Othello, the Moor of Venice

                                           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 heartWhich, but thou hast already, with all my heartI 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 sentenceWhich, as a grise or step, may help these loversInto your favour.When remedies are past, the griefs are endedBy seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended.To mourn a mischief that is past and goneIs the next way to draw new mischief on.What cannot be preserved 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.

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 bearsBut the free comfort which from thence he hears;But he bears both the sentence and the sorrowThat, 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 hearThat the bruis'd heart was piercèd 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.

OTHELLO

The tyrant custom, most grave senators,Hath made the flinty and steel couch of warMy thrice-driven bed of down: I do agnizeA natural and prompt alacrityI find in hardness; and do undertakeThese 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 besortAs 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 voiceTo assist my simpleness.

DUKE

What would you, Desdemona?

DESDEMONA

That I did love the Moor to live with him,My downright violence and storm of fortunesMay trumpet to the world: my heart's subdu'dEven to the very quality of my lord:I saw Othello's visage in his mind;And to his honors and his valiant partsDid 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 supportBy his dear absence. Let me go with him.

OTHELLO

Let her have your voices.Vouch with me, heaven, I therefore beg it notTo please the palate of my appetite;Nor to comply with heat, – the young affectsIn me defunct, – and proper satisfaction;But to be free and bounteous to her mind:And heaven defend your good souls, that you thinkI will your serious and great business scantFor she is with me: no, when light-wing'd toysOf feather'd Cupid seel with wanton dullnessMy speculative and offic'd instruments,That my disports corrupt and taint my business,Let housewives make a skillet of my helm,And all indign and base adversitiesMake head against my estimation!

DUKE

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

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 respectAs 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 thinkTo be sent after me.

DUKE

                                  Let it be so. —Good night to everyone. – [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 deceiv'd her father, and may thee.

[Exeunt Duke, Senators, Officers. &c.]

OTHELLO

My life upon her faith! – Honest Iago,My Desdemona must I leave to thee:I pr'ythee, let thy wife attend on her;And bring them after in the best advantage. —Come, Desdemona, I have but an hourOf 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 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 acerb as the 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 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 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 profaneIf I would time expend with such a snipeBut for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor;And it is thought abroad that 'twixt my sheetsHe 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 willIn double knavery, – How, how? – Let's see: —After some time, to abuse Othello's earThat 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 noseAs asses are.I have't; – it is engender'd: – hell and nightMust bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.

[Exit.]

ACT II

SCENE I. A seaport in Cyprus. A Platform

[Enter Montano and two Gentlemen.]

MONTANO

What from the cape can you discern at sea?

FIRST GENTLEMAN

Nothing at all: it is a high-wrought 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-shak'd surge, with high and monstrous main,Seems to cast water on the burning Bear,And quench the guards of the ever-fixèd pole;I never did like molestation viewOn the enchafèd flood.

MONTANO

                                      If that the Turkish fleetBe not enshelter'd and embay'd, they are drown'd;It is impossible to bear it out.

[Enter a third Gentleman.]

THIRD GENTLEMAN

News, lads! our wars are done.The desperate tempest hath so bang'd the TurksThat their designment halts; a noble ship of VeniceHath seen a grievous wreck and sufferanceOn most part of their fleet.

MONTANO

How! is this true?

THIRD GENTLEMAN

                            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.

MONTANO

I am glad on't; 'tis a worthy governor.

THIRD GENTLEMAN

But this same Cassio, – though he speak of comfortTouching the Turkish loss, – yet he looks sadly,And prays the Moor be safe; for they were partedWith foul and violent tempest.

MONTANO

                                                 Pray heavens he be;For I have serv'd him, and the man commandsLike a full soldier. Let's to the sea-side, ho!As well to see the vessel that's come inAs to throw out our eyes for brave Othello,Even till we make the main and the aerial blueAn indistinct regard.

THIRD GENTLEMAN

                                 Come, let's do so;For every minute is expectancyOf more arrivance.

[Enter Cassio.]

CASSIO

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

MONTANO

Is he well shipp'd?

CASSIO

His bark is stoutly timber'd, and his pilotOf very expert and approv'd allowance;Therefore my hopes, not surfeited to death,Stand in bold cure.[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 seaStand ranks of people, and they cry, "A sail!"

CASSIO

My hopes do shape him for the governor.

[Guns within.]

SECOND GENTLEMAN

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 arriv'd.

SECOND GENTLEMAN

I shall.

[Exit.]

