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.

BRABANZIO

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.

SENATORS We are very sorry for’t.

DUKE (to Othello)

What in your own part can you say to this?

BRABANZIO 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 blessed 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 proceeding I am charged withat—

I won his daughter.

BRABANZIO

A maiden never bold,

Of spirit so still and quiet that her motion

Blushed at hersetf—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 judgement maimed 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 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.

A SENATOR 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?

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 (to officers)

Fetch Desdemona hither.

OTHELLO

Ensign, conduct them. You best know the place.

Exit Iago with two or three officers

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.

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, fortunes

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 in 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