1    There is no composition in these news
2    That gives them credit.

3    Indeed, they are disproportion'd;
4    My letters say a hundred and seven galleys.

5    And mine, a hundred and forty.

6    And mine, two hundred:
7    But though they jump not on a just account,--
8    As in these cases, where the aim reports,
9    'Tis oft with difference--yet do they all confirm
10   A Turkish fleet, and bearing up to Cyprus.

11   Nay, it is possible enough to judgment:
12   I do not so secure me in the error,
13   But the main article I do approve
14   In fearful sense.

Within
15    What, ho! what, ho! what, ho!

16   A messenger from the galleys.

17   Now, what's the business?

18   The Turkish preparation makes for Rhodes;
19   So was I bid report here to the state
20   By Signior Angelo.

21   How say you by this change?

22   This cannot be,
23   By no assay of reason: 'tis a pageant,
24   To keep us in false gaze. When we consider
25   The importancy of Cyprus to the Turk,
26   And let ourselves again but understand,
27   That as it more concerns the Turk than Rhodes,
28   So may he with more facile question bear it,
29   For that it stands not in such warlike brace,
30   But altogether lacks the abilities
31   That Rhodes is dress'd in: if we make thought of this,
32   We must not think the Turk is so unskilful
33   To leave that latest which concerns him first,
34   Neglecting an attempt of ease and gain,
35   To wake and wage a danger profitless.

36   Nay, in all confidence, he's not for Rhodes.

37   Here is more news.

38   The Ottomites, reverend and gracious,
39   Steering with due course towards the isle of Rhodes,
40   Have there injointed them with an after fleet.

41   Ay, so I thought. How many, as you guess?

42   Of thirty sail: and now they do restem
43   Their backward course, bearing with frank appearance
44   Their purposes toward Cyprus. Signior Montano,
45   Your trusty and most valiant servitor,
46   With his free duty recommends you thus,
47   And prays you to believe him.

48   'Tis certain, then, for Cyprus.
49   Marcus Luccicos, is not he in town?

50   He's now in Florence.

51   Write from us to him; post-post-haste dispatch.

52   Here comes Brabantio and the valiant Moor.

53   Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you
54   Against the general enemy Ottoman.
To BRABANTIO
55   I did not see you; welcome, gentle signior;
56   We lack'd your counsel and your help tonight.

57   So did I yours. Good your grace, pardon me;
58   Neither my place nor aught I heard of business
59   Hath raised me from my bed, nor doth the general care
60   Take hold on me, for my particular grief
61   Is of so flood-gate and o'erbearing nature
62   That it engluts and swallows other sorrows
63   And it is still itself.

64   Why, what's the matter?

65   My daughter! O, my daughter!

66   Dead?

67   Ay, to me;
68   She is abused, stol'n from me, and corrupted
69   By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks;
70   For nature so preposterously to err,
71   Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense,
72   Sans witchcraft could not.

73   Whoe'er he be that in this foul proceeding
74   Hath thus beguiled your daughter of herself
75   And you of her, the bloody book of law
76   You shall yourself read in the bitter letter
77   After your own sense, yea, though our proper son
78   Stood in your action.

79   Humbly I thank your grace.
80   Here is the man, this Moor, whom now, it seems,
81   Your special mandate for the state-affairs
82   Hath hither brought.

83   We are very sorry for't.

To OTHELLO
84    What, in your own part, can you say to this?

85   Nothing, but this is so.

86   Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,
87   My very noble and approved good masters,
88   That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter,
89   It is most true; true, I have married her:
90   The very head and front of my offending
91   Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,
92   And little bless'd with the soft phrase of peace:
93   For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith,
94   Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used
95   Their dearest action in the tented field,
96   And little of this great world can I speak,
97   More than pertains to feats of broil and battle,
98   And therefore little shall I grace my cause
99   In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,
100  I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver
101  Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms,
102  What conjuration and what mighty magic,
103  For such proceeding I am charged withal,
104  I won his daughter.

