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Othello: Act I, Scene 3

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Othello
Act I, Scene 3

Venice. A council chamber.

Desdemona

Desdemona

Edwin Austin Abbey

  1. Enter Duke and Senators set at a table, with lights and
  2. Officers.

Duke

1 - 2
  1. There’s no composition in these news
  2. That gives them credit.

First Senator

3 - 4
  1.                         Indeed, they are disproportioned;
  2. My letters say a hundred and seven galleys.

Duke

5
  1. And mine, a hundred forty.

Second Senator

6 - 10
  1.                            And mine, two hundred!
  2. But though they jump not on a just accompt
  3. (As in these cases where the aim reports,
  4. ’Tis oft with difference), yet do they all confirm
  5. A Turkish fleet, and bearing up to Cyprus.

Duke

11 - 14
  1. Nay, it is possible enough to judgment.
  2. I do not so secure me in the error
  3. But the main article I do approve
  4. In fearful sense.

Sailor

15
  1. Within.
  2.                   What ho, what ho, what ho!
  1. Enter Sailor.

Officer

16
  1. A messenger from the galleys.

Duke

17
  1.                               Now? What’s the business?

Sailor

18 - 20
  1. The Turkish preparation makes for Rhodes,
  2. So was I bid report here to the state
  3. By Signior Angelo.
  1. Exit Sailor.

Duke

21
  1. How say you by this change?

First Senator

22 - 35
  1.                             This cannot be
  2. By no assay of reason; ’tis a pageant
  3. To keep us in false gaze. When we consider
  4. Th’ importancy of Cyprus to the Turk,
  5. And let ourselves again but understand
  6. That, as it more concerns the Turk than Rhodes,
  7. So may he with more facile question bear it,
  8. For that it stands not in such warlike brace,
  9. But altogether lacks th’ abilities
  10. That Rhodes is dress’d in—if we make thought of this,
  11. We must not think the Turk is so unskillful
  12. To leave that latest which concerns him first,
  13. Neglecting an attempt of ease and gain
  14. To wake and wage a danger profitless.

Duke

36
  1. Nay, in all confidence, he’s not for Rhodes.

Officer

37
  1. Here is more news.
  1. Enter the First Messenger.

First Messenger

38 - 40
  1. The Ottomites, reverend and gracious,
  2. Steering with due course toward the isle of Rhodes,
  3. Have there injointed them with an after fleet.

First Senator

41
  1. Ay, so I thought. How many, as you guess?

First Messenger

42 - 47
  1. Of thirty sail; and now they do restem
  2. Their backward course, bearing with frank appearance
  3. Their purposes toward Cyprus. Signior Montano,
  4. Your trusty and most valiant servitor,
  5. With his free duty recommends you thus,
  6. And prays you to believe him.
  1. Exit First Messenger.

Duke

48 - 49
  1. ’Tis certain then for Cyprus.
  2. Marcus Luccicos, is not he in town?

First Senator

50
  1. He’s now in Florence.

Duke

51
  1. Write from us to him, post-post-haste. Dispatch!

First Senator

52
  1. Here comes Brabantio and the valiant Moor.
  1. Enter Brabantio, Othello, Cassio, Iago, Roderigo, and
  2. Officers.

Duke

53 - 56
  1. Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you
  2. Against the general enemy Ottoman.
  3. To Brabantio.
  4. I did not see you; welcome, gentle signior,
  5. We lack’d your counsel and your help tonight.

Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors, My very noble and approv’d good masters: that I have ta’en away this old man’s daughter, it is most true;

L. Marchetti, circa 1900

Brabantio

57 - 63
  1. So did I yours. Good your Grace, pardon me:
  2. Neither my place, nor aught I heard of business,
  3. Hath rais’d me from my bed, nor doth the general care
  4. Take hold on me; for my particular grief
  5. Is of so flood-gate and o’erbearing nature
  6. That it engluts and swallows other sorrows,
  7. And it is still itself.

Duke

64
  1.                         Why? What’s the matter?

