Steering with due course toward the Isle of Rhodes,
Have there injointed them with an after fleet.
FIRST SEN. Ay, so I thought. How many, as you guess?
MESS. Of thirty sail; and now they do re-stem
Their backward course, bearing with frank appearance
Their 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. "Tis certain, then, for Cyprus.
Marcus Luccicos, is not he in town?
FIRST SEN. He's now in Florence.
DUKE. Write from us to him; post-post-haste dispatch.
FIRST 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.
[to BRABANTIO.] I did not see you; welcome, gentle
Signior;
We lack'd your counsel and your help to-night.
BRA. So did I your's. 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!
DUKE AND SEN.
BRA.
She is abus'd, stol'n 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. Whoe'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
After your own sense; yea, though our proper son
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 AND SEN.
We are very sorry for 't.
DUKE [to OTHELLO.] What, in your own part, can you
say to this?
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 soft 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
In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,
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.
BRA.
A maiden never bold;
Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion
Blush'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 imperfect,
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,
He wrought upon her.
DUKE.
To vouch this, is no proof,
Without more wider and more overt test
Than these thin habits and poor likelihoods
Of modern seeming do prefer against him.
FIRST 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?
Отн.
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.
ОTн. 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.
OTн. 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
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 portance1 in my travels' history:
Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,
140
Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch
Heaven,
It was my hint to speak-such was my process;
And of the Cannibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do
grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear
Would 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 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;
me;
And bade me, if I had a friend that lov'd her,
I should but teach him how to tell my story,
'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
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.
Good Brabantio,
Take
up this mangled matter at the best:
1 behaviour, carriage.
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 shew'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:
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.
DUKE. Let me speak like yourself; and lay a sentence,
Which, as a grise or step, may help these lovers
Into your favour.
thief;
He robs himself that spends a bootless grief.
1 the griefs which depended on hopes, i.e. the anguish of suspense.
When remedies are past, the griefs are ended
By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended.1
To mourn a mischief that is past and gone
Is the next way to draw new mischief on.
What cannot be preserv'd when Fortune takes,
Patience her injury a mockery makes.
The robb'd that smiles steals something from the
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