The Illustrated Works of Shakespeare/Illustrated Works of Shakespeare, The (1990)(Animated Pixels)[!][CDTV-PC].iso/shakes/text/35/01_03

Text File | 1991-04-10 | 20KB | 525 lines

A Council Chamber.
 Enter the DUKE and SENATORS set at a table with lights, and ATTENDANTS.

Duke    There is no composition in these news
    That gives them credit.

1st Senator                            Indeed, they are disproportioned.
    My letters say a hundred and seven galleys.

Duke    And mine a hundred-forty.

2nd Senator                                And mine two hundred.
    But though they jump not on a just account-
    As in these cases, where the aim 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 judgement.
    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!

1st Officer    A messenger from the galleys.

                             Enter a SAILOR.

Duke                                Now, what's the business?

Sailor    The Turkish preparation makes for Rhodes;
    So was I bid report here to the state
    By Signor Angelo.

Duke    How say you by this change?

1st Senator                                    This cannot be,
    By no assay of reason. 'Tis 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 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.

1st Officer    Here is more news.

                            Enter a MESSENGER.

Messenger    The Ottomites, reverend and gracious,
    Steering with due course toward the Isle of Rhodes,
    Have there injointed them with an after fleet.

1st Senator    Ay, so I thought. How many, as you guess?

Messenger    Of thirty sail; and now they do restem
    Their backward course, bearing with frank appearance
    Their purposes toward Cyprus. Signor Montano,
    Your trusty and most valiant servitor,
    With his free duty recommends you thus,
    And prays you to believe him.

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

1st Senator    He's now in Florence.

Duke    Write from us to him post-posthaste dispatch.

     Enter BRABANTIO, OTHELLO, CASSIO, IAGO, RODERIGO, and OFFICERS.

1st Senator    Here comes Brabantio and the valiant Moor.

Duke    Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you
    Against the general enemy Ottoman.
    [To BRABANTIO.] I did not see you; welcome, gentle signor.
    We lacked your counsel and your help tonight.

Brabantio    So did I yours. Good your grace, pardon me;
    Neither my place nor aught I heard of business
    Hath raised me from my bed, nor doth the general care
    Take hold of me; for my particular grief
    Is of so floodgate and o'erbearing nature
    That it engluts and swallows other sorrows,
    And it is still itself.

Duke                            Why, what's the matter?

Brabantio    My daughter! O, my daughter!

Senators                                    Dead?

Brabantio                                        Ay, to me.
    She is abused, stol'n from me, and corrupted,
    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 beguiled 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.

Brabantio                            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.

All                        We are very sorry for't.

Duke    [To OTHELLO.] What in your own part can you say to this?

Brabantio    Nothing, but this is so.

Othello    Most potent, grave, and reverend signors,
    My very noble and approved 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 blest with the soft phrase of peace;
    For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith,
    Till now some nine moons wasted they have used
    Their dearest action in the tented field,
    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 unvarnished tale deliver
    Of my whole course of love: what drugs, what charms,
    What conjuration and what mighty magic-
    For such proceedings I am charged withal-
    I won his daughter.

Brabantio                            A maiden never bold;
    Of spirit so still and quiet that her motion
    Blushed at her self; and she, in spite of nature,
    Of years, of country, credit, everything,
    To fall in love with what she feared to look on?
    It is a judgment maimed and most imperfect
    That will confess perfection so would 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 conjured 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.

1st Senator    But, Othello, speak.
    Did you by indirect and forcd courses
    Subdue and poison this young maid's affections?
    Or came it by request and such fair question
    As soul to soul affordeth?

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

Duke                            Fetch Desdemona hither.

Othello    Ensign, conduct them; you best know the place.
                                    [Exit IAGO with two or three.
    And till she come, as truely 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.

Duke                        Say it, Othello.

Othello    Her father loved me, oft invited me,
    Still questioned me the story of my life
    From year to year: the battles, sieges, fortune,
    That I have passed.
    I ran it through, even from my boyish days
    To th' 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'th' imminent deadly breach,
    Of being taken by the insolent foe
    And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence,
    And portance in my traveller'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 my process-
    And of the Cannibals that each other eat,
    The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
    Do grow beneath their shoulders. These things to hear
    Would Desdemona seriously incline;
    But still the house affairs would draw her thence,
    Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,
    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 kisses:
    She swore, i'faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange,
    'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful;
    She wished she had not heard it, yet she wished
    That heaven had made her such a man. She thanked me,
    And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,
    I should but teach him how to tell my story,
    And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:
    She loved me for the dangers I had passed,
    And I loved her that she did pity them.
    This only is the witchcraft I have used.