Brabantio

65
  1. My daughter! O, my daughter!

All

66
  1.                              Dead?

Brabantio

67 - 72
  1.       Ay, to me:
  2. She is abus’d, stol’n from me, and corrupted
  3. By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks;
  4. For nature so prepost’rously to err
  5. (Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense)
  6. Sans witchcraft could not.

Duke

73 - 78
  1. Who e’er he be that in this foul proceeding
  2. Hath thus beguil’d your daughter of herself,
  3. And you of her, the bloody book of law
  4. You shall yourself read in the bitter letter
  5. After your own sense; yea, though our proper son
  6. Stood in your action.

Brabantio

79 - 82
  1.                       Humbly I thank your Grace.
  2. Here is the man—this Moor, whom now, it seems,
  3. Your special mandate for the state affairs
  4. Hath hither brought.

All

83
  1.                      We are very sorry for’t.

Duke

84
  1. To Othello.
  2. What, in your own part, can you say to this?

Brabantio

85
  1. Nothing, but this is so.

Othello

86 - 104
  1. Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,
  2. My very noble and approv’d good masters:
  3. That I have ta’en away this old man’s daughter,
  4. It is most true; true I have married her;
  5. The very head and front of my offending
  6. Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,
  7. And little bless’d with the soft phrase of peace;
  8. For since these arms of mine had seven years’ pith,
  9. Till now some nine moons wasted, they have us’d
  10. Their dearest action in the tented field;
  11. And little of this great world can I speak
  12. More than pertains to feats of broils and battle,
  13. And therefore little shall I grace my cause
  14. In speaking for myself. Yet (by your gracious patience)
  15. I will a round unvarnish’d tale deliver
  16. Of my whole course of love—what drugs, what charms,
  17. What conjuration, and what mighty magic
  18. (For such proceeding I am charg’d withal)
  19. I won his daughter.

Brabantio

105 - 117
  1.                     A maiden, never bold;
  2. Of spirit so still and quiet that her motion
  3. Blush’d at herself; and she, in spite of nature,
  4. Of years, of country, credit, every thing,
  5. To fall in love with what she fear’d to look on!
  6. It is a judgment main’d, and most imperfect,
  7. That will confess perfection so could err
  8. Against all rules of nature, and must be driven
  9. To find out practices of cunning hell
  10. Why this should be. I therefore vouch again
  11. That with some mixtures pow’rful o’er the blood,
  12. Or with some dram (conjur’d to this effect)
  13. He wrought upon her.
Kirovabad Theater production of Othello

Kirovabad Theater production of Othello

Dimitri Tavadze, 1933

Duke

118 - 121
  1.                      To vouch this is no proof,
  2. Without more wider and more overt test
  3. Than these thin habits and poor likelihoods
  4. Of modern seeming do prefer against him.

First Senator

122 - 126
  1. But, Othello, speak.
  2. Did you by indirect and forced courses
  3. Subdue and poison this young maid’s affections?
  4. Or came it by request, and such fair question
  5. As soul to soul affordeth?

Othello

127 - 133
  1.                            I do beseech you,
  2. Send for the lady to the Sagittary,
  3. And let her speak of me before her father.
  4. If you do find me foul in her report,
  5. The trust, the office I do hold of you,
  6. Not only take away, but let your sentence
  7. Even fall upon my life.

Duke

134
  1.                         Fetch Desdemona hither.
  1. Exeunt two or three.

Othello

135 - 140
  1. Ancient, conduct them; you best know the place.
  2. Exit Iago.
  3. And, till she come, as truly as to heaven
  4. I do confess the vices of my blood,
  5. So justly to your grave ears I’ll present
  6. How I did thrive in this fair lady’s love,
  7. And she in mine.

Duke

141
  1. Say it, Othello.

