ance

Their backward course, bearing with frank appear-Of years, of country, credit, every thing,-
To fall in love with what she fear'd to look on?
Their purposes toward Cyprus. Signior Montano, It is a judgment maim'd, and most imperfect,
Your trusty and most valiaut 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.

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 conjur'd to this effect,

Duke. Write from us; wish him post-post-haste; He wrought upon her. dispatch!

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 signior!

[To Brabantio.
We lack'd 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 rais'd 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. Why, what's the matter?

Bra. My daughter! O, my daughter!
Sen. Dead?

Bra. Ay, to me;

She is abus'd, 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. Who'er he be, that, in this foul proceeding,
Hath thus beguil'd your daughter of herself,
And you of her, the bloody book of law
You shall yourself read in the bitter letter,

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,
Subdue and poison this young maid's affections?
Or came it by request, and such fair question
As soul to soul affordeth?
Oth. 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. Fetch Desdemona hither!

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 lov'd me; oft invited me; Still question'd me the story of my life, From year to year; the battles, sieges, fortunes, That I have pass'd.

I

ran it through, even from my boyish days,

After your own sense; yea, though our proper son To the very moment that he bade me tell it.
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 et Sen. We are very sorry for it.
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 signiors,
My very noble and approv'd 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 set phrase of peace;
For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith,
Till now, some nine moons wasted, they have us'd
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,

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 travels history:
Wherein of antres vast, and desarts 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. These things tohear,
Would Desdemona seriously incline:
But still the house affairs would draw her thence;
Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,
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,

In speaking for myself: yet, by your gracious pa- But not intentively: I did consent;
tience,

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 charg'd withal,)
I won his daughter with.

Bra. A maiden never bold;

Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion
Blush'd at herself: and she, in spite of nature,

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 paius a world of sighs:
In faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing

She swore,

--

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 lov'd her,
I should but teach him how to tell my story,
And that would woo her. Upon this hint, I spake:
She lov'd me for the dangers I had pass'd;
And I lov'd her, that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have us'd;
Here comes the lady, let her witness it.

Enter DESDEMONA, IAGO, and Attendants. Duke. I think, this tale would win my daughter too, --

lago. What say'st thou, noble heart?
Rod. What will I do, thinkest thou?
lago. Why, go to bed, and sleep!
Rod. I will incontinently drown myself.

Iago. Well, if thou dost, I shall never love thee after it. Why, thou silly gentleman!

Rod. It is silliness to live, when to live is a torment: and then have we a prescription to die, when death is our physician.

Rod. 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, and 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! Rod. Where shall we meet i'the morning? Iago. At my lodging.

Rod. I'll be with thee betimes.

Iago. Go to! farewell! Do you hear, Roderigo?
Rod. What say you?

purse.

Iago. No more of drowning, do you hear. Rod. I am changed. I'll sell all my land. Iago. Go to! farewell! put money enough in your [Exit Roderige. Iago. O villainous! I have looked upon the world Thus do I ever make my fool my purse: for four times seven years; and since I could distin- For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane, guish between a benefit and an injury, I never found If I would time expend with such a snipe, a man that knew how to love himself. Ere I would say, I would drown myself for the love of a Guineahen, I would change my humanity with a baboon. Rod. What should I do? I confess, it is my shame to be so fond; but it is not in 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 ardeners: 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 steril 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.

Rod. It cannot be.

But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor;
And it is thought abroad, that 'twist my sheets
He has done my offence: 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;
A double knavery, -How? how? - Let me 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; fram'd 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 th' nose,
I have't;—it is engender'd. Hell and night
Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.

As asses are.

А С Т II. A sea-port town in Cyprus. A platform.

Enter MONTANO and two Gentlemen.

Mon. What from the cape can you discern at sea? 1 Gent. Nothing at all: it is a high-wrought flood; I cannot, 'twixt the heaven and the main, Descry a sail.

Mon. Methinks the wind hath spoke aloud st land;

Iago. It is merely a lust of the blood, and a per-
mission of the will! Come, be a man! Drown thyself? SCENE I.
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 these 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

A fuller blast ne'er shook our battlements:
If it hath ruffian'd so upon the sea,
What ribs of oak, when mountains melt on them,
Can hold the mortise? what shall we hear of this?
2 Gent. A segregation of the Turkish fleet:
For do but stand upon the foaming shore,
The chiding billow seems to pelt the clouds;
The wind-shak'd surge, with high and monstrous

main,

in thy purse. If thou wilt needs damn thyself, do Seems to cast water on the burning bear, it a more delicate way than drowning. Make all the And quench the guards of th' ever-fixed pole: money thou canst. If sanctimony and a frail vow, I never did like molestation view betwixt an erring barbarian and a supersubtle Ve- On the enchafed flood.

netian, be not too hard for my wits, and all the Mon. If that the Turkish fleet

tribe of hell, thou shalt enjoy her; therefore make Be not inshelter'd and embay'd, they are drown'd; money. A pox of drowning thyself! it is clean out It is impossible they bear it out.

of the way seek thon rather to be hanged in compas

Enter a third Gentleman.

sing thy joy, than to be drowned and go without her. 3 Gent. News, lords! our wars are done;

H

I

If she be fair and wise, fairness and wit,
The one's for use, the other useth it.
Des. Well praised! How if she be black and witty?

Cas. She, that I spake of, our great captain's cap- Iago. If she be black, and thereto have a wit, tain,

laugh i'the alehouse. What miserable praise hast | Honey, you shall be well desir'd in Cyprus,
thou for her that's foul and foolish?
I have found great love amongst them. O my sweet,
Iago. There's none so foul, and foolish thereunto, I prattle out of fashion, and I dote
But does foul pranks, which fair and wise ones do.
Des. O heavy ignorance! - thou praisest the worst
best. But what praise could'st thou bestow on a
deserving woman indeed? one, that, in the author-
ity of her merit, did justly put on the vouch of
very malice itself?

