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 Brabanzio,

Take up this mangled matter at the best.

Men do their broken weapons rather use

Than their bare hands.

BRABANZIO

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.

BRABANZIO

God b‘wi’you, I ha’ 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 ’em. I have done, my lord.

DUKE

Let me speak like yourself, and lay a sentence

Which, as a grece 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 new 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.

BRABANZIO

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 pierced through the ear.

I humbly beseech you proceed to th’affairs of 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 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!

BRABANZIO I will not have it so.

OTHELLO Nor I.

DESDEMONA Nor would I 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 why I love him are bereft me,

And I a heavy interim shall support

By his dear absence. Let me go with him.

OTHELLO (to the Duke) Let her have your voice.

Vouch with me heaven, I therefor 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 to her mind;

And heaven defend your good souls that you think