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If she confess that she was half the wooer, `
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Destruction on my head, if my bad blame `
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Light on the man! Come hither, gentle mistress. `
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Do you perceive in all this noble company `
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Where most you owe obedience? `
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DESDEMONA. My noble father, `
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I do perceive here a divided duty. `
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To you I am bound for life and education; `
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My life and education both do learn me `
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How to respect you; you are the lord of duty, `
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I am hitherto your daughter. But here's my husband, `
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And so much duty as my mother show'd `
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To you, preferring you before her father, `
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So much I challenge that I may profess `
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Due to the Moor, my lord. `
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BRABANTIO. God be with you! I have done. `
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Please it your Grace, on to the state affairs; `
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I had rather to adopt a child than get it. `
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Come hither, Moor. `
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I here do give thee that with all my heart `
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Which, but thou hast already, with all my heart `
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I would keep from thee. For your sake, jewel, `
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I am glad at soul I have no other child; `
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For thy escape would teach me tyranny, `
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To hang clogs on them. I have done, my lord. `
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DUKE. Let me speak like yourself, and lay a sentence `
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Which, as a grise or step, may help these lovers `
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Into your favor. `
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When remedies are past, the griefs are ended `
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By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended. `
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To mourn a mischief that is past and gone `
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Is the next way to draw new mischief on. `
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What cannot be preserved when Fortune takes, `
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Patience her injury a mockery makes. `
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The robb'd that smiles steals something from the thief; `
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He robs himself that spends a bootless grief. `
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BRABANTIO. So let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile; `
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We lose it not so long as we can smile. `
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He bears the sentence well, that nothing bears `
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But the free comfort which from thence he hears; `
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But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow `
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That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow. `
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These sentences, to sugar or to gall, `
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Being strong on both sides, are equivocal. `
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But words are words; I never yet did hear `
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That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear. `
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I humbly beseech you, proceed to the affairs of state. `
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DUKE. The Turk with a most mighty preparation makes for Cyprus. `
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Othello, the fortitude of the place is best known to you; and `
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though we have there a substitute of most allowed `
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sufficiency, `
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yet opinion, a sovereign mistress of effects, throws a more `
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safer `
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voice on you. You must therefore be content to slubber the `
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gloss `
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of your new fortunes with this more stubborn and boisterous `
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expedition. `
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OTHELLO. The tyrant custom, most grave senators, `
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Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war `
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My thrice-driven bed of down. I do agnize `
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A natural and prompt alacrity `
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I find in hardness and do undertake `
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These present wars against the Ottomites. `
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Most humbly therefore bending to your state, `
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I crave fit disposition for my wife, `
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Due reference of place and exhibition, `
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With such accommodation and besort `
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As levels with her breeding. `
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DUKE. If you please, `
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Be't at her father's. `
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BRABANTIO. I'll not have it so. `
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OTHELLO. Nor I. `
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DESDEMONA. Nor I. I would not there reside `
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To put my father in impatient thoughts `
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By being in his eye. Most gracious Duke, `
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To my unfolding lend your prosperous ear, `
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And let me find a charter in your voice `
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To assist my simpleness. `
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DUKE. What would you, Desdemona? `
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DESDEMONA. That I did love the Moor to live with him, `
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My downright violence and storm of fortunes `
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May trumpet to the world. My heart's subdued `
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Even to the very quality of my lord. `
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I saw Othello's visage in his mind, `
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And to his honors and his valiant parts `
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Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate. `
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So that, dear lords, if I be left behind, `
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A moth of peace, and he go to the war, `
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The rites for which I love him are bereft me, `
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And I a heavy interim shall support `
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By his dear absence. Let me go with him. `
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OTHELLO. Let her have your voices. `
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Vouch with me, heaven, I therefore beg it not `
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To please the palate of my appetite, `
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Nor to comply with heat- the young affects `
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In me defunct- and proper satisfaction; `
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But to be free and bounteous to her mind. `
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And heaven defend your good souls, that you think `
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I will your serious and great business scant `
