ACT 1. SCENE III. A council-chamber.

by William Shakespeare

　　The DUKE and Senators sitting at a table; Officers attending

　　Duke of Venice

　　There is no composition in these newsThat 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 confirmA 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 approveIn 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 stateBy 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 considerThe 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 abilitiesThat Rhodes is dress'd in: if we make thought of this,We must not think the Turk is so unskilfulTo 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 restemTheir backward course, bearing with frank appearanceTheir 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 youAgainst 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 businessHath raised me from my bed, nor doth the general careTake hold on me, for my particular griefIs of so flood-gate and o'erbearing natureThat it engluts and swallows other sorrowsAnd 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 corruptedBy 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 proceedingHath thus beguiled your daughter of herselfAnd you of her, the bloody book of lawYou shall yourself read in the bitter letterAfter your own sense, yea, though our proper sonStood 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-affairsHath 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 offendingHath 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 usedTheir 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 causeIn speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliverOf 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 motionBlush'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 imperfectThat will confess perfection so could errAgainst all rules of nature, and must be drivenTo find out practises of cunning hell,Why this should be. I therefore vouch againThat 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 testThan these thin habits and poor likelihoodsOf modern seeming do prefer against him.First senator

　　But, Othello, speak:Did you by indirect and forced coursesSubdue and poison this young maid's affections?Or came it by request and such fair questionAs 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 sentenceEven 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 heavenI do confess the vices of my blood,So justly to your grave ears I'll presentHow 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 fieldOf hair-breadth scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,Of being taken by the insolent foeAnd sold to slavery, of my redemption thenceAnd portance in my travels' history:Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heavenIt was my hint to speak,--such was the process;And of the Cannibals that each other eat,The Anthropophagi and men whose headsDo grow beneath their shoulders. This to hearWould 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 earDevour up my discourse: which I observing,Took once a pliant hour, and found good meansTo draw from her a prayer of earnest heartThat 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 strokeThat 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'dThat 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 useThan 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 blameLight on the man! Come hither, gentle mistress:Do you perceive in all this noble companyWhere 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 meHow 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'dTo you, preferring you before her father,So much I challenge that I may professDue 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 heartWhich, but thou hast already, with all my heartI 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 loversInto your favour.When remedies are past, the griefs are endedBy seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended.To mourn a mischief that is past and goneIs the next way to draw new mischief on.What cannot be preserved when fortune takesPatience 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 bearsBut the free comfort which from thence he hears,But he bears both the sentence and the sorrowThat, 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 hearThat 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 forCyprus. Othello, the fortitude of the place is bestknown to you; and though we have there a substituteof most allowed sufficiency, yet opinion, asovereign mistress of effects, throws a more safervoice on you: you must therefore be content toslubber the gloss of your new fortunes with thismore stubborn and boisterous expedition.Othello

　　The tyrant custom, most grave senators,Hath made the flinty and steel couch of warMy thrice-driven bed of down: I do agniseA natural and prompt alacrityI find in hardness, and do undertakeThese 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 besortAs 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 thoughtsBy 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 fortunesMay trumpet to the world: my heart's subduedEven to the very quality of my lord:I saw Othello's visage in his mind,And to his honour and his valiant partsDid 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 supportBy 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 affectsIn me defunct--and proper satisfaction.But to be free and bounteous to her mind:And heaven defend your good souls, that you thinkI will your serious and great business scantFor she is with me: no, when light-wing'd toysOf feather'd Cupid seal with wanton dullnessMy 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 adversitiesMake 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 respectAs 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 thinkTo 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 hourOf 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; andthen have we a prescription to die when death is our physician.Iago

　　O villainous! I have looked upon the world for fourtimes seven years; and since I could distinguishbetwixt a benefit and an injury, I never found manthat knew how to love himself. Ere I would say, Iwould drown myself for the love of a guinea-hen, Iwould change my humanity with a baboon.Roderigo

　　What should I do? I confess it is my shame to be sofond; but it is not in my virtue to amend it.Iago

　　Virtue! a fig! 'tis in ourselves that we are thusor thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the whichour wills are gardeners: so that if we will plantnettles, or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed upthyme, supply it with one gender of herbs, ordistract it with many, either to have it sterilewith idleness, or manured with industry, why, thepower and corrigible authority of this lies in ourwills. If the balance of our lives had not onescale of reason to poise another of sensuality, theblood and baseness of our natures would conduct usto most preposterous conclusions: but we havereason to cool our raging motions, our carnalstings, our unbitted lusts, whereof I take this thatyou call love to be a sect or scion.Roderigo

　　It cannot be.Iago

　　It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission ofthe will. Come, be a man. Drown thyself! drowncats and blind puppies. I have professed me thyfriend and I confess me knit to thy deserving withcables of perdurable toughness; I could neverbetter stead thee than now. Put money in thypurse; follow thou the wars; defeat thy favour withan usurped beard; I say, put money in thy purse. Itcannot be that Desdemona should long continue herlove to the Moor,-- put money in thy purse,--nor hehis to her: it was a violent commencement, and thoushalt see an answerable sequestration:--put butmoney in thy purse. These Moors are changeable intheir wills: fill thy purse with money:--the foodthat to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall beto him shortly as bitter as coloquintida. She mustchange for youth: when she is sated with his body,she will find the error of her choice: she musthave change, she must: therefore put money in thypurse. If thou wilt needs damn thyself, do it amore delicate way than drowning. Make all the moneythou canst: if sanctimony and a frail vow betwixtan erring barbarian and a supersubtle Venetian nottoo hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell, thoushalt enjoy her; therefore make money. A pox ofdrowning thyself! it is clean out of the way: seekthou rather to be hanged in compassing thy joy thanto be drowned and go without her.Roderigo

　　Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend onthe issue?Iago

　　Thou art sure of me:--go, make money:--I have toldthee often, and I re-tell thee again and again, Ihate the Moor: my cause is hearted; thine hath noless reason. Let us be conjunctive in our revengeagainst him: if thou canst cuckold him, thou dostthyself a pleasure, me a sport. There are manyevents in the womb of time which will be delivered.Traverse! go, provide thy money. We will have moreof 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 sheetsHe 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 willIn double knavery--How, how? Let's see:--After some time, to abuse Othello's earThat he is too familiar with his wife.He hath a person and a smooth disposeTo 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 noseAs asses are.I have't. It is engender'd. Hell and nightMust bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.Exit