105  A maiden never bold;
106  Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion
107  Blush'd at herself; and she, in spite of nature,
108  Of years, of country, credit, every thing,
109  To fall in love with what she fear'd to look on!
110  It is a judgment maim'd and most imperfect
111  That will confess perfection so could err
112  Against all rules of nature, and must be driven
113  To find out practises of cunning hell,
114  Why this should be. I therefore vouch again
115  That with some mixtures powerful o'er the blood,
116  Or with some dram conjured to this effect,
117  He wrought upon her.

118  To vouch this, is no proof,
119  Without more wider and more overt test
120  Than these thin habits and poor likelihoods
121  Of modern seeming do prefer against him.

122  But, Othello, speak:
123  Did you by indirect and forced courses
124  Subdue and poison this young maid's affections?
125  Or came it by request and such fair question
126  As soul to soul affordeth?

127  I do beseech you,
128  Send for the lady to the Sagittary,
129  And let her speak of me before her father:
130  If you do find me foul in her report,
131  The trust, the office I do hold of you,
132  Not only take away, but let your sentence
133  Even fall upon my life.

134  Fetch Desdemona hither.

135  Ancient, conduct them: you best know the place.
Exeunt IAGO and Attendants
136  And, till she come, as truly as to heaven
137  I do confess the vices of my blood,
138  So justly to your grave ears I'll present
139  How I did thrive in this fair lady's love,
140  And she in mine.

141  Say it, Othello.

142  Her father loved me; oft invited me;
143  Still question'd me the story of my life,
144  From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,
145  That I have passed.
146  I ran it through, even from my boyish days,
147  To the very moment that he bade me tell it;
148  Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,
149  Of moving accidents by flood and field
150  Of hair-breadth scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,
151  Of being taken by the insolent foe
152  And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence
153  And portance in my travels' history:
154  Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,
155  Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven
156  It was my hint to speak,--such was the process;
157  And of the Cannibals that each other eat,
158  The Anthropophagi and men whose heads
159  Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear
160  Would Desdemona seriously incline:
161  But still the house-affairs would draw her thence:
162  Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,
163  She'ld come again, and with a greedy ear
164  Devour up my discourse: which I observing,
165  Took once a pliant hour, and found good means
166  To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart
167  That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,
168  Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
169  But not intentively: I did consent,
170  And often did beguile her of her tears,
171  When I did speak of some distressful stroke
172  That my youth suffer'd. My story being done,
173  She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:
174  She swore, in faith, twas strange, 'twas passing strange,
175  'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:
176  She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd
177  That heaven had made her such a man: she thank'd me,
178  And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,
179  I should but teach him how to tell my story.
180  And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:
181  She loved me for the dangers I had pass'd,
182  And I loved her that she did pity them.
183  This only is the witchcraft I have used:
184  Here comes the lady; let her witness it.

185  I think this tale would win my daughter too.
186  Good Brabantio,
187  Take up this mangled matter at the best:
188  Men do their broken weapons rather use
189  Than their bare hands.

190  I pray you, hear her speak:
191  If she confess that she was half the wooer,
192  Destruction on my head, if my bad blame
193  Light on the man! Come hither, gentle mistress:
194  Do you perceive in all this noble company
195  Where most you owe obedience?

196  My noble father,
197  I do perceive here a divided duty:
198  To you I am bound for life and education;
199  My life and education both do learn me
200  How to respect you; you are the lord of duty;
201  I am hitherto your daughter: but here's my husband,
202  And so much duty as my mother show'd
203  To you, preferring you before her father,
204  So much I challenge that I may profess
205  Due to the Moor my lord.

206  God be wi' you! I have done.
207  Please it your grace, on to the state-affairs:
208  I had rather to adopt a child than get it.
209  Come hither, Moor:
210  I here do give thee that with all my heart
211  Which, but thou hast already, with all my heart
212  I would keep from thee. For your sake, jewel,
213  I am glad at soul I have no other child:
214  For thy escape would teach me tyranny,
215  To hang clogs on them. I have done, my lord.