                  Enter DESDEMONA, IAGO, and ATTENDANTS.

    Here comes the lady; let her witness it.

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.

Brabantio                            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.
    Do you perceive in all this noble company
    Where most you owe obedience?

Desdemona                                    My noble father,
    I do perceive here a divided duty.
    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,
    And so much duty as my mother showed
    To you, preferring you before her father,
    So much I challenge that I may profess
    Due to the Moor my lord.

Brabantio                            God be with you, I have done.
    Please it your grace, on to the state affairs;
    I had rather to adopt a child than get it.
    Come hither, Moor.
    I here do give thee that with all my heart
    Which, but thou hast already, with all my heart
    I would keep from thee.
            [To DESDEMONA.] For your sake, jewel,
    I am glad at soul I have no other child;
    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
    Is the next way to draw more mischief on.
    What cannot be preserved when fortune takes,
    Patience her injury a mockery makes.
    The robbed that smiles steals something from the thief;
    He robs himself that spends a bootless grief.

Brabantio    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 piercd through the ear.
    I humbly beseech you proceed to th' affairs of state.

Duke    The Turk with 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 more 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.

Othello    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
    This 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    Why, at her father's.

Brabantio                            I will not have it so.

Othello    Nor I.

Desdemona            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 your prosperous ear,
    And let me find a charter in your voice
    T'assist my simpleness.

Duke                                What would you, Desdemona?

Desdemona    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.

Othello    Let her have your voice.
    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 me defunct - and proper satisfaction,
    But to be free and bounteous of her mind;
    And heaven defend your good souls that you think
    I will your serious and great business scant
    When she is with me. No, when light-winged toys
    Of feathered Cupid seel with wanton dullness
    My speculative and officed 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. Th' affair cries haste,
    And speed must answer it.

1st Senator                                You must away tonight.

Desdemona    Tonight, my Lord?

Duke                    This night.

Othello                                With all my heart.

Duke    At nine i'th' morning here we'll meet again.
    Othello, leave some officer behind,
    And he shall our commission bring to you,
    And such things else of quality and respect
    As doth import you.

Othello                        So please your grace, my ensign;
    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 everyone. [To BRABANTIO.] And, noble signor,
    If virtue no delighted beauty lack,
    Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.

1st Senator    Adieu, brave Moor. Use Desdemona well.

Brabantio    Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see:
    She has deceived her father, and may thee.
                             [Exeunt all but OTHELLO, DESDEMONA,
                                                RODERIGO and IAGO.

Othello    My life upon her faith! Honest Iago,
    My Desdemona must I leave to thee.
    I prithee, 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 matter, and direction
    To spend with thee. We must obey the time.
                                  [Exeunt OTHELLO and DESDEMONA.

Roderigo    Iago.

Iago    What sayst thou, noble heart?

Roderigo    What will I do, think'st thou?

Iago    Why, go to bed and sleep.

Roderigo    I will incontinently drown myself.

Iago    If thou dost, I shall never love thee after. Why, thou
    silly gentleman?

Roderigo    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 villainous! 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.

Roderigo    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 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.

Roderigo    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
    long that Desdemona should continue her love to the Moor -
    put money in thy purse - nor he his to her. It was a
    violent commencement in her, 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 the
    coloquintida. She must change fo youth: when she is sated
    with his body she will find the error of her choice.
    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.

Roderigo    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 retell 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 tomorrow. Adieu.

Roderigo    Where shall we meet i'th' morning?

Iago    At my lodging.

Roderigo    I'll be with thee betimes.

Iago    Go to, farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo?

Roderigo    What say you?

Iago     No more of drowning, do you hear?

Roderigo    I am changed. I'll sell all my land.

Iago    Go to; farewell. Put money enough in your purse.
                                                [Exit RODERIGO.
    Thus do I ever make my fool my purse;
    For I mine own gained knowledge should profane
    If I would time expend with such a snipe
    But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor,
    And it is thought abroad that 'twixt my sheets
    He's done my office. I know not if't be true,
    But I, for mere suspicion in that kind,
    Will do as if for surety. He holds me well;
    The better shall my purpose work on him.
    Cassio's a proper man. Let me see now:
    To get his place and to plume up my will
    In double knavery - how, how? Let's see-
    After some time to abuse Othello's ears
    That he is too familiar with his wife;
    He hath a person and a smooth dispose
    To be suspected, framed to make women false.
    The Moor is of a free and open nature
    That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
    And will as tenderly be led by th' nose
    As asses are.
    I have't, it is engendered; hell and night
    Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.
                                                [Exit.