Enter DESDEMONA, IAGO, and Attendants. DUKE. I think this tale would win my daughter too. Good Brabantio, Take up this mangled matter at the best: Men do their broken weapons rather use Than their bare hands. BRA. I pray you, hear her speak; If she confess that she was half the wooer, Destruction on my head, if my bad blame Light on the man!-Come hither, gentle mistress: Where most you owe obedience? DES. I do perceive here a divided duty: My noble father, 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; To you, preferring you before her father, So much I challenge that I may profess BRA. God be with you!—I have done. Please it your grace, on to the state affairs;— I here do give thee that with all my heart, 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 The robb'd that smiles, steals something from the thief; 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 (*) First folio omits the words, Into your favour. • Which, but thou hast already, with all my heart-] A line wanting in the earlier quarto. Let me speak like yourself;] He perhaps means, sententiously. But the free comfort which from thence he hears; Being strong on both sides, are equivocal: That the bruis'd heart was pierced through the ear.- * DUKE. The Turk with a most mighty preparation makes for Hath made the flinty and steel couch† of war I find in hardness; and do undertake A's levels with her breeding. DUKE. Be't at her father's. OTH. Nor I. If you please, I'll not have it so. Nor I; I would not there reside,d To put my father in impatient thoughts To assist my simpleness. DUKE. What would you, Desdemona? DES. That I did love the Moor to live with him, (*) First folio inserts, more. (†) First folio, Coach. (1) Old text, This. • That the bruis'd heart was pierced through the car.—] Following Warburton, some editors read pieced; but Brabantio is quoting a phrase of the age. Thus Spenser: "Her words Which passing through the eares would pierce the heart." The Faerie Queene, B. IV. C. 8, Stanza xxvi. So also Drayton, in the Baron's Warrs, Stanza xxxvi. :— "Are not your hearts yet pierced through your Ears?" 4 Nor I; I would not there reside, &c.] In the folio,-"Nor would I there recide," &c. t * My downright violence and storm of fortunes I saw Othello's visage in his mind; By his dear absence. Let me go with him. Vouch with me, heaven, I therefore beg it not, Nor to comply with heat (the young affects And heaven defend your good souls, that you think For she is with me: no, when light-wing'd toys That my disports corrupt and taint my business, Make head against my estimation! DUKE. Be it as you shall privately determine, Either for her stay or going: the affair cries haste, 1 SEN. You must away to-night. Отн. 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; "Quality here means profession. I am so much enamoured of Othello, that I am even willing to endure all the inconveniences incident to a military life, and to attend him to the wars.'"-MALONE. 11 dear absence.] See note (6), p. 495, Vol. V. • Let her have your voice.] The folio lection; that of the quarto 1662 is,— "Your voices lords: beseech you let her will 4 My speculative and offic'd instruments,-] By "speculative and offic'd instruments" he probably means, the organs of sight and action. You must away to-night. In the quartos, "You must hence to-night," which words are given to the Duke, and the dialogue proceeds as follows,— "Des. To-night my lord? Du. This night. Oth. With all my heart." With such things else of quality and respect Отн. So 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 Good night to every one.-And, noble signior, Your son-in-law is far more fair than black. 1 SEN. Adieu, brave Moor! use Desdemona well. BRA. Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see;b She has deceiv'd her father, and may thee. [TO BRABANTIO. [Exeunt DUKE, Senators, Officers, &c. Отн. My life upon her faith!-Honest Iago, ROD. Iago, [Exeunt OTHELLO and DESDEMONA. IAGO. What say'st thou, noble heart? ROD. I will incontinently drown myself. IAGO. If thou dost, I shall never love thee after. Why, thou silly gentleman! ROD. It is silliness to live when to live 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 betwixt a benefit and an injury, I never found 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 my 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 sterile 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 (*) First folio, And. (†) First folio, braine. - no delighted beauty lack,-] "Delighted" is here used for delighting; the passive participle for the active. if thou hast eyes to see ;] The 1622 quarto reads, we think preferably,—“ have a quick eye to see," &c. 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 thou the 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,b-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. (5) 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* super-subtle 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, 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. ROD. What say you? Do you hear, Roderigo? IAGO. No more of drowning, do you hear? ROD. I am changed: I'll go sell all my land." IAGO. Go to; farewell! put money enough in your purse. (*) First folio omits, a. [Exit RODERIGO. defeat thy favour with an usurped beard ;] Change, or disfigure thy countenance by putting on a spurious beard. It cannot be that Desdemona should long continue her love to the Moor,-] In the folio, "It cannot be long that Desdemona should continue," &c. she must have change, she must;] These words are not in the folio. d I'll go sell all my land.] The folio abbreviates the foregoing dialogue thus,— "Do you hear, Roderigo? Rod. Ile sell all my Land. [Exit." |