216  Let me speak like yourself, and lay a sentence,
217  Which, as a grise or step, may help these lovers
218  Into your favour.
219  When remedies are past, the griefs are ended
220  By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended.
221  To mourn a mischief that is past and gone
222  Is the next way to draw new mischief on.
223  What cannot be preserved when fortune takes
224  Patience her injury a mockery makes.
225  The robb'd that smiles steals something from the thief;
226  He robs himself that spends a bootless grief.

227  So let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile;
228  We lose it not, so long as we can smile.
229  He bears the sentence well that nothing bears
230  But the free comfort which from thence he hears,
231  But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow
232  That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow.
233  These sentences, to sugar, or to gall,
234  Being strong on both sides, are equivocal:
235  But words are words; I never yet did hear
236  That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear.
237  I humbly beseech you, proceed to the affairs of state.

238  The Turk with a most mighty preparation makes for
239  Cyprus. Othello, the fortitude of the place is best
240  known to you; and though we have there a substitute
241  of most allowed sufficiency, yet opinion, a
242  sovereign mistress of effects, throws a more safer
243  voice on you: you must therefore be content to
244  slubber the gloss of your new fortunes with this
245  more stubborn and boisterous expedition.

246  The tyrant custom, most grave senators,
247  Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
248  My thrice-driven bed of down: I do agnise
249  A natural and prompt alacrity
250  I find in hardness, and do undertake
251  These present wars against the Ottomites.
252  Most humbly therefore bending to your state,
253  I crave fit disposition for my wife.
254  Due reference of place and exhibition,
255  With such accommodation and besort
256  As levels with her breeding.

257  If you please,
258  Be't at her father's.

259  I'll not have it so.

260  Nor I.

261  Nor I; I would not there reside,
262  To put my father in impatient thoughts
263  By being in his eye. Most gracious duke,
264  To my unfolding lend your prosperous ear;
265  And let me find a charter in your voice,
266  To assist my simpleness.

267  What would You, Desdemona?

268  That I did love the Moor to live with him,
269  My downright violence and storm of fortunes
270  May trumpet to the world: my heart's subdued
271  Even to the very quality of my lord:
272  I saw Othello's visage in his mind,
273  And to his honour and his valiant parts
274  Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.
275  So that, dear lords, if I be left behind,
276  A moth of peace, and he go to the war,
277  The rites for which I love him are bereft me,
278  And I a heavy interim shall support
279  By his dear absence. Let me go with him.

280  Let her have your voices.
281  Vouch with me, heaven, I therefore beg it not,
282  To please the palate of my appetite,
283  Nor to comply with heat--the young affects
284  In me defunct--and proper satisfaction.
285  But to be free and bounteous to her mind:
286  And heaven defend your good souls, that you think
287  I will your serious and great business scant
288  For she is with me: no, when light-wing'd toys
289  Of feather'd Cupid seal with wanton dullness
290  My speculative and officed instruments,
291  That my disports corrupt and taint my business,
292  Let housewives make a skillet of my helm,
293  And all indign and base adversities
294  Make head against my estimation!

295  Be it as you shall privately determine,
296  Either for her stay or going: the affair cries haste,
297  And speed must answer it.

298  You must away to-night.

299  With all my heart.

300  At nine i' the morning here we'll meet again.
301  Othello, leave some officer behind,
302  And he shall our commission bring to you;
303  With such things else of quality and respect
304  As doth import you.

305  So please your grace, my ancient;
306  A man he is of honest and trust:
307  To his conveyance I assign my wife,
308  With what else needful your good grace shall think
309  To be sent after me.

310  Let it be so.
311  Good night to every one.
To BRABANTIO
312  And, noble signior,
313  If virtue no delighted beauty lack,
314  Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.

315  Adieu, brave Moor, use Desdemona well.

316  Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see:
317  She has deceived her father, and may thee.

318  My life upon her faith! Honest Iago,
319  My Desdemona must I leave to thee:
320  I prithee, let thy wife attend on her:
321  And bring them after in the best advantage.
322  Come, Desdemona: I have but an hour
323  Of love, of worldly matters and direction,
324  To spend with thee: we must obey the time.

