Othello
The tyrant custom, most grave senators,
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
My thrice-driven bed of down: I do agnise
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 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 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 Of Venice
What would You, Desdemona?
Desdemona
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 honour 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,
The rites for which I love him are bereft me,
And I a heavy interim shall support
By 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 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 seal 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 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 respect
As 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 think
To 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.
Of 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; and then have we a prescription to die when death is our physician.
Iago
O villainous! 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.
Roderigo
What should I do? I confess it is my shame to be so fond; but it is not in my virtue to amend it.
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 scion.
Roderigo
It cannot be.
Iago
It is merely a lust of the blood 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. 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 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.
Roderigo
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 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 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
ACT II
SCENE I. A SEA-PORT IN CYPRUS. AN OPEN PLACE NEAR THE QUAY.
Enter Montano and two Gentlemen
Montano
What from the cape can you discern at sea?
First Gentleman
Nothing at all: it is a highwrought flood;
I cannot, ’twixt the heaven and the main,
Descry a sail.
Montano
Methinks the wind hath spoke aloud at land;
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?
Second Gentleman
A segregation of the Turkish fleet:
For do but stand upon the foaming shore,
The chidden billow seems to pelt the clouds;
The wind-shaked surge, with high and monstrous mane,
Seems to cast water on the burning bear,
And quench the guards of the ever-fixed pole:
I never did like molestation view
On the enchafed flood.
Montano
If that the Turkish fleet
Be not enshelter’d and embay’d, they are drown’d:
It is impossible they bear it out.
Enter a third Gentleman
Third Gentleman
News, lads! our wars are done.
The desperate tempest hath so bang’d the Turks,
That their designment halts: a noble ship of Venice
Hath seen a grievous wreck and sufferance
On most part of their fleet.
Montano
How! is this true?
Third Gentleman
The ship is here put in,
A Veronesa; Michael Cassio,
Lieutenant to the warlike Moor Othello,
Is come on shore: the Moor himself at sea,
And is in full commission here for Cyprus.
Montano
I am glad on’t; ’tis a worthy governor.
Third Gentleman
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.
Montano
Pray heavens he be;
For I have served him, and the man commands
Like a full soldier. Let’s to the seaside, ho!
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 aerial blue
An indistinct regard.
Third Gentleman
Come, let’s do so:
For every minute is expectancy
Of more arrivance.
Enter Cassio
Cassio
Thanks, you the valiant of this warlike isle,
That so approve the Moor! O, let the heavens
Give him defence against the elements,
For I have lost us him on a dangerous sea.
Montano
Is he well shipp’d?
Cassio
His bark is stoutly timber’d, his pilot
Of very expert and approved allowance;
Therefore my hopes, not surfeited to death,
Stand in bold cure.
A cry within ‘A sail, a sail, a sail!’
Enter a fourth Gentleman
Cassio
What noise?
Fourth Gentleman
The town is empty; on the brow o’ the sea
Stand ranks of people, and they cry ‘A sail!’
Cassio
My hopes do shape him for the governor.
Guns heard
Second Gentlemen
They do discharge their shot of courtesy:
Our friends at least.
Cassio
I pray you, sir, go forth,
And give us truth who ’tis that is arrived.
Second Gentleman
I shall.
Exit
Montano
But, good lieutenant, is your general wived?
Cassio
Most fortunately: he hath achieved a maid
That paragons description and wild fame;
One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens,
And in the essential vesture of creation
Does tire the ingener.
Re-enter second Gentleman
How now! who has put in?
Second Gentleman
’Tis one Iago, ancient to the general.
Cassio
Has had most favourable and happy speed:
Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling winds,
The gutter’d rocks and congregated sands —
Traitors ensteep’d to clog the guiltless keel,—
As having sense of beauty, do omit
Their mortal natures, letting go safely by
The divine Desdemona.
Montano
What is she?
Cassio
She that I spake of, our great captain’s captain,
Left in the conduct of the bold Iago,
Whose footing here anticipates our thoughts
A se’nnight’s speed. Great Jove, Othello guard,
And swell his sail with thine own powerful breath,
That he may bless this bay with his tall ship,
Make love’s quick pants in Desdemona’s arms,
Give renew’d fire to our extincted spirits
And bring all Cyprus comfort!
Enter Desdemona, Emilia, Iago, Roderigo, and Attendants
O, behold,
The riches of the ship is come on shore!
Ye men of Cyprus, let her have your knees.
Hail to thee, lady! and the grace of heaven,
Before, behind thee, and on every hand,
Enwheel thee round!
Desdemona
I thank you, valiant Cassio.
What tidings can you tell me of my lord?
Cassio
He is not yet arrived: nor know I aught
&
nbsp; But that he’s well and will be shortly here.
Desdemona
O, but I fear — How lost you company?
Cassio
The great contention of the sea and skies
Parted our fellowship — But, hark! a sail.
Within ‘A sail, a sail!’ Guns heard
Second Gentleman
They give their greeting to the citadel;
This likewise is a friend.
Cassio
See for the news.
Exit Gentleman
Good ancient, you are welcome.
To Emilia
Welcome, mistress.
Let it not gall your patience, good Iago,
That I extend my manners; ’tis my breeding
That gives me this bold show of courtesy.
Kissing her
Iago
Sir, would she give you so much of her lips
As of her tongue she oft bestows on me,
You’ll have enough.
Desdemona
Alas, she has no speech.
Iago
In faith, too much;
I find it still, when I have list to sleep:
Marry, before your ladyship, I grant,
She puts her tongue a little in her heart,
And chides with thinking.
Emilia
You have little cause to say so.
Iago
Come on, come on; you are pictures out of doors,
Bells in your parlors, wild-cats in your kitchens,
Saints m your injuries, devils being offended,
Players in your housewifery, and housewives’ in your beds.
Desdemona
O, fie upon thee, slanderer!
Iago
Nay, it is true, or else I am a Turk:
You rise to play and go to bed to work.
Emilia
You shall not write my praise.
Iago
No, let me not.
Desdemona
What wouldst thou write of me, if thou shouldst praise me?
Iago
O gentle lady, do not put me to’t;
For I am nothing, if not critical.
Desdemona
Come on assay. There’s one gone to the harbour?
Iago
Ay, madam.
Desdemona
I am not merry; but I do beguile
The thing I am, by seeming otherwise.
Come, how wouldst thou praise me?
Iago
I am about it; but indeed my invention
Comes from my pate as birdlime does from frize;
It plucks out brains and all: but my Muse labours,
And thus she is deliver’d.
If she be fair and wise, fairness and wit,
The one’s for use, the other useth it.
Desdemona
Well praised! How if she be black and witty?
Iago
If she be black, and thereto have a wit,
She’ll find a white that shall her blackness fit.