Othello

by William Shakespeare

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ACT 1. SCENE III. A council-chamber.

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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

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

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

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

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

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,

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,

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,

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,

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

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

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

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

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;

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

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.

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

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:

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

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 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

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!

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

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

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?

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:

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

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 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,

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

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,

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

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,

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 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,

'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.

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

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

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

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

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

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:

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 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

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 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

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 of Venice

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 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 agnise

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.

Duke of Venice

If you please,

Be't at her father's.

Brabantio

I'll not have it so.

Othello

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;

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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,

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

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

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

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.

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

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:

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;

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

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.

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

Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.

Exit