Iago. She that was ever fair, and never proud,
Had tongue at will, and yet was never loud;
Never lack'd gold, and yet went never gay,
Fled from her wish, and yet said, -now I may;
She, that, being anger'd, her revenge being nigh,
Bade her wrong stay, and her displeasure fly;
She, that in wisdom never was so frail,

To change the cod's head for the salmon's tail;
She, that could think, and ne'er disclose her mind,
See suitors following, and not look behind;
She was a wight, if ever such wight were, -
Des. To do what?

Iago. To suckle fools, and chronicle small beer.
Des. O most lame and impotent conclusion!
Do not learn of him, Emilia, though he be thy husband.
How say you, Cassio? is he not a most profane
and liberal counsellor?

Cas. He speaks home, madam; you may relish him more in the soldier, than in the scholar.

In mine own comforts. -I pr'ythee, good lago,
Go to the bay, and disembark my coffers:
Bring thou the master to the citadel;
He is a good one, and his worthiness
Does challenge much respect. - Come, Desdemona,
One more well met at Cyprus!

[Exeunt Othello, Desdemona, and Attend

ants.

Iago. Do thou meet me presently at the harbour. Come hither! If thou be'st valiant, as (they say) base men, being in love, have then a nobility in their na tures more then is native to them, -list me! The lieutenant to-night watches on the court of guard. -First, I must tell thee this-Desdemona is directly in love with him.

Rod. With him! why 'tis not possible!

Iago. Lay thy finger-thus, and let thy soul be instructed. Mark me with what violence she first loved the Moor, but for bragging, and telling her fantastical lies: and will she love him still for prating? let not thy discreet heart think it. Her eye must be fed; and what delight shall she have to look on the devil? When the blood is made dull with the act of sport, there should be,-again to inflame it, and to give satiety a fresh appetite,-loveliness in favour; Iago. [Aside.] He takes her by the palm. Ay, well sympathy in years, manners, and beauties; all which said, whisper: with as little a web as this, will I the Moor is defective in. Now, for want of these a ensnare as great a fly as Cassio. Ay, smile upon her, quired conveniences, her delicate tenderness will do; I will gyve thee in thine own courtship. You find itself abused, begin to heave the gorge, disrelish say true; 'tis so, indeed! if such tricks as these and abhor the Moor; very nature will instruct her strip you out of your lieutenantry, it had been better in it, and compel her to some second choice. Now, you had not kissed your three fingers so oft, which sir, this granted, (as it is a most pregnant and adnow again you are most apt to play the sir in. Very forced position,) who stands so eminently in the degood; well kissed! and excellent courtesy! 'tis so, indeed! Yet again your fingers to your lips? would, they were clyster-pipes for your sake! -[Trumpet.] The Moor, I know his trumpet!

Cas. 'Tis truly so.

Des. Let's meet him, and receive him.
Cas. Lo, where he comes!

Enter OTHELLO, and Attendants.

Oth. O my fair warrior!

Des. My dear Othello!

Oth. It gives me wonder, great as my content,
To see you here before me. O my soul's joy!
If after every tempest come such calms,
May the winds blow till they have waken'd death!
And let the labouring bark climb hills of seas,
Olympus-high; and duck again as low,

As hell's from heaven! If it were now to die,
'Twere now to be most happy; for, I fear,
My soul hath her content so absolute,
That not another comfort like to this
Succeeds in unknown fate.

Des. The heavens forbid,

But that our loves and comforts should increase,
Even as our days do grow!

Oth. Amen to that, sweet powers!

I cannot speak enough of this content,
It stops me here it is too much of joy:
And this, and this, the greatest discords be,

gree of this fortune, as Cassio does? a knave very voluble; no further conscionable, than in putting on the mere form of civil and humane seeming, for the better compassing of his salt and most hidden loose affection? why, none; why, none. A slippery and subtle knave; å finder out of occasions: that has an eye can stamp and counterfeit advantages, though true advantage never present itself: a devilish knave! besides, the kuave is handsome, young; and hath all those requisites in him, that folly and green minds look after. A pestileut complete kuave; and the woman hath found him already.

Rod. I cannot believe that in her; she is full of most blessed condition.

Iago. Blessed fig's end! the wine she drinks is made of grapes: if she had been blessed, she would never have loved the Moor; blessed pudding! Didst thou not see her paddle with the palm of his hand?

didst not mark that?

Rod. Yes, that I did; but that was but courtesy, Iago. Lechery, by this hand; an index, and obscure prologue to the history of lust and foul thoughts. They met so near with their lips, that their breaths embraced together. Villainous thoughts, Roderigo! when these mutualities so marshal the way, hard at hand comes the master and main exercise, the incor porate conclusion. Pish! But, sir, be you ruled by me: I have brought you from Venice. Watch you [Kissing her. to-night; for the command, I'll lay't upon you: Cassio knows you not; - I'll not be far from you: do you find some occasion to anger Cassio, either by speaking too loud, or tainting his discipline; or from what other course you please, which the time shall more favourably minister.

That e'er our hearts shall make !
Iago. O, you are well tun'd now!
But I'll set down the pegs that make this music,
As honest, as I am.

[Aside.

Oth. Come, let's to the castle. News, friends! our wars are done, the Tarks are drown'd.

How do our old acquaintance of this isle?

Rod. Well.

Iago. Sir, he is rash, and very sudden in choler: and, haply, with his truncheon may strike at you: