[Exeunt.

A Council-Chamber.

SCENE III. The same.
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 with the same 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 judg

ment.

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!

Enter an Officer, with a Sailor.

Offi. A messenger from the gallies. Duke.

Now; the business?

Sail. The Turkish preparation makes for Rhodes:

So was I bid report here to the state,

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 unskillful

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.

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 cars I'll present How I did thrive in this fair lady's love, And she in mine.

Duke. Say it, Othello.

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

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

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.

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,

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 piercéd through the

ear.

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.

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,

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

[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.
Iago. 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.

- But

one scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us to most preposterous conclusions. 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 favor 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

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 villanous! 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 a man who 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 do confess it is my shame to be so fond; but it is not in yirtue to amend it.

Iago. Virtue? a fig!-'t is 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

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 supersupple Venetian, bet 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?