Othello

142 - 184
  1. Her father lov’d me, oft invited me;
  2. Still question’d me the story of my life
  3. From year to year—the battles, sieges, fortunes,
  4. That I have pass’d.
  5. I ran it through, even from my boyish days
  6. To th’ very moment that he bade me tell it;
  7. Wherein I spoke of most disastrous chances:
  8. Of moving accidents by flood and field,
  9. Of hair-breadth scapes i’ th’ imminent deadly breach,
  10. Of being taken by the insolent foe
  11. And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence
  12. And portance in my travel’s history;
  13. Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,
  14. Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven,
  15. It was my hint to speak—such was my process—
  16. And of the Cannibals that each other eat,
  17. The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
  18. Do grow beneath their shoulders. These things to hear
  19. Would Desdemona seriously incline;
  20. But still the house affairs would draw her thence,
  21. Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,
  22. She’ld come again, and with a greedy ear
  23. Devour up my discourse. Which I observing,
  24. Took once a pliant hour, and found good means
  25. To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart
  26. That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,
  27. Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
  28. But not intentively. I did consent,
  29. And often did beguile her of her tears,
  30. When I did speak of some distressful stroke
  31. That my youth suffer’d. My story being done,
  32. She gave me for my pains a world of sighs;
  33. She swore, in faith ’twas strange, ’twas passing strange;
  34. ’Twas pitiful, ’twas wondrous pitiful.
  35. She wish’d she had not heard it, yet she wish’d
  36. That heaven had made her such a man. She thank’d me,
  37. And bade me, if I had a friend that lov’d her,
  38. I should but teach him how to tell my story,
  39. And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:
  40. She lov’d me for the dangers I had pass’d,
  41. And I lov’d her that she did pity them.
  42. This only is the witchcraft I have us’d.
  43. Here comes the lady; let her witness it.
  1. Enter Desdemona, Iago, Attendants.
Othello et Desdemone à Venise

Othello et Desdemone à Venise

Théodore Chassériau, 1849

Duke

185 - 189
  1. I think this tale would win my daughter too.
  2. Good Brabantio,
  3. Take up this mangled matter at the best;
  4. Men do their broken weapons rather use
  5. Than their bare hands.

Brabantio

190 - 195
  1.                        I pray you hear her speak.
  2. If she confess that she was half the wooer,
  3. Destruction on my head if my bad blame
  4. Light on the man! Come hither, gentle mistress.
  5. Do you perceive in all this noble company
  6. Where most you owe obedience?

Desdemona

196 - 205
  1.                               My noble father,
  2. I do perceive here a divided duty:
  3. To you I am bound for life and education;
  4. My life and education both do learn me
  5. How to respect you; you are the lord of duty;
  6. I am hitherto your daughter. But here’s my husband;
  7. And so much duty as my mother show’d
  8. To you, preferring you before her father,
  9. So much I challenge that I may profess
  10. Due to the Moor, my lord.

Brabantio

206 - 215
  1.                           God be with you! I have done.
  2. Please it your Grace, on to the state affairs.
  3. I had rather to adopt a child than get it.
  4. Come hither, Moor:
  5. I here do give thee that with all my heart
  6. Which but thou hast already, with all my heart
  7. I would keep from thee. For your sake, jewel,
  8. I am glad at soul I have no other child,
  9. For thy escape would teach me tyranny,
  10. To hang clogs on them. I have done, my lord.

Duke

216 - 226
  1. Let me speak like yourself, and lay a sentence,
  2. Which as a grise or step, may help these lovers
  3. Into your favor.
  4. When remedies are past, the griefs are ended
  5. By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended.
  6. To mourn a mischief that is past and gone
  7. Is the next way to draw new mischief on.
  8. What cannot be preserv’d when Fortune takes,
  9. Patience her injury a mock’ry makes.
  10. The robb’d that smiles steals something from the thief;
  11. He robs himself that spends a bootless grief.
Gertrude Elliott as Desdemona, Forbes Robertson as Othello, Herbert Waring as Iago

Gertrude Elliott as Desdemona, Forbes Robertson as Othello, Herbert Waring as Iago

Performed at the Lyric theatre

T. Walter Wilson, 1902

Brabantio

227 - 237
  1. So let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile,
  2. We lose it not, so long as we can smile.
  3. He bears the sentence well that nothing bears
  4. But the free comfort which from thence he hears;
  5. But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow
  6. That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow.
  7. These sentences, to sugar or to gall,
  8. Being strong on both sides, are equivocal.
  9. But words are words; I never yet did hear
  10. That the bruis’d heart was pierced through the ear.
  11. I humbly beseech you proceed to th’ affairs of state.

