Good Brabantio,

Take up this mangled matter at the best:
Men do their broken weapons rather use
Than their bare hands.

Bra.

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?

Des.

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.

Bra.
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:

my

heart

I here do give thee that with all
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. 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.
Bra. 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 hears both the sentence and the sorrow
That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow.

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190

200

210

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. 220 Duke. 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.

Oth. The tyrant custom, most grave senators,
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
My thrice-driven bed of down: I do agnize
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.

Be 't at her father's.

Bra.

230

If you please,

240

I'll not have it so.

Oth. Nor I.
Des.
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. What would you, Desdemona?

Des. 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 honours 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,

250

The rites for which I love him are bereft me,

260

And I a heavy interim shall support

By his dear absence. Let me go with him.
Oth. 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 seel 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. Be it as you shall privately determine, Either for her stay or going: the affair cries haste, And speed must answer it.

First Sen. You must away to-night.

Oth.

With all my heart.

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Duke. At nine i' the morning here we'll meet again. 280 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.

Oth.

So please your grace, my ancient:

A man he is of honesty and trust:

To his conveyance I assign my wife,

With what else needful your good grace shall think

To be sent after me.

Good night to every one. [To Brab.] And, noble signier, If virtue no delighted beauty lack,

Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.

First Sen. Adieu, brave Moor; use Desdemona well.
Bra. Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see:

She has deceived her father, and may thee

290

[Exeunt Duke, Senators, Officers, &c

Oth. 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.

Rod. Iago,

300

[Exeunt Othello and Desdemona.

Iago. What say'st thou, noble heart?

Rod. What will I do, thinkest thou?

Iago. Why, go to bed, and sleep.

Rod. I will incontinently drown myself.

lago. If thou dost, I shall never love thee after. Why, thou silly gentleman.

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

311

Iago. O villanous! 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.

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

321

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 sción.

Rod. It cannot be.

Iago. It is merely a lust of the bleed 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.

SHAK. III.—15

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 be 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.

Rod. Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend on the Issue?

370

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.

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

Rod. I'll be with thee betimes.

lago. Go to; farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo? Rod. What say you?

Iago. No more of drowning, do you hear?

380

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

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410

[Exit.