325  Iago,--

326  What say'st thou, noble heart?

327  What will I do, thinkest thou?

328  Why, go to bed, and sleep.

329  I will incontinently drown myself.

330  If thou dost, I shall never love thee after. Why,
331  thou silly gentleman!

332  It is silliness to live when to live is torment; and
333  then have we a prescription to die when death is our physician.

334  O villainous! I have looked upon the world for four
335  times seven years; and since I could distinguish
336  betwixt a benefit and an injury, I never found man
337  that knew how to love himself. Ere I would say, I
338  would drown myself for the love of a guinea-hen, I
339  would change my humanity with a baboon.

340  What should I do? I confess it is my shame to be so
341  fond; but it is not in my virtue to amend it.

342  Virtue! a fig! 'tis in ourselves that we are thus
343  or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which
344  our wills are gardeners: so that if we will plant
345  nettles, or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up
346  thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs, or
347  distract it with many, either to have it sterile
348  with idleness, or manured with industry, why, the
349  power and corrigible authority of this lies in our
350  wills. If the balance of our lives had not one
351  scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the
352  blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us
353  to most preposterous conclusions: but we have
354  reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal
355  stings, our unbitted lusts, whereof I take this that
356  you call love to be a sect or scion.

357  It cannot be.

358  It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of
359  the will. Come, be a man. Drown thyself! drown
360  cats and blind puppies. I have professed me thy
361  friend and I confess me knit to thy deserving with
362  cables of perdurable toughness; I could never
363  better stead thee than now. Put money in thy
364  purse; follow thou the wars; defeat thy favour with
365  an usurped beard; I say, put money in thy purse. It
366  cannot be that Desdemona should long continue her
367  love to the Moor,-- put money in thy purse,--nor he
368  his to her: it was a violent commencement, and thou
369  shalt see an answerable sequestration:--put but
370  money in thy purse. These Moors are changeable in
371  their wills: fill thy purse with money:--the food
372  that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be
373  to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida. She must
374  change for youth: when she is sated with his body,
375  she will find the error of her choice: she must
376  have change, she must: therefore put money in thy
377  purse. If thou wilt needs damn thyself, do it a
378  more delicate way than drowning. Make all the money
379  thou canst: if sanctimony and a frail vow betwixt
380  an erring barbarian and a supersubtle Venetian not
381  too hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell, thou
382  shalt enjoy her; therefore make money. A pox of
383  drowning thyself! it is clean out of the way: seek
384  thou rather to be hanged in compassing thy joy than
385  to be drowned and go without her.

386  Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend on
387  the issue?

388  Thou art sure of me:--go, make money:--I have told
389  thee often, and I re-tell thee again and again, I
390  hate the Moor: my cause is hearted; thine hath no
391  less reason. Let us be conjunctive in our revenge
392  against him: if thou canst cuckold him, thou dost
393  thyself a pleasure, me a sport. There are many
394  events in the womb of time which will be delivered.
395  Traverse! go, provide thy money. We will have more
396  of this to-morrow. Adieu.

397  Where shall we meet i' the morning?

398  At my lodging.

399  I'll be with thee betimes.

400  Go to; farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo?

401  What say you?

402  No more of drowning, do you hear?

403  I am changed: I'll go sell all my land.

404  Thus do I ever make my fool my purse:
405  For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane,
406  If I would time expend with such a snipe.
407  But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor:
408  And it is thought abroad, that 'twixt my sheets
409  He has done my office: I know not if't be true;
410  But I, for mere suspicion in that kind,
411  Will do as if for surety. He holds me well;
412  The better shall my purpose work on him.
413  Cassio's a proper man: let me see now:
414  To get his place and to plume up my will
415  In double knavery--How, how? Let's see:--
416  After some time, to abuse Othello's ear
417  That he is too familiar with his wife.
418  He hath a person and a smooth dispose
419  To be suspected, framed to make women false.
420  The Moor is of a free and open nature,
421  That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
422  And will as tenderly be led by the nose
423  As asses are.
424  I have't. It is engender'd. Hell and night
425  Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.