A council-chamber.
[The DUKE and Senators sitting
at a table; Officers attending]
First Senator
My letters say a hundred and seven galleys.
DUKE OF VENICE And mine, a hundred and forty.
Second Senator And mine, two hundred:
DUKE OF VENICE There is no composition in these news
But though they jump not on a just account,–
–yet do they all confirm
A Turkish fleet, and bearing up to Cyprus.
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]
Signior Brabantio
We lack’d your counsel and your help tonight.
BRABANTIO Good your grace, pardon me;
Neither my place nor aught I heard of business
Hath raised me from my bed, for my particular grief
engluts all other sorrows
DUKE OF VENICE Why, what’s the matter?
BRABANTIO My daughter! O, my daughter!
DUKE OF VENICE Dead?
BRABANTIO Ay, to me;
She is abused, stol’n from me, and corrupted
For nature so preposterously to err,
Sans witchcraft could not.
DUKE OF VENICE
Whoe’er hath thus beguiled your daughter of herself
And you of her, the bloody book of law
You shall yourself read , yea, though our proper son
Stood in your action.
BRABANTIO Humbly I thank your grace.
Here is the man, this Moor!
DUKE OF VENICE We are very sorry for’t.
Othello, what, in your own part, can you say to this?
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 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; and by 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,
To fall in love with what she fear’d to look on!
I vouch again that with some mixtures
powerful o’er the blood, he wrought upon her.
DUKE OF VENICE To vouch this, is no proof,
Without more wider and more overt test
First Senator But, Othello, speak:
Did you by indirect and forced courses
Subdue and poison this young maid’s affections?
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
Iago, 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:
This to hear would Desdemona seriously incline:
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.
BRABANTIO I pray you, hear her speak:
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.
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.
So beseech you now 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; 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 undertake
These present wars against the Ottomites.
Most humbly therefore bending to your state,
I crave fit disposition for my wife.
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,
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 I do beseech you, let her have your voices.
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.
You must away to-night.
OTHELLO With all my heart.
DUKE OF VENICE Then —
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.
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
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 What should I do?
IAGO Put money in thy purse; follow thou the wars;
It cannot be that Desdemona should long continue her
love to the Moor: 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.
RODERIGO Wilt thou be fast to my hopes?
IAGO I have told thee often, and I re-tell thee 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. We will have more
of this to-morrow. Adieu.
RODERIGO I’ll be with thee betimes.
IAGO And no more of drowning, do you hear?
RODERIGO I am changed.
IAGO
Go to, farewell. Put money enough in thy purse.
RODERIGO 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 –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.
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