William Shakespeare
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- Othello
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Othello (1603)
Théodore Chassériau, Othello and Desdemona in Venice, 1850" style="width: 154px; height: 200px; float: right;" class="PopBoxImageSmall" title="Click to magnify/shrink" onclick="Pop(this,50,'/');"/>ACT ONE
SCENE 1. 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
Enter OTHELLO, IAGO, and Attendants with torches
Iago
- Though in the trade of war I have slain men,
- Yet do I hold it very stuff o' the conscience
- To do no contrived murder: I lack iniquity
- Sometimes to do me service: nine or ten times
- I had thought to have yerk'd him here under the ribs.
Othello
- 'Tis better as it is.
Iago
- Nay, but he prated,
- And spoke such scurvy and provoking terms
- Against your honour
- That, with the little godliness I have,
- I did full hard forbear him. But, I pray you, sir,
- Are you fast married? Be assured of this,
- That the magnifico is much beloved,
- And hath in his effect a voice potential
- As double as the duke's: he will divorce you;
- Or put upon you what restraint and grievance
- The law, with all his might to enforce it on,
- Will give him cable.
Othello
- Let him do his spite:
- My services which I have done the signiory
- Shall out-tongue his complaints. 'Tis yet to know,--
- Which, when I know that boasting is an honour,
- I shall promulgate--I fetch my life and being
- From men of royal siege, and my demerits
- May speak unbonneted to as proud a fortune
- As this that I have reach'd: for know, Iago,
- But that I love the gentle Desdemona,
- I would not my unhoused free condition
- Put into circumscription and confine
- For the sea's worth. But, look! what lights come yond?
Iago
- Those are the raised father and his friends:
- You were best go in.
Othello
- Not I I must be found:
- My parts, my title and my perfect soul
- Shall manifest me rightly. Is it they?
Iago
- By Janus, I think no.
Enter CASSIO, and certain Officers with torches
Othello
- The servants of the duke, and my lieutenant.
- The goodness of the night upon you, friends!
- What is the news?
Cassio
- The duke does greet you, general,
- And he requires your haste-post-haste appearance,
- Even on the instant.
Othello
- What is the matter, think you?
Cassio
- Something from Cyprus as I may divine:
- It is a business of some heat: the galleys
- Have sent a dozen sequent messengers
- This very night at one another's heels,
- And many of the consuls, raised and met,
- Are at the duke's already: you have been
- hotly call'd for;
- When, being not at your lodging to be found,
- The senate hath sent about three several guests
- To search you out.
Othello
- 'Tis well I am found by you.
- I will but spend a word here in the house,
- And go with you.
Exit
Cassio
- Ancient, what makes he here?
Iago
- 'Faith, he to-night hath boarded a land carack:
- If it prove lawful prize, he's made for ever.
Cassio
- I do not understand.
Iago
- He's married.
Cassio
- To who?
Re-enter OTHELLO
Iago
- Marry, to--Come, captain, will you go?
Othello
- Have with you.
Cassio
- Here comes another troop to seek for you.
Iago
- It is Brabantio. General, be advised;
- He comes to bad intent.
Enter BRABANTIO, RODERIGO, and Officers with torches and weapons
Othello
- Holla! stand there!
Roderigo
- Signior, it is the Moor.
Brabantio
- Down with him, thief!
They draw on both sides
Iago
- You, Roderigo! come, sir, I am for you.
Othello
- Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.
- Good signior, you shall more command with years
- Than with your weapons.
Brabantio
- O thou foul thief, where hast thou stow'd my daughter?
- Damn'd as thou art, thou hast enchanted her;
- For I'll refer me to all things of sense,
- If she in chains of magic were not bound,
- Whether a maid so tender, fair and happy,
- So opposite to marriage that she shunned
- The wealthy curled darlings of our nation,
- Would ever have, to incur a general mock,
- Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom
- Of such a thing as thou, to fear, not to delight.
- Judge me the world, if 'tis not gross in sense
- That thou hast practised on her with foul charms,
- Abused her delicate youth with drugs or minerals
- That weaken motion: I'll have't disputed on;
- 'Tis probable and palpable to thinking.
- I therefore apprehend and do attach thee
- For an abuser of the world, a practiser
- Of arts inhibited and out of warrant.
- Lay hold upon him: if he do resist,
- Subdue him at his peril.
Othello
- Hold your hands,
- Both you of my inclining, and the rest:
- Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it
- Without a prompter. Where will you that I go
- To answer this your charge?
Brabantio
- To prison, till fit time
- Of law and course of direct session
- Call thee to answer.
Othello
- What if I do obey?
- How may the duke be therewith satisfied,
- Whose messengers are here about my side,
- Upon some present business of the state
- To bring me to him?
First officer
- 'Tis true, most worthy signior;
- The duke's in council and your noble self,
- I am sure, is sent for.
Brabantio
- How! the duke in council!
- In this time of the night! Bring him away:
- Mine's not an idle cause: the duke himself,
- Or any of my brothers of the state,
- Cannot but feel this wrong as 'twere their own;
- For if such actions may have passage free,
- Bond-slaves and pagans shall our statesmen be.
Exeunt
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