Duke.
To vouch this, is no proof;
Without more certain and more overt test,!
Than these thin habits, and poor likelihoods
Of modern seeming,2 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,3

And let her speak of me before her father : you do find me foul in her report,

If

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 lago 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, 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 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,

(1) Open proof. (2) Weak show.

(3) The sign of the fictitious creature so called. 2 A

VOL. VIII.

And portance in my travel's history:
Wherein of antres2 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. 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
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 parcels3 she had something heard,
But not intentively :4 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;

'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

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;

(1) My behaviour. (2) Caves and dens.
(3) Parts.

(4) Intention and attention were once synony

mous.

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.

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 hus-
band;

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,1 or step, may help these lovers

(1) Grise from degrees.

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 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.
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 bruis'd heart was pierced through the ear.
I humbly beseech you, proceed to the 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 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.

Oth. The tyrant custom, most grave senators,
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
My thrice-driven bed of down: I do agnize3
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,

(1) i. e. That the wounds of sorrow were ever cured by the words of consolation.

(2) Obscure.

(3) Acknowledge.

I crave fit disposition for my wife;
Due reference of place, and exhibition;1
With such accommodation, and besort,
As levels with her breeding.

Duke.

Be't at her father's.

Bra.

Oth. Nor I.

Des.

If you please,

I'll not have it so.

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 a gracious ear, And let me find a charter in your voice, To assist my simpleness.

Duke. What would you, Desdemona ?

Des. 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.

Oth. Your voices, lords :-'beseech you, let her will

Have a free way.

Vouch with me, heaven; I therefore beg it not,

To please the palate of my appetite;

Nor to comply with heat, the young affects,2

In my distinct and proper satisfaction;

But to be free and bounteous to her mind :

And heaven defend3 your good souls, that you think

I will your serious and great business scant,

(1) Allowance.

(3) Forbid.

(2) Affections.