beseech you,

If 't be your pleasure and most wise consent
(As partly I find it is) that your fair daughter,
At this odd-even and dull watch o' the night,
Transported, with no worse nor better guard
But with a knave of common hire, a gondolier,
To the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor,-
If this be known to you, and your allowance,
We then have done you bold and saucy wrongs;
But, if you know not this, my manners tell me
We have your wrong rebuke. Do not believe

That, from the sense of all civility,
I thus would play and trifle with your reverence:
Your daughter,—if you have not given her leave,-
I say again, hath made a gross revolt;
Tying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes,
In an extravagant and wheeling stranger
Of here and everywhere. Straight satisfy yourself:
If she be in her chamber or your house,
Let loose on me the justice of the state

For thus deluding you.

BRA.

Strike on the tinder, ho! Give me a taper !-call up all my people!This accident is not unlike my dream: Belief of it oppresses me already.— Light, I say! light!

g

[Exit from above. Farewell; for I must leave you:

IAGO.

Grange, Warton remarks, is strictly and properly the farm of a monastery. But in Lincolnshire, and in other northern counties, they call every lone house, or farm which stands solitary, a grange. What Brabantio means, then, is,-I am in a populous city, not in a place where robbery can be easily committed.

ruffians,-] Here ruffian is employed in its secondary sense of roisterer, swash-buckler, and the like, though its primary meaning undoubtedly was, pander; the Latin, leno," the Italian, "rothiano."

It seems not meet, nor wholesome to my place, To be produc'd (as, if I stay, I shall)

*

Against the Moor: for, I do know, the state,—
However this may gall him with some check,—
Cannot with safety cast him; for he's embark'd
With such loud reason to the Cyprus' wars,
Which even now stand in act, that, for their souls,
Another of his fathom they have none
To lead their business: in which regard,
Though I do hate him as I do hell-pains,†
Yet, for necessity of present life,

I must show out a flag and sign of love,
Which is indeed but sign. That you shall surely

find him,

Lead to the Sagittary (1) the raised search; And there will I be with him. So, farewell.

[Exit.

Enter, below, BRABANTIO, and Servants with torches.

BRA. It is too true an evil: gone she is! And what's to come of my despised time Is nought but bitterness.-Now, Roderigo, Where didst thou see her?-O, unhappy girl!— With the Moor, say'st thou ?-Who would be a father!

How didst thou know 't was she?-O, she deceives me

Past thought-What said she to you?-Get more tapers;

Raise all my kindred.-Are they married, think you?

ROD. Truly, I think they are.

BRA. O, heaven!-How got she out?-O, treason of the blood!Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters' minds

By what you see them act.-Are there not charms

By which the property of youth and maidhood May be abus'd? Have you not read, Roderigo, Of some such thing?

ROD.

Yes, sir, I have indeed. BRA. Call up my brother.-O, would you had had her!

Some one way, some another.-Do you know
Where we may apprehend her and the Moor?

e Transported.] That is, transported herself. Capell, however, inserts Be before transported.

d from the sense-] Contrary, or opposed to the sense, &c. e-extravagant-] Vagabond.

fwheeling-] Mr. Collier's annotator proposes, wheedling we should much prefer to read,—

an extravagant and whirling stranger

Of here and everywhere."

g Straight satisfy yourself:] This line and the sixteen preceding lines are not in the quarto 1622.

BRA. O, thou foul thief, where hast thou stow'd my daughter?

b

Damn'd as thou art, thou hast enchanted her;
For I'll refer me to all things of sense,
If she in chains of magic were not bound,"
Whether a maid so tender, fair, and happy,
So opposite to marriage, that she shunn'd
The wealthy curled darlings of our nation,
Would ever have, to incur a general mock,
Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom
Of such a thing as thou,-to fear, not to delight.
Judge me the world, if 't is not gross in sense
That thou hast practis'd on her with foul charms;
Abus'd her delicate youth with drugs or minerals
That waken motion: I'll have 't disputed
on; (2)

'Tis probable, and palpable to thinking.

I therefore apprehend and do attach theed
For an abuser of the world, a practiser
Of arts inhibited and out of warrant.-
Lay hold upon him; if he do resist,
Subdue him at his peril.

(*) First folio, Whether.

[Exeunt.

(†) First folio omits, I. * If she in chains of magic were not bound,-] A line not found in the quarto 1622.

bcurled darlings-] "Curled" was an epithet characteristic of gentility. Thus D'Avenant, in "The Just Italian," Act III. Sc. 1,

"the curl'd and silken Nobles of the Town." The folio reads, "dearlings."

c That waken motion:-] So Hanmer; the original having, "That weakens motion," &c. The upholders of the old reading contend that Brabantio's accusation is that the Moor, by magical devices and the administering of drugs or minerals, had weakened those natural impulses of youth and maidhood in his daughter, which, uncontrolled, would have inclined to those of her own clime, complexion, and degree; but this is expressly contradicted by what he has himself just said,

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.

1 SEN. Indeed, they are disproportioned; My letters say a hundred and seven galleys. DUKE. And mine, a hundred forty.

2 SEN. And mine, two hundred : But though they jump not on a just account,As in these cases, where the aim reports, 'T is 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.

SAILOR. [Without.] What ho! what ho! what ho!

1 OFF. A messenger from the galleys.

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,s
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,

a maid so tender, fair, and happy,

So opposite to marriage, that she shunn'd
The wealthy curled darlings of our nation."

We therefore readily accept the easy emendation Hanmer offers. Brabantio's grievance, it is plain, was not that Othello had, by charms and medicines, abated the motions of Desdemona's sense, but that he had aroused and stimulated them.

dand do attach thee-] The passage beginning, —“Judge me the world," to the above words inclusive, is not in the quarto 1622.

e-where the aim reports,-] To aim is to conjecture or surmise. f I do not so secure me in the error,-] I do not so over-confidently build on the discrepancy, but that, &c.

g So may he with more facile question bear it.-] The remainder of the speech, after this line, is found only in the follo 1623 and the quarto 1630.

Have there injointed them with an after fleet.

1 SEN. Ay, so I thought.-How many, as you guess?

MESS. Of thirty sail: and now they do 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.

ato believe him.] Capell suggested, "to relieve him," and Mr. Collier's annotator follows suit.

DUKE. 'Tis certain, then, for Cyprus.Marcus Luccicos, is not he in town?

1 SEN. He's now in Florence.

DUKE. Write from us

haste despatch.

to him, post-post

1 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.-(3)

I did not see you; welcome, gentle signior:

[TO BRABANTIO. We lack'd your counsel and your help to-night. BRA. So did I yours. Good your grace, pardon