Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters' minds
By what you see them act.-Are there not charms
By which the property of youth and maid hood
May be abus'd? Have you not read, Roderigo,
Of some such thing?

Rod.

Yes, sir; I have indeed.

Enter CASSIO, at a distance, and certain Officers with

torches.

Iago. Those are the raised father and his friends:
You were best in.
go

Oth.
Not I: I must be found;
My parts, my title, and my perfect soul,
Shall manifest me rightly. Is it they?

Iago. By Janus, I think no.

Oth. The servants of the duke; and my lieutenant.
The goodness of the night upon you, friends!

What is the news?

Cas.

The duke does greet you, general;
And he requires your haste-post-haste appearance,
Even on the instant.

Oth.

What is the matter, think you?

Cas. Something from Cyprus, as I may divine:
It is a business of some heat. The galleys

Bra. Call up my brother.-O, would you had had Have sent a dozen sequent messengers

her'

Some one way, some another.-Do you know
Where we may apprehend her and the Moor?
Rod. I think I can discover him, if you please
To get good guard, and go along with me.

Bra. Pray you, lead on. At every house I'll call;
I may command at most;-Get weapons, hoa!
And raise some special officers of night.—
On, good Roderigo. I will deserve your pains.

This very night, at one another's heels;
And many of the consuls, rais'd and met,

Are at the duke's already: You have been hotly call'd
for;

When, being not at your lodging to be found,
The senate hath sent about three several quests,
To search you out.

Oth.

"Tis well I am found by you.
[Ex. I will but spend a word here in the house,
And go with you.
Cas.

SCENE II.-The same. Another Strcet.
Enter OTHELLO, IAGO, and Attendants with torches.
Iago. Though in the trade of war I have slain men,
Yet do I hold it very stuff" o' the conscience,
To do no contriv'd murder: I lack iniquity
Sometime to do me service: Nine or ten times

I had thought to have yerk'd him here under the ribs.
Oth. T is better as it is.
Iago.

Nay, but he prated,

And spoke such scurvy and provoking terms

Against your honour,

That, with the little godliness I have,

I did full hard forbear him. But, I pray you, sir,
fast married? Be assur'd of this,
That the magnifico is much belov'd,
And hath, in his effect, a voice potential,

As double as the duke's: he will divorce you;
Or put upon you what restraint and grievance
The law (with all his might to enforce it on)
Will give him cable.

Oth.

Let him do his spite:
My services, which I have done the signiory,
"T is yet to know,
Shall out-tongue his complaints.
(Which, when I know that boasting is an honour,
I shall promulgate,) I fetch my life and being
From men of royal siege ; and my demerits
May speak, unbonneted, to as proud a fortune
As this that I have reach'd: For know, Iago,
But that I love the gentle Desdemona,
I would not my unhoused free condition
Put into circumscription and confine

For the sea's worth. But, look! what lights come
yond?

very substance of the conscience.

Siege. A siege royal was a throne, an elevated seat.

[Exit.

Ancient, what makes he here?
Jago. 'Faith, he to-night hath boarded a land carack;b
If it prove lawful prize he 's made for ever.
Cas. I do not understand.

Iago.
Cas.

He's married.

To who?

* Suff—matter, material. The stuff of the conscience is the Of such a thing as thou,-to fear,d not to delight. gross in sense, Judge me the world, if 't is not That thou hast practis'd on her with foul charms; Abus'd her delicate youth with drugs, or minerals, That weaken motion:-I'll have it disputed on;

• Unbonneted. Theobald says, to speak unbonneted is to speak with the cap off, which is directly opposed to the poet's meaning. Mr. Fuseli suggested an ingenious explanation, that as at Venice the cap or bonnet constituted an important distinction, so the demerits of Othello might speak for themselves without any extrinsic honours. Demerits is used in the sense of merits; mereo and demeren being synonymous in Latin.

Johnson explains unhoused-free from domestic cares. It appears to us that Othello simply uses unhoused for unmarried. The husband is the bead or band of the house-the unmarried is the nahouse banded- the unhoused.

a Consuls. In the first scene we have "the tongued consuls; doubtless the senators are meant in both passages. Carack. A vessel of heavy burden.

Dearling, the old Saxon word in a plural sense.

d To fear. Brabantio calls Othello a thing to terrify, not to delight.

