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Othello: Act I, Scene 1

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Othello
Act I, Scene 1

Scene 1

Venice. A street.

  1. Enter Roderigo and Iago.

Roderigo

1 - 3
  1. Tush, never tell me! I take it much unkindly
  2. That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse
  3. As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.

Iago

4 - 6
  1. ’Sblood, but you’ll not hear me.
  2. If ever I did dream of such a matter,
  3. Abhor me.

Roderigo

7
  1. Thou toldst me thou didst hold him in thy hate.

Iago

8 - 34
  1. Despise me
  2. If I do not. Three great ones of the city,
  3. In personal suit to make me his lieutenant,
  4. Off-capp’d to him; and, by the faith of man,
  5. I know my price, I am worth no worse a place.
  6. But he (as loving his own pride and purposes)
  7. Evades them with a bombast circumstance
  8. Horribly stuff’d with epithites of war,
  9. And in conclusion,
  10. Nonsuits my mediators; for, “Certes,” says he,
  11. “I have already chose my officer.”
  12. And what was he?
  13. Forsooth, a great arithmetician,
  14. One Michael Cassio, a Florentine
  15. (A fellow almost damn’d in a fair wife),
  16. That never set a squadron in the field,
  17. Nor the division of a battle knows
  18. More than a spinster—unless the bookish theoric,
  19. Wherein the toged consuls can propose
  20. As masterly as he. Mere prattle, without practice,
  21. Is all his soldiership. But he, sir, had th’ election;
  22. And I, of whom his eyes had seen the proof
  23. At Rhodes, at Cyprus, and on other grounds
  24. Christen’d and heathen, must be belee’d and calm’d
  25. By debitor and creditor—this counter—caster,
  26. He (in good time!) must his lieutenant be,
  27. And I (God bless the mark!) his Moorship’s ancient.

Roderigo

35
  1. By heaven, I rather would have been his hangman.

Iago

36 - 41
  1. Why, there’s no remedy. ’Tis the curse of service;
  2. Preferment goes by letter and affection,
  3. And not by old gradation, where each second
  4. Stood heir to th’ first. Now, sir, be judge yourself
  5. Whether I in any just term am affin’d
  6. To love the Moor.

Roderigo

42
  1.                   I would not follow him then.

Iago

43 - 67
  1. O, sir, content you;
  2. I follow him to serve my turn upon him.
  3. We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
  4. Cannot be truly follow’d. You shall mark
  5. Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave
  6. That (doting on his own obsequious bondage)
  7. Wears out his time, much like his master’s ass,
  8. For nought but provender, and when he’s old, cashier’d.
  9. Whip me such honest knaves. Others there are
  10. Who, trimm’d in forms and visages of duty,
  11. Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves,
  12. And throwing but shows of service on their lords,
  13. Do well thrive by them; and when they have lin’d their coats,
  14. Do themselves homage. These fellows have some soul,
  15. And such a one do I profess myself. For, sir,
  16. It is as sure as you are Roderigo,
  17. Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago.
  18. In following him, I follow but myself;
  19. Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
  20. But seeming so, for my peculiar end;
  21. For when my outward action doth demonstrate
  22. The native act and figure of my heart
  23. In complement extern, ’tis not long after
  24. But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
  25. For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.

L. Marchetti, circa 1900

Roderigo

68 - 69
  1. What a full fortune does the thick-lips owe
  2. If he can carry’t thus!

Iago

70 - 76
  1.                         Call up her father.
  2. Rouse him, make after him, poison his delight,
  3. Proclaim him in the streets; incense her kinsmen,
  4. And though he in a fertile climate dwell,
  5. Plague him with flies. Though that his joy be joy,
  6. Yet throw such changes of vexation on’t,
  7. As it may lose some color.

Roderigo

77
  1. Here is her father’s house, I’ll call aloud.

Iago

78 - 80
  1. Do, with like timorous accent and dire yell
  2. As when, by night and negligence, the fire
  3. Is spied in populous cities.

Roderigo

81
  1. What ho! Brabantio, Signior Brabantio, ho!

Iago

82 - 84
  1. Awake! What ho, Brabantio! Thieves, thieves!
  2. Look to your house, your daughter, and your bags!
  3. Thieves, thieves!
  1. Enter Brabantio above at a window.

Brabantio

85 - 86
  1. What is the reason of this terrible summons?
  2. What is the matter there?

Roderigo

87
  1. Signior, is all your family within?

Iago

88
  1. Are your doors lock’d?

Brabantio

89
  1.                        Why? Wherefore ask you this?

Iago

90 - 96
  1. ’Zounds, sir, y’ are robb’d! For shame, put on your gown;
  2. Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul;
  3. Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
  4. Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise!
  5. Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,
  6. Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you.
  7. Arise, I say!

Brabantio

97
  1.               What, have you lost your wits?

Roderigo

98
  1. Most reverend signior, do you know my voice?

Brabantio

99
  1. Not I; what are you?

Roderigo

100
  1. My name is Roderigo.

Awake! What ho, Brabantio! Thieves, thieves! Look to your house, your daughter, and your bags!

