SCENE III. A council-chamber. Othello, the Moore of Venice  Shakespeare homepage  |  Othello  | Act 1, Scene 3 

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 The DUKE and Senators sitting at a table; Officers attending  DUKE OF VENICE  There is no composition in these news 

 That gives them credit. 

 First Senator  Indeed, they are disproportion'd; 

 My letters say a hundred and seven galleys. 

 DUKE OF VENICE  And mine, a hundred and forty. 

 Second Senator  And mine, two hundred: 

 But though they jump not on a just account,-- 

 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 OF VENICE  Nay, it is possible enough to judgment: 

 I do not so secure me in the error, 

 But the main article I do approve 

 In fearful sense. 

 Sailor  [Within]  What, ho! what, ho! what, ho! 

 First Officer  A messenger from the galleys. 



 Enter a Sailor  DUKE OF VENICE  Now, what's the business? 

 Sailor  The Turkish preparation makes for Rhodes; 

 So was I bid report here to the state 

 By Signior Angelo. 

 DUKE OF VENICE  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 

 The 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 the abilities 

 That Rhodes is dress'd 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 OF VENICE  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 towards the isle of Rhodes, 

 Have there injointed them with an after fleet. 

 First Senator  Ay, so I thought. How many, as you guess? 

 Messenger  Of thirty sail: and now they do restem 

 Their backward course, bearing with frank appearance 

 Their purposes toward Cyprus. Signior Montano, 

 Your trusty and most valiant servitor, 

 With his free duty recommends you thus, 

 And prays you to believe him. 

 DUKE OF VENICE  'Tis certain, then, for Cyprus. 

 Marcus Luccicos, is not he in town? 

 First Senator  He's now in Florence. 

 DUKE OF VENICE  Write from us to him; post-post-haste dispatch. 

 First Senator  Here comes Brabantio and the valiant Moor. 



 Enter BRABANTIO, OTHELLO, IAGO, RODERIGO, and Officers  DUKE OF VENICE  Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you 

 Against the general enemy Ottoman. 



 To BRABANTIO  I did not see you; welcome, gentle signior; 

 We lack'd 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 o'erbearing nature 

 That it engluts and swallows other sorrows 

 And it is still itself. 

 DUKE OF VENICE  Why, what's the matter? 

 BRABANTIO  My daughter! O, my daughter! 

 DUKE OF VENICE  Senator  Dead? 

 BRABANTIO  Ay, to me; 

 She is abused, stol'n 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 OF VENICE  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. 

 DUKE OF VENICE  Senator  We are very sorry for't. 

 DUKE OF VENICE  [To OTHELLO]  What, in your own part, can you say to this? 

 BRABANTIO  Nothing, but this is so. 

 OTHELLO  Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors, 

 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 bless'd 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 unvarnish'd tale deliver 

 Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms, 

 What conjuration and what mighty magic, 

 For such proceeding I am charged withal, 

 I won his daughter. 

 BRABANTIO  A maiden never bold; 

 Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion 

 Blush'd at herself; and she, in spite of nature, 

 Of years, of country, credit, every thing, 

 To fall in love with what she fear'd to look on! 

 It is a judgment maim'd and most imperfect 

 That will confess perfection so could err 

 Against all rules of nature, and must be driven 

 To find out practises 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 OF VENICE  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 forced 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 OF VENICE  Fetch Desdemona hither. 

 OTHELLO  Ancient, conduct them: you best know the place. 



 Exeunt IAGO 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 OF VENICE  Say it, Othello. 

 OTHELLO  Her father loved me; oft invited me; 

 Still question'd 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 the 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' the 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'ld 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 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 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 pass'd, 

 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 OF VENICE  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 noble 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 the lord of duty; 

 I am hitherto your daughter: but here's my husband, 

 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. 

 BRABANTIO  God be wi' 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 OF VENICE  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 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 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 pierced through the ear. 

 I humbly beseech you, proceed to the affairs of state. 

 DUKE OF VENICE  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 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. 

 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, 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. 



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