Excerpt from Othello - anthology.

Excerpt from Othello - anthology. Othello is a respected army general on whom the Venetian Senate relies. Yet Senator Brabantio is outraged when his daughter, Desdemona, elopes with Othello, because the valiant soldier is also a Moor. In his prejudice he cannot believe that she can love a man of another race, so in Act 1, Scene iii, Brabantio brings his complaint before the Senate. Othello's defense of his courtship of Desdemona, together with her own statement, demonstrates to the audience both his own nobility, and the sincerity of their love; the Duke, commenting on Othello's story of his history, says that "this tale would win my daughter too." Brabantio is ordered to resign himself to the match, but the couple's happiness is soon to be disturbed. The hypocritical Iago, seemingly Othello's loyal friend, is in fact plotting trouble for the valiant Moor. He stirs up the hopes of Roderigo, encouraging him to continue to pursue Desdemona despite her marriage. Finally, Iago, alone on the stage, begins to reveal his true thoughts to the audience in his first soliloquy. The play, as this early scene shows, is concerned with the themes of jealousy and possessiveness, the difficulties inherent in discerning truth from mere semblance, and the dangers that can arise from a failure to see beyond surface appearances. Othello Act 1, Scene iii The Duke and Senators sitting at a table; with lights and attendants DUKE. There is no composition in these news That gives them credit. FIRST SENATOR. Indeed they are disproportioned. My letters say a hundred and seven galleys. DUKE. And mine, a hundred and forty. SECOND SENATOR. And mine two hundred; But though they jump not on a just accompt-- As in these cases where the aim reports 'Tis oft with difference--yet do they all confirm A Turkish fleet, and bearing up to Cyprus. DUKE. Nay, it is possible enough to judgement: I do not so secure me in the error, But the main article I do approve In fearful sense. SAILOR.(without) What, ho! What, ho! What, ho! FIRST OFFICER. A messenger from the galleys. Enter Sailor DUKE. Now, what's the business? SAILOR. The Turkish preparation makes for Rhodes; So was I bid report here to the state By Signor Angelo. DUKE. How say you by this change? FIRST SENATOR. This cannot be, By no assay of reason. 'Tis a pageant To keep us in false gaze. When we consider Th'importancy of Cyprus to the Turk, And let ourselves again but understand That as it more concerns the Turk than Rhodes, So may he with more facile question bear it, For that it stands not in such warlike brace, But altogether lacks th'abilities That Rhodes is dressed in. If we make thought of this, We must not think the Turk is so unskilful To leave that latest which concerns him first, Neglecting an attempt of ease and gain To wake and wage a danger profitless. DUKE. Nay, in all confidence he's not for Rhodes. FIRST OFFICER. Here is more news. Enter a Messenger MESSENGER. The Ottomites, reverend and gracious, Steering with due course toward the isle of Rhodes, Have there injointed with an after fleet. FIRST SENATOR. Ay, so I thought. How many, as you guess? MESSENGER. Of thirty sail; and now they do re-stem Their backward course, bearing with frank appearance Their purposes toward Cyprus. Signor 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 SENATOR. He's now in Florence. DUKE. Write from us: wish him Post-post-haste dispatch. FIRST SENATOR. 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 signor; We lacked your counsel and your help tonight. BRABANTIO. So did I yours. Good your grace, pardon me: Neither my place, nor aught I heard of business, Hath raised me from my bed; nor doth the general care Take hold on me; for my particular grief Is of so flood-gate and overbearing nature That it engluts and swallows other sorrows And yet is still itself. DUKE. Why? What's the matter? BRABANTIO. My daughter! O, my daughter! SENATORS. Dead? BRABANTIO. Ay, to me. She is abused, stolen 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 beguiled 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. BRABANTIO. 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. ALL. We are very sorry for't. DUKE. What in your own part can you say to this? BRABANTIO. Nothing, but this is so. OTHELLO. Most potent, grave and reverend signors, My very noble and approved 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 blessed with the soft phrase of peace; For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used 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 unvarnished tale deliver Of my whole course of love: what drugs, what charms, What conjuration and what mighty magic-- For such proceedings I am charged withal-- I won his daughter. BRABANTIO. A maiden never bold; Of spirit so still and quiet that her motion Blushed at herself: and she, in spite of nature, Of years, of country, credit, everything, To fall in love with what she feared to look on! It is a judgement maimed 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 conjured 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 SENATOR. But, Othello, speak: Did you by indirect and forcèd courses Subdue and poison this young maid's affections? Or came it by request and such fair question As soul to soul affordeth? OTHELLO. 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. OTHELLO. Ancient, conduct them: you best know the place. Exit Iago with 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. OTHELLO. Her father loved me, oft invited me, Still questioned me the story of my life From year to year--the battles, sieges, fortunes That I have passed. I ran it through, even from my boyish days To th'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'th'imminent deadly breach, Of being taken by the insolent foe, And sold to slavery; of my redemption thence, And portance in my travels' history: Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle, Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven, It was my hint to speak--such was the 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'd 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 suffered. My story being done, She gave me for my pains a world of sighs: She swore, in faith 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange, 'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful; She wished she had not heard it, yet she wished That heaven had made her such a man. She thanked me, And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her, I should but teach him how to tell my story, And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake: She loved me for the dangers I had passed, And I loved her, that she did pity them. This only is the witchcraft I have used. 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. BRABANTIO. 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 company Where most you owe obedience? DESDEMONA. 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 lord of all my duty, I am hitherto your daughter. But here's my husband; And so much duty as my mother showed To you, preferring you before her father, So much I challenge, that I may profess Due to the Moor, my lord. BRABANTIO. God bu'y! 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. 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 robbed that smiles steals something from the thief; He robs himself that spends a bootless grief. BRABANTIO. 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. 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 piecèd through the ear. I humbly beseech you proceed to th'affairs of state. 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 more 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. OTHELLO. 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 This present war 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. 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 T'assist my simpleness. DUKE. What would you? Speak. 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 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, 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 voice. 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-winged toys Of feathered 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. Th'affair cries haste, And speed must answer it. You must hence tonight. DESDEMONA. Tonight, my lord? DUKE. This night. OTHELLO. With all my heart, DUKE. At nine i'th'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 honesty and trust: To his conveyance I assign my wife, With what else needful your good grace shall think To be sent after me. DUKE. Let it be so. Good night to everyone. And, noble signor, 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. OTHELLO. My life upon her faith! Exeunt Duke, Senators, and attendants 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. Exeunt Othello and Desdemona RODERIGO. Iago. IAGO. What say'st thou, noble heart? RODERIGO. What will I do, think'st 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 we have 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 a 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. RODERIGIO. 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 beam 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 these 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 acerbe as the coloquintida. She must change for youth: when she is sated with his body she will find the error of her choice. 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 super-subtle 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. 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 tomorrow. Adieu. RODERIGO. Where shall we meet i'th'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. IAGO. Go to; farewell. Put money enough in your purse. RODERIGO. I'll sell all my land. Exit IAGO. Thus do I ever make my fool my purse: For I mine own gained 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's 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 th'nose As asses are. I have't. It is engendered. Hell and night Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light. Exit