L. Marchetti, circa 1900

Brabantio

101 - 107
  1.                      The worser welcome;
  2. I have charg’d thee not to haunt about my doors.
  3. In honest plainness thou hast heard me say
  4. My daughter is not for thee; and now, in madness
  5. (Being full of supper and distemp’ring draughts),
  6. Upon malicious bravery dost thou come
  7. To start my quiet.

Roderigo

108
  1. Sir, sir, sir—

Brabantio

109 - 111
  1.                But thou must needs be sure
  2. My spirits and my place have in their power
  3. To make this bitter to thee.

Roderigo

112
  1.                              Patience, good sir.

Brabantio

113 - 114
  1. What tell’st thou me of robbing? This is Venice;
  2. My house is not a grange.

Roderigo

115 - 116
  1.                           Most grave Brabantio,
  2. In simple and pure soul I come to you.

Iago

117 - 121
  1. ’Zounds, sir, you are one of those that will not serve God,
  2. if the devil bid you. Because we come to do you service, and
  3. you think we are ruffians, you’ll have your daughter cover’d
  4. with a Barbary horse, you’ll have your nephews neigh to you;
  5. you’ll have coursers for cousins, and gennets for germans.

Brabantio

122
  1. What profane wretch art thou?

Iago

123 - 124
  1. I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the
  2. Moor are now making the beast with two backs.

Brabantio

125
  1. Thou art a villain.

Iago

126
  1.                     You are a senator.

Brabantio

127
  1. This thou shalt answer; I know thee, Roderigo.

Roderigo

128 - 148
  1. Sir, I will answer any thing. But I beseech you,
  2. If’t be your pleasure and most wise consent
  3. (As partly I find it is) that your fair daughter,
  4. At this odd-even and dull watch o’ th’ night,
  5. Transported with no worse nor better guard
  6. But with a knave of common hire, a gundolier,
  7. To the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor—
  8. If this be known to you, and your allowance,
  9. We then have done you bold and saucy wrongs;
  10. But if you know not this, my manners tell me
  11. We have your wrong rebuke. Do not believe
  12. That, from the sense of all civility,
  13. I thus would play and trifle with your reverence.
  14. Your daughter (if you have not given her leave),
  15. I say again, hath made a gross revolt,
  16. Tying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes
  17. In an extravagant and wheeling stranger
  18. Of here and every where. Straight satisfy yourself.
  19. If she be in her chamber or your house,
  20. Let loose on me the justice of the state
  21. For thus deluding you.

Brabantio

149 - 153
  1.                        Strike on the tinder, ho!
  2. Give me a taper! Call up all my people!
  3. This accident is not unlike my dream,
  4. Belief of it oppresses me already.
  5. Light, I say, light!
  1. Exit above.
George Frederick Cooke as Iago

George Frederick Cooke as Iago

circa 1800

Iago

154 - 169
  1.                      Farewell; for I must leave you.
  2. It seems not meet, nor wholesome to my place,
  3. To be producted (as, if I stay, I shall)
  4. Against the Moor; for I do know the state
  5. (How ever this may gall him with some check)
  6. Cannot with safety cast him, for he’s embark’d
  7. With such loud reason to the Cyprus wars
  8. (Which even now stands in act) that, for their souls,
  9. Another of his fathom they have none
  10. To lead their business; in which regard,
  11. Though I do hate him as I do hell-pains,
  12. Yet, for necessity of present life,
  13. I must show out a flag and sign of love,
  14. Which is indeed but sign. That you shall surely find him,
  15. Lead to the Sagittary the raised search;
  16. And there will I be with him. So farewell.
  1. Exit.
  1. Enter below Brabantio in his night-gown with Servants and
  2. torches.

Brabantio

170 - 177
  1. It is too true an evil; gone she is;
  2. And what’s to come of my despised time
  3. Is nought but bitterness. Now, Roderigo,
  4. Where didst thou see her?—O unhappy girl!—
  5. With the Moor, say’st thou?—Who would be a father!—
  6. How didst thou know ’twas she?—O, she deceives me
  7. Past thought!—What said she to you?—Get more tapers;
  8. Raise all my kindred.—Are they married, think you?

Roderigo

178
  1. Truly, I think they are.

Brabantio

179 - 184
  1. O heaven! How got she out? O treason of the blood!
  2. Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters’ minds
  3. By what you see them act. Is there not charms
  4. By which the property of youth and maidhood
  5. May be abus’d? Have you not read, Roderigo,
  6. Of some such thing?

Roderigo

185
  1.                     Yes, sir, I have indeed.

Brabantio

186 - 188
  1. Call up my brother.—O would you had had her!—
  2. Some one way, some another.—Do you know
  3. Where we may apprehend her and the Moor?

Roderigo

189 - 190
  1. I think I can discover him, if you please
  2. To get good guard and go along with me.

Brabantio

191 - 194
  1. Pray you lead on. At every house I’ll call
  2. (I may command at most).—Get weapons, ho!
  3. And raise some special officers of night.—
  4. On, good Roderigo, I will deserve your pains.
  1. Exeunt.
Scene design for Kote Marjanishvili's staging of Othello

Scene design for Kote Marjanishvili's staging of Othello

Petre Otskheli, 1933

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