MONTANO

But, good lieutenant, is your general wiv'd?

CASSIO

Most fortunately: he hath achiev'd a maidThat paragons description and wild fame,One that excels the quirks of blazoning pens,And in the essential vesture of creationDoes tire the ingener. —

[Re-enter second Gentleman.]

How now! who has put in?

SECOND GENTLEMAN

'Tis one Iago, ancient to the general.

CASSIO

He 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 omitTheir mortal natures, letting go safely byThe 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 thoughtsA 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. —Hall 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 aughtBut 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 skiesParted our fellowship: – but, hark! a sail.

[Within.] A sail, a sail!

[Guns within.]

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 breedingThat gives me this bold show of courtesy.

[Kissing her.]

IAGO

Sir, would she give you so much of her lipsAs of her tongue she oft bestows on me,You'd 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 parlours, wild cats in your kitchens,Saints in 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 harbor?

IAGO

Ay, madam.

DESDEMONA

I am not merry; but I do beguileThe thing I am, by seeming otherwise. —Come, how wouldst thou praise me?

IAGO

I am about it; but, indeed, my inventionComes 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 prais'd! 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.

DESDEMONA

Worse and worse.

EMILIA

How if fair and foolish?

IAGO

She never yet was foolish that was fair;For even her folly help'd her to an heir.

DESDEMONA

These are old fond paradoxes to make fools laugh i' the alehouse. What miserable praise hast thou for her that's foul and foolish?

IAGO

There's none so foul and foolish thereunto,But does foul pranks which fair and wise ones do.

DESDEMONA

O heavy ignorance! – thou praisest the worst best. But what praise couldst thou bestow on a deserving woman indeed, – one that, in the authority of her merit, did justly put on the vouch of very malice itself?

IAGO

She that was ever fair and never proud;Had tongue at will and yet was never loud;Never lack'd gold and yet went never gay;Fled from her wish, and yet said, "Now I may";She that, being anger'd, her revenge being nigh,Bade her wrong stay and her displeasure fly;She that in wisdom never was so frailTo change the cod's head for the salmon's tail;She that could think and ne'er disclose her mind;See suitors following and not look behind;She was a wight, if ever such wight were; —

DESDEMONA

To do what?

IAGO

To suckle fools and chronicle small beer.

DESDEMONA

O most lame and impotent conclusion! – Do not learn of him, Emilia, though he be thy husband. – How say you, Cassio? is he not a most profane and liberal counsellor?

CASSIO

He speaks home, madam: you may relish him more in the soldier than in the scholar.

IAGO

[Aside.] He takes her by the palm: ay, well said, whisper: with as little a web as this will I ensnare as great a fly as Cassio. Ay, smile upon her, do; I will gyve thee in thine own courtship. You say true; 'tis so, indeed: if such tricks as these strip you out of your lieutenantry, it had been better you had not kissed your three fingers so oft, which now again you are most apt to play the sir in. Very good; well kissed! an excellent courtesy! 'tis so, indeed. Yet again your fingers to your lips? Would they were clyster-pipes for your sake!

[Trumpet within.]

The Moor! I know his trumpet.

CASSIO

'Tis truly so.

DESDEMONA

Let's meet him, and receive him.

CASSIO

Lo, where he comes!

[Enter Othello and Attendants.]

OTHELLO

O my fair warrior!

DESDEMONA

                               My dear Othello!

OTHELLO

It gives me wonder great as my contentTo see you here before me. O my soul's joy!If after every tempest come such calms,May the winds blow till they have waken'd death!And let the laboring bark climb hills of seasOlympus-high, and duck again as lowAs hell's from heaven! If it were now to die,'Twere now to be most happy; for, I fear,My soul hath her content so absoluteThat not another comfort like to thisSucceeds in unknown fate.

DESDEMONA

                                            The heavens forbidBut that our loves and comforts should increaseEven as our days do grow!

OTHELLO

                                            Amen to that, sweet powers! —I cannot speak enough of this content;It stops me here; it is too much of joy:And this, and this, the greatest discords be [Kissing her.]That e'er our hearts shall make!

IAGO

[Aside.]                                      O, you are well tun'd now!But I'll set down the pegs that make this music,As honest as I am.

OTHELLO

                               Come, let us to the castle. —News, friends; our wars are done, the Turks are drown'd.How does my old acquaintance of this isle?Honey, you shall be well desir'd in Cyprus;I have found great love amongst them. O my sweet,I prattle out of fashion, and I doteIn mine own comforts. – I pry'thee, good Iago,Go to the bay and disembark my coffers:Bring thou the master to the citadel;He is a good one, and his worthinessDoes challenge much respect. – Come, Desdemona,Once more well met at Cyprus.

