Both you of my inclining, and the rest:

*

Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it
Without a prompter.-Where will you that I go
To answer this your charge?

BRA.

To prison; till fit time

Of law, and course of direct session,
Call thee to answer.

Отн.
What if I do obey?
How may the duke be therewith satisfied,
Whose messengers are here about my side,
Upon some present business of the state,
To bring me to him?

1 OFF.

'Tis true, most worthy signior,

The duke's in council, and your noble self,
I am sure is sent for.

BRA.

How! the duke in council

In this time of the night!-Bring him away:
Mine 's not an idle cause: the duke himself,
Or any of my brothers of the state,

Cannot but feel this wrong as 't were their own;
For if such actions may have passage free,
Bond-slaves and pagans shall our statesmen be.

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.

But though they jump not on a just account,

(*) First folio, Whether.

[Exeunt.

And mine, two hundred :

(†) First folio omits, I.

would have inclined to those of her own clime, complexion, and degree; but this is expressly contradicted by what he has himself just said,

"— 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.

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

As in these cases, where the aima 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.

SAILOR. [Without.] What ho! what ho! what ho! 1 OFF. A messenger from the galleys.

DUKE.

Enter a Sailor.

Now, what's the business?

SAIL. The Turkish preparation makes for Rhodes; So was I bid report here to the state,

By signior Angelo.

By no assay of reason; 't is a pageant,

This cannot be,

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. Nay, in all confidence, he's not for Rhodes. 1 OFF. 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.

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 believed him.

where the aim reports,-] To aim is to conjecture or surmise.

b I do not so secure me in the error,-] I do not so over-confidently build on the discrepancy, but that, &c.

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

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

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

1 SEN. He's now in Florence.

DUKE. Write from us to him, post-post-haste despatch.
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)

[TO BRABANTIO.

I did not see you; welcome, gentle signior:
We lack'd your counsel and your help to-night.
BRA. So did I yours. Good your grace, pardon me;
Neither my place, nor aught I heard of business,
Hath rais'd 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.

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. Whoe'er he be that, in this foul proceeding, Hath thus beguil'd 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.

BRA.

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 and SEN.

We are very sorry for 't.

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

BRA. Nothing, but this is so.

ОтH. Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,

My very noble and approv'd 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 us'd
Their dearesta action in the tented field;

• Their dearest action-] See note (6), p. 495, Vol. V.

And little of this great world can I speak,

More than pertains to feats of broils 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 charg'd withal,

I won his daughter.

BRA.
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 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 conjur'd to this effect,

He wrought upon her.

DUKE.

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."
1 SEN. 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?

Отн.

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,b
Not only take away, but let your sentence
Even fall upon my life.

DUKE.

Fetch Desdemona hither.

ОTH. 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.

(*) First folio, main'd

do prefer against him.] In the folio, the prefix "Duke" having been inadvertently omitted, this speech forms part of the one preceding.

The trust, the office, I do hold of you,-] This line is not found in the earlier quarto.

DUKE. Say it, Othello.

Отн. Her father lov'd me; oft invited me; Still question'd me the story of my life,

*

From year to year,-the battles, sieges, fortunes,†
That I have pass'd.

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 travel's § history:

Wherein of antres vast, and deserts idle,

process;

Rough quarries, rocks and || hills whose heads¶ touch heaven,
It was my hint to speak,-such was the**
And of the Cannibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders. (4) This to hearb
Would Desdemona seriously incline:

But still the house affairs would draw her thence;tt
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 suffer'd. My story being done,
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs: §§.

She swore,-in faith, 't was strange, 't was passing strange;
"T was pitiful, 't was 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 lov'd her,

I should but teach him how to tell my story,

And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake :-
She lov'd me for the dangers I had pass'd;
And I lov'd her that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have us'd;-

Here comes the lady, let her witness it.

First folio, Battaile.
First folio, spoke.
First folio omits, and.

First folio, my.

First folio, instinctively.

First folio, Fortune. First folio, Travellours. First folio, head. (tt) First folio, hence. (§§) First folio, kisses.

• Do grow beneath-] The folio reads, "Grew beneath," &c.

This to hear-] In the folio, "These things to hear," &c.