Duke

238 - 244
  1. The Turk with a most mighty preparation makes for Cyprus.
  2. Othello, the fortitude of the place is best known to you;
  3. and though we have there a substitute of most allow’d
  4. sufficiency, yet opinion, a sovereign mistress of effects,
  5. throws a more safer voice on you. You must therefore be
  6. content to slubber the gloss of your new fortunes with this
  7. more stubborn and boist’rous expedition.

Othello

245 - 255
  1. The tyrant custom, most grave senators,
  2. Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
  3. My thrice-driven bed of down. I do agnize
  4. A natural and prompt alacrity
  5. I find in hardness; and do undertake
  6. This present wars against the Ottomites.
  7. Most humbly therefore bending to your state,
  8. I crave fit disposition for my wife,
  9. Due reference of place and exhibition,
  10. With such accommodation and besort
  11. As levels with her breeding.

Duke

256 - 257
  1.                              If you please,
  2. Be’t at her father’s.

Brabantio

258
  1.                       I will not have it so.

Othello

259
  1. Nor I.

Desdemona

260 - 265
  1.        Nor I; I would not there reside,
  2. To put my father in impatient thoughts
  3. By being in his eye. Most gracious Duke,
  4. To my unfolding lend your prosperous ear,
  5. And let me find a charter in your voice
  6. T’ assist my simpleness.

Duke

266
  1. What would you, Desdemona?

Desdemona

267 - 278
  1. That I did love the Moor to live with him,
  2. My downright violence, and storm of fortunes,
  3. May trumpet to the world. My heart’s subdu’d
  4. Even to the very quality of my lord.
  5. I saw Othello’s visage in his mind,
  6. And to his honors and his valiant parts
  7. Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.
  8. So that, dear lords, if I be left behind,
  9. A moth of peace, and he go to the war,
  10. The rites for why I love him are bereft me,
  11. And I a heavy interim shall support
  12. By his dear absence. Let me go with him.

Byam Shaw, 1901

Othello

279 - 293
  1. Let her have your voice.
  2. Vouch with me, heaven, I therefore beg it not
  3. To please the palate of my appetite,
  4. Nor to comply with heat (the young affects
  5. In me defunct) and proper satisfaction;
  6. But to be free and bounteous to her mind.
  7. And heaven defend your good souls, that you think
  8. I will your serious and great business scant
  9. For she is with me. No, when light-wing’d toys
  10. Of feather’d Cupid seel with wanton dullness
  11. My speculative and offic’d instruments,
  12. That my disports corrupt and taint my business,
  13. Let housewives make a skillet of my helm,
  14. And all indign and base adversities
  15. Make head against my estimation!

Duke

294 - 296
  1. Be it as you shall privately determine,
  2. Either for her stay or going; th’ affair cries haste,
  3. And speed must answer it.

First Senator

297
  1.                           You must away tonight.

Desdemona

298
  1. Tonight, my lord?

Duke

299
  1.                   This night.

Othello

300
  1.             With all my heart.

Duke

301 - 305
  1. At nine i’ th’ morning here we’ll meet again.
  2. Othello, leave some officer behind,
  3. And he shall our commission bring to you;
  4. And such things else of quality and respect
  5. As doth import you.

Othello

306 - 310
  1.                     So please your Grace, my ancient;
  2. A man he is of honesty and trust.
  3. To his conveyance I assign my wife,
  4. With what else needful your good Grace shall think
  5. To be sent after me.