[Exeunt Othello, Desdemona, and Attendants.]

IAGO

Do thou meet me presently at the harbour. Come hither. If thou be'st valiant, – as, they say, base men being in love have then a nobility in their natures more than is native to them, – list me. The lieutenant to-night watches on the court of guard: first, I must tell thee this – Desdemona is directly in love with him.

RODERIGO

With him! why, 'tis not possible.

IAGO

Lay thy finger thus, and let thy soul be instructed. Mark me with what violence she first loved the Moor, but for bragging, and telling her fantastical lies: and will she love him still for prating? Let not thy discreet heart think it. Her eye must be fed; and what delight shall she have to look on the devil? When the blood is made dull with the act of sport, there should be, – again to inflame it and to give satiety a fresh appetite, – loveliness in favour; sympathy in years, manners, and beauties; all which the Moor is defective in: now, for want of these required conveniences, her delicate tenderness will find itself abused, begin to heave the gorge, disrelish and abhor the Moor; very nature will instruct her in it, and compel her to some second choice. Now sir, this granted; – as it is a most pregnant and unforced position, – who stands so eminently in the degree of this fortune as Cassio does? a knave very voluble; no further conscionable than in putting on the mere form of civil and humane seeming, for the better compass of his salt and most hidden loose affection? why, none; why, none; – a slipper and subtle knave; a finder out of occasions; that has an eye can stamp and counterfeit advantages, though true advantage never present itself: a devilish knave! besides, the knave is handsome, young, and hath all those requisites in him that folly and green minds look after: a pestilent complete knave; and the woman hath found him already.

RODERIGO

I cannot believe that in her; she is full of most blessed condition.

IAGO

Blest fig's end! the wine she drinks is made of grapes: if she had been blessed, she would never have loved the Moor: blessed pudding! Didst thou not see her paddle with the palm of his hand? didst not mark that?

RODERIGO

Yes, that I did; but that was but courtesy.

IAGO

Lechery, by this hand; an index and obscure prologue to the history of lust and foul thoughts. They met so near with their lips that their breaths embraced together. Villainous thoughts, Roderigo! when these mutualities so marshal the way, hard at hand comes the master and main exercise, the incorporate conclusion: pish! – But, sir, be you ruled by me: I have brought you from Venice. Watch you to-night: for the command, I'll lay't upon you: Cassio knows you not: – I'll not be far from you: do you find some occasion to anger Cassio, either by speaking too loud, or tainting his discipline, or from what other course you please, which the time shall more favourably minister.

RODERIGO

Well.

IAGO

Sir, he is rash, and very sudden in choler, and haply with his truncheon may strike at you: provoke him, that he may; for even out of that will I cause these of Cyprus to mutiny, whose qualification shall come into no true taste again but by the displanting of Cassio. So shall you have a shorter journey to your desires by the means I shall then have to prefer them; and the impediment most profitably removed, without the which there were no expectation of our prosperity.

RODERIGO

I will do this, if I can bring it to any opportunity.

IAGO

I warrant thee. Meet me by and by at the citadel: I must fetch his necessaries ashore. Farewell.

RODERIGO

Adieu.

[Exit.]

IAGO

That Cassio loves her, I do well believe it;That she loves him, 'tis apt, and of great credit:The Moor, – howbeit that I endure him not, —Is of a constant, loving, noble nature;And, I dare think, he'll prove to DesdemonaA most dear husband. Now, I do love her too;Not out of absolute lust, – though, peradventure,I stand accountant for as great a sin, —But partly led to diet my revenge,For that I do suspect the lusty MoorHath leap'd into my seat: the thought whereofDoth, like a poisonous mineral, gnaw my inwards;And nothing can or shall content my soulTill I am even'd with him, wife for wife;Or, failing so, yet that I put the MoorAt least into a jealousy so strongThat judgement cannot cure. Which thing to do, —If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trashFor his quick hunting, stand the putting on,I'll have our Michael Cassio on the hip;Abuse him to the Moor in the rank garb, —For I fear Cassio with my night-cap too; —Make the Moor thank me, love me, and reward meFor making him egregiously an assAnd practicing upon his peace and quietEven to madness. 'Tis here, but yet confus'd:Knavery's plain face is never seen till us'd.

[Exit.]