Sailor. [Within.] What hoa! what hoa! what hoa! Stood in your action.

Their dearest action in the tentea Яeld;
And little of this great world can I speak.
More than pertains to feats of broils 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.
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, fortune,
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 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 traveller's history,"
(Wherein of antres vast and desarts idle,b

! 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, t' was strange, 't was passing
strange;

'T was pitiful, 't was 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.
Good Brabantio,

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

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 with 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.
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

Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch Is the next way to draw new mischief on.

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. These things to hear
Would Desdemona seriously incline;

But still the house affairs would draw her thence;
Which ever as she could with haste despatch,

She'd come again, and with a greedy ear

What cannot be preserv'd 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 bears both the sentence and the sorrow
That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow.

* Traveller's history. Othello modestly, and somewhat jo- These sentences, to sugar, or to gall,
cosely, calls his wonderful relations, a traveller's history.

Idie-sterile, barren.

Being strong on both sides, are equivocal;

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 super-subtle Venetian, ve not too hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell, thou shalt enjoy her; therefore nake 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?

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 tomorrow. 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?

Iago. No more of drowning, do you near.

Rod. I am changed. I'll sell all my land.
Iago. Go to; farewell! put money enough in your
purse.
[Exit RODERIGO.

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; 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 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

ACT II.

SCENE I-A Sea-port Town in Cyprus.

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.

Be not enshelter'd and embay'd, they are drown'd;
It is impossible to bear it out.

Enter a Third Gentleman.

3 Gent. News, lads! our wars are done : The desperate tempest hath so bang'd the Turks, That their designment halts: A noble ship of Venice

Mon. Methinks, the wind hath spoke aloud at land; Hath seen a grievous wrack and sufferance

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 chidden billow seems to pelt the clouds;

The wind-shak'd surge, with high and monstrous mane,c
Seems to cast water on the burning bear,

And quench the guards of the ever-fixed pole:
I never did like molestation view

On th' enchafed flood.

the tenon of another.

mane.

• Mane. In the folio this word is spelt maine; in the quarto mayne. In each the spelling of main in the third line of this scene is the same. But we have ventured to reject this consistency of orthography, and for the first time to print the word For what is "high and monstrous main ?" We use the word main elliptically, for the main sea, the great sea, as Shakspere uses it in the passage "'twixt the heaven and the main." The main is the ocean. Substitute that word, and what can we make of the passage before us?" The wind-shak'd surge, with high and monstrous ocean." But adopt the word mane, and it appears to us that we have as fine an image as any in Shakspere. In the high and monstrous mane we have a picture which was probably suggested by the noble passage in Job: "Hast thou given the horse strength? Hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?" The horse of Job is the war-horse," who swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage;" and when Shakspere pietured to himself his mane wildly streaming, "when the quiver rattleth against him, the glittering spear and the shield," ne aaw an image of the fury of the wind-shak'd surge," and of its verv form; and he painted it with high and monstrous

On most part of their fleet.
Mon. Hov! is this true?
3 Gent.

The ship is here put in,
A Veronessa: Michael Cassio,
Lieutenant to the warlike Moor, Othello,

Is come on shore: the Moor himself 's at sea,
And is in full commission here for Cyprus.

Mon. I am glad on 't; 't is a worthy governor.
3 Gent. But this, same Cassio,-though he speak of
comfort,

Touching the Turkish loss,-yet he looks sadly,
And prays the Moor be safe; for they were parted
With foul and violent tempest.

Mon.

For I have serv'd him, and the man commands
'Pray heaven he be :
Like a full soldier. Let's to the sea-side,-hoa!
As well to see the vessel that's come in
As to throw out our eyes for brave Othello;
Even till we make the main, and the aërial blue,
An indistinct regard.
3 Gent.
Come, let's do so.
For every minute is expectancy
Of more arrivancy.

Enter CASSIO.

Cas. Thanks, you the valiant of the warlike isle,
That so approve the Moor! O, let the heavers
Give him defence against the elements,
For I have lost him on a dangerous sea!

a Wrack. Mr. Hunter has with great propriety suggested the restoration of the old word wrack to Shakspere's text, instead of wreck. He observes that we still use the familiar phrase "wrack and ruin."