Duke

311 - 315
  1.                      Let it be so.
  2. Good night to every one.
  3. To Brabantio.
  4. And, noble signior,
  5. If virtue no delighted beauty lack,
  6. Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.

First Senator

316
  1. Adieu, brave Moor, use Desdemona well.

Brabantio

317 - 318
  1. Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see;
  2. She has deceiv’d her father, and may thee.
  1. Exeunt Duke, Senators, Officers, etc.

Othello

319 - 325
  1. My life upon her faith! Honest Iago,
  2. My Desdemona must I leave to thee.
  3. I prithee let thy wife attend on her,
  4. And bring them after in the best advantage.
  5. Come, Desdemona, I have but an hour
  6. Of love, of wordly matter and direction,
  7. To spend with thee. We must obey the time.
  1. Exit with Desdemona.

Roderigo

326
  1. Iago—

Iago

327
  1. What say’st thou, noble heart?

Roderigo

328
  1. What will I do, think’st thou?

These things to hear would Desdemona seriously incline

Alexandre Cabanel, 1857

Iago

329
  1. Why, go to bed and sleep.

Roderigo

330
  1. I will incontinently drown myself.

Iago

331 - 332
  1. If thou dost, I shall never love thee after. Why, thou silly
  2. gentleman?

Roderigo

333 - 334
  1. It is silliness to live, when to live is torment; and then
  2. have we a prescription to die, when death is our physician.

Iago

335 - 339
  1. O villainous! I have look’d upon the world for four times
  2. seven years, and since I could distinguish betwixt a benefit
  3. and an injury, I never found man that knew how to love
  4. himself. Ere I would say I would drown myself for the love
  5. of a guinea hen, I would change my humanity with a baboon.

Roderigo

340 - 341
  1. What should I do? I confess it is my shame to be so fond,
  2. but it is not in my virtue to amend it.

Iago

342 - 354
  1. Virtue? A fig! ’Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus.
  2. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are
  3. gardeners; so that if we will plant nettles or sow lettuce,
  4. set hyssop and weed up tine, supply it with one gender of
  5. herbs or distract it with many, either to have it sterile
  6. with idleness or manur’d with industry—why, the power and
  7. corrigible authority of this lies in our wills. If the beam
  8. of our lives had not one scale of reason to poise another of
  9. sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would
  10. conduct us to most prepost’rous conclusions. But we have
  11. reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our
  12. unbitted lusts; whereof I take this that you call love to be
  13. a sect or scion.

Roderigo

355
  1. It cannot be.

Iago

356 - 379
  1. It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the
  2. will. Come, be a man! Drown thyself? Drown cats and blind
  3. puppies! I have profess’d me thy friend, and I confess me
  4. knit to thy deserving with cables of perdurable toughness. I
  5. could never better stead thee than now. Put money in thy
  6. purse; follow thou the wars; defeat thy favor with an
  7. usurp’d beard. I say put money in thy purse. It cannot be
  8. long that Desdemona should continue her love to the Moor—put
  9. money in thy purse—nor he his to her. It was a violent
  10. commencement in her, and thou shalt see an answerable
  11. sequestration—put but money in thy purse. These Moors are
  12. changeable in their wills—fill thy purse with money. The
  13. food that to him now is as luscious as locusts, shall be to
  14. him shortly as acerb as the coloquintida. She must change
  15. for youth; when she is sated with his body, she will find
  16. the error of her choice. She must have change, she must;
  17. therefore put money in thy purse. If thou wilt needs damn
  18. thyself, do it a more delicate way than drowning. Make all
  19. the money thou canst. If sanctimony and a frail vow betwixt
  20. an erring barbarian and a super-subtle Venetian be not too
  21. hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell, thou shalt enjoy
  22. her; therefore make money. A pox of drowning thyself, it is
  23. clean out of the way. Seek thou rather to be hang’d in
  24. compassing thy joy than to be drown’d and go without her.

Roderigo

380
  1. Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend on the issue?

Iago

381 - 388
  1. Thou art sure of me—go make money. I have told