To hang clogs on them.-I have done, my lord.

Duke. Let me speak like yourself; and lay a sentence, Which, as a gryse, 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 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 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.

Bra. I'll not have it so.

Oth. Nor I.

Des. 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,

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-wing'd toys
Of feather'd 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 to-night.

Des. To-night, my lord?

Duke. This night.

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.

Duke. Let it be so.

Good night to every one.—And, noble signior,

If virtue no delighted beauty lack,

[To BRABANTIO.

Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.

1st Sen. Adieu, brave Moor! use Desdemona well. Bra. Look to her, Moor; have a quick eye to see; She has deceiv'd 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'ythee, 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.

Rod. Iago.

[Exeunt OTHELLO and DESDEMONA.

Iago. What say'st thou, noble heart?
Rod. What will I do, thinkest 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!

Rod. It is silliness to live, when to live is a 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 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