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For she is with me. No, when light-wing'd toys `
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Of feather'd Cupid seel with wanton dullness `
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My speculative and officed instruments, `
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That my disports corrupt and taint my business, `
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Let housewives make a skillet of my helm, `
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And all indign and base adversities `
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Make head against my estimation! `
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DUKE. Be it as you shall privately determine, `
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Either for her stay or going. The affair cries haste, `
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And speed must answer't: you must hence tonight. `
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DESDEMONA. Tonight, my lord? `
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DUKE. This night. `
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OTHELLO. With all my heart. `
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DUKE. At nine i' the morning here we'll meet again. `
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Othello, leave some officer behind, `
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And he shall our commission bring to you, `
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With such things else of quality and respect `
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As doth import you. `
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OTHELLO. So please your Grace, my ancient; `
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A man he is of honesty and trust. `
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To his conveyance I assign my wife, `
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With what else needful your good Grace shall think `
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To be sent after me. `
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DUKE. Let it be so. `
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Good night to everyone. [To Brabantio.] And, noble signior, `
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If virtue no delighted beauty lack, `
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Your son-in-law is far more fair than black. `
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FIRST SENATOR. Adieu, brave Moor, use Desdemona well. `
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BRABANTIO. Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see; `
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She has deceived her father, and may thee. `
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Exeunt Duke, Senators, and `
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Officers. `
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OTHELLO. My life upon her faith! Honest Iago, `
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My Desdemona must I leave to thee. `
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I prithee, let thy wife attend on her, `
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And bring them after in the best advantage. `
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Come, Desdemona, I have but an hour `
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Of love, of worldly matters and direction, `
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To spend with thee. We must obey the time. `
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Exeunt Othello and `
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Desdemona. `
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RODERIGO. Iago! `
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IAGO. What say'st thou, noble heart? `
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RODERIGO. What will I do, thinkest thou? `
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IAGO. Why, go to bed and sleep. `
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RODERIGO. I will incontinently drown myself. `
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IAGO. If thou dost, I shall never love thee after. `
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Why, thou silly gentleman! `
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RODERIGO. It is silliness to live when to live is torment, and `
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then `
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have we a prescription to die when death is our physician. `
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IAGO. O villainous! I have looked upon the world for four times `
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seven years, and since I could distinguish betwixt a benefit `
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and `
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an injury, I never found man that knew how to love himself. `
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Ere I `
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would say I would drown myself for the love of a guinea hen, `
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I `
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would change my humanity with a baboon. `
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RODERIGO. What should I do? I confess it is my shame to be so `
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fond, `
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but it is not in my virtue to amend it. `
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IAGO. Virtue? a fig! 'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or `
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thus. `
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Our bodies are gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners; `
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so `
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that if we will plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and `
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weed `
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up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it `
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with `
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many, either to have it sterile with idleness or manured with `
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industry, why, the power and corrigible authority of this `
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lies in `
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our wills. If the balance of our lives had not one scale of `
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reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness `
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of `
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our natures would conduct us to most preposterous `
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conclusions. `
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But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal `
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stings, `
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our unbitted lusts; whereof I take this, that you call love, `
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to `
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be a sect or scion. `
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RODERIGO. It cannot be. `
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IAGO. It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the `
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will. Come, be a man! Drown thyself? Drown cats and blind `
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puppies. I have professed me thy friend, and I confess me `
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knit to `
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thy deserving with cables of perdurable toughness; I could `
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never `
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better stead thee than now. Put money in thy purse; follow `
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thou `
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the wars; defeat thy favor with an usurped beard. I say, put `
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money in thy purse. It cannot be that Desdemona should long `
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continue her love to the Moor- put money in thy purse- nor he `
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his `
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to her. It was a violent commencement, and thou shalt see an `
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answerable sequestration- put but money in thy purse. These `
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Moors `
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are changeable in their wills- fill thy purse with money. The `
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food that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be to `
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