unless the bookish theoric,
- Wherein the (toged) consuls can propose
- As masterly as he. Mere prattle, without practise,
- Is all his soldiership. But he, sir, had th' election;
- And I, of whom his eyes had seen the proof
- At Rhodes, at Cyprus and on (other) grounds
- Christian and heathen, must be be-lee'd and
- Calmed
- By debitor and creditor. This countercaster,
- He, in good time, must his lieutenant be,
- And I (God) bless the mark! his Moorship's ancient.
Roderigo
- By heaven, I rather would have been his hangman.
Iago
- Why, there's no remedy. 'Tis the curse of service,.
- Preferment goes by letter and affection,
- And not by old gradation, where each second
- Stood heir to th' first. Now, sir, be judge yourself,
- Whether I in any just term am affined
- To love the Moor.
Roderigo
- I would not follow him then.
Iago
- O, sir, content you.
- I follow him to serve my turn upon him:
- We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
- Cannot be truly followed. You shall mark
- Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave,
- That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,
- Wears out his time, much like his master's ass,
- For nought but provender, and when he's old,
- Cashier'd.
- Whip me such honest knaves! Others there are
- Who, trimmed in forms and visages of duty,
- Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves,
- And, throwing but shows of service on their lords,
- Do well thrive by them; and when they have lined
- their coats
- Do themselves homage. These fellows have some
- soul.
- And such a one do I profess myself. For, sir,
- It is as sure as you are Roderigo,
- Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago.
- In following him, I follow but myself.
- Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
- But seeming so, for my peculiar end.
- For when my outward action doth demonstrate
- The native act and figure of my heart
- In compliment extern, 'tis not long after
- But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
- For daws to peck at. I am not what I am.
Roderigo
- What a (full) fortune does the (thick-lips) owe
- If he can carry't thus!
Iago
- Call up her father.
- Rouse him. Make after him, poison his delight,
- Proclaim him in the streets; incense her kinsmen,
- And, though he in a fertile climate dwell,
- Plague him with flies. though that his joy be joy,
- Yet throw such changes of vexation on't,
- As it may lose some color.
Roderigo
- Here is her father's house. I'll call aloud.
Iago
- Do, with like timorous accent and dire yell
- As when, by night and negligence, the fire
- Is spied in populous cities.
Roderigo
- What, ho, Brabantio! Signior Brabantio, ho!
Iago
- Awake! what, ho, Brabantio! thieves! thieves! thieves!
- Look to your house, your daughter and your bags!
- Thieves! thieves!
- &BRABANTIO appears above, at a window
Brabantio
- What is the reason of this terrible summons?
- What is the matter there?
Roderigo
- Signior, is all your family within?
Iago
- Are your doors lock'd?
Brabantio
- Why, wherefore ask you this?
Iago
- 'Zounds, sir, you're robb'd; for shame, put on
- your gown;
- Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul;
- Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
- Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise;
- Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,
- Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you:
- Arise, I say.
Brabantio
- What, have you lost your wits?
Roderigo
- Most reverend signior, do you know my voice?
Brabantio
- Not I what are you?
Roderigo
- My name is Roderigo.
Brabantio
- The worser welcome:
- I have charged thee not to haunt about my doors:
- In honest plainness thou hast heard me say
- My daughter is not for thee; and now, in madness,
- Being full of supper and distempering draughts,
- Upon malicious bravery, dost thou come
- To start my quiet.
Roderigo
- Sir, sir, sir,--
Brabantio
- But thou must needs be sure
- My spirit and my place have in them power
- To make this bitter to thee.
Roderigo
- Patience, good sir.
Brabantio
- What tell'st thou me of robbing? this is Venice;
- My house is not a grange.
Roderigo
- Most grave Brabantio,
- In simple and pure soul I come to you.
Iago
- 'Zounds, sir, you are one of those that will not
- Serve God, if the devil bid you. Because we come to
- Do you service and you think we are ruffians, you'll
- Have your daughter covered with a Barbary horse;
- You'll have your nephews neigh to you; you'll have
- Coursers for cousins and gennets for germans.
Brabantio
- What profane wretch art thou?
Iago
- I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter
- And the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.
Brabantio
- Thou art a villain.
Iago
- You are--a senator.
Brabantio
- This thou shalt answer; I know thee, Roderigo.
Roderigo
- Sir, I will answer any thing. But, I beseech you,
- If't be your pleasure and most wise consent,
- As partly I find it is, that your fair daughter,
- At this odd-even and dull watch o' the night,
- Transported, with no worse nor better guard
- But with a knave of common hire, a gondolier,
- To the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor--
- If this be known to you and your allowance,
- We then have done you bold and saucy wrongs;
- But if you know not this, my manners tell me
- We have your wrong rebuke. Do not believe
- That, from the sense of all civility,
- I thus would play and trifle with your reverence:
- Your daughter, if you have not given her leave,
- I say again, hath made a gross revolt;
- Tying her duty, beauty, wit and fortunes
- In an extravagant and wheeling stranger
- Of here and every where. Straight satisfy yourself:
- If she be in her chamber or your house,
- Let loose on me the justice of the state
- For thus deluding you.
Brabantio
- Strike on the tinder, ho!
- Give me a taper! call up all my people!
- This accident is not unlike my dream:
- Belief of it oppresses me already.
- Light, I say! light!
Exit above
Iago
- Farewell; for I must leave you:
- It seems not meet, nor wholesome to my place,
- To be produced--as, if I stay, I shall--
- Against the Moor: for, I do know, the state,
- However this may gall him with some cheque,
- Cannot with safety cast him, for he's embark'd
- With such loud reason to the Cyprus wars,
- Which even now stand in act, that, for their souls,
- Another of his fathom they have none,
- To lead their business: in which regard,
- Though I do hate him as I do hell-pains.
- Yet, for necessity of present life,
- I must show out a flag and sign of love,
- Which is indeed but sign. That you shall surely find him,
- Lead to the Sagittary the raised search;
- And there will I be with him. So, farewell.
Exit
Enter, below, Brabantio, and Servants with torches
Brabantio
- It is too true an evil: gone she is;
- And what's to come of my despised time
- Is nought but bitterness. Now, Roderigo,
- Where didst thou see her? O unhappy girl!
- With the Moor, say'st thou? Who would be a father!
- How didst thou know 'twas she? O she deceives me
- Past thought! What said she to you? Get more tapers:
- Raise all my kindred. Are they married, think you?
Roderigo
- Truly, I think they are.
Brabantio
- O heaven! How got she out? O treason of the blood!
- Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters' minds
- By what you see them act. Is there not charms
- By which the property of youth and maidhood
- May be abused? Have you not read, Roderigo,
- Of some such thing?
Roderigo
- Yes, sir, I have indeed.
Brabantio
- Call up my brother. O, would you had had her!
- Some one way, some another. Do you know
- Where we may apprehend her and the Moor?
Roderigo
- I think I can discover him, if you please,
- To get good guard and go along with me.
Brabantio
- Pray you, lead on. At every house I'll call;
- I may command at most. Get weapons, ho!
- And raise some special officers of night.
- On, good Roderigo: I'll deserve your pains.
Exeunt