SCENE III.-The same. A Council-Chamber. The DUKE and Senators, sitting; Officers attending. Duke. There is no composition in these news, That gives them credit.

1st Sen. Indeed they are disproportioned. My letters say, a hundred and seven gallies. Duke. And mine, a hundred and forty. 2nd Sen. 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. 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.

By Signior Angelo.

Duke. How say you by this change?
1st Sen.
This cannot be,

By no assay of reason: 't is 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 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.

Offi. Here is more news.

Enter a Messenger.

Mess. The Ottomites, reverend and gracious, Steering with due course toward the Isle of Rhodes, Have there injointed them with an after fleet. 1st Sen. Ay, so I thought :-how many, as you guess?

Mess. Of thirty sail: and now do they re-stem 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. "Tis certain, then, for Cyprus.--
Marcus Lucchicos, is not he in town?

1st Sen. He's now in Florence.

Duke. Write from us: wish him post-posthaste despatch.

1st Sen. 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.

I did not see you; welcome, gentle signior:
[TO BRABANTIO.
We lacked your counsel and your help to-night.
Bra. So did I yours. Good your grace, par-

don me:

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 ac ́ion.

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

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 certain and more overt test
Than these thin habits and poor likelihoods
Of modern seeming do prefer against him.
1st Sen. But, Othello, speak:-
Did you, by indirect and forcéd 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,

Oth. 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 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,
And with it all my travel's 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. 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 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, 't was strange, 't was pass-
ing strange;

'T was pitiful, 't was 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,

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 shewed
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 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.
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 bruised 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 agnize
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. If you please,

Be 't at her father's

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 rights 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,
In my distinct 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 dulness
My speculative and active 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. The affair cries haste, And speed must answer it: you must hence tonight.

Des. To-night, my lord?
This night.

Duke.

Oth.

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 respect As doth import you.

Oth.

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.

Bra. Look to her, Moor; have a quick eye to see: She has deceived her father, and may thee.

[Exeunt DUKE, Senators, Officers, &c. Oth. My life upon her faith.—Honest Iago, My Desdemona must I leave to thee;

I pr'y thee 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.

Rod. Iago. lago. What say'st thou, noble heart? Rod. What will I do, think'st thou? Iago. Why, go to bed and sleep. Rod. I will incontinently drown myself. Iago. Well, if thou dost, I shall never love thee after it. Why, thou silly gentleman! silliness to live when to live is a

Rod. It is

torment: and then have we a prescription to die, when death is our physician,

Iago. O villanous! I have looked upon the world for four times seven years; and since I could distinguish between 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.

Rod. What should I do? I confess it is my shame to be so fond; but it is not in 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 steril 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.

Rod. 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 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 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, 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.

Rod. 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, and 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.

Rod. Where shall we meet i' the morning?
Iago. At my lodging.

Rod. I'll be with thee betimes.

Iago. Go to; farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo? Rod. What say you?

your purse.

Iago. No more of drowning, do you hear. Rod. I am changed. I'll sell all my land. Iago. Go to; farewell: put money enough in [Exit RODERIGO. Thus do I ever make my fool my purse: For, mine own gainéd 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: A double knavery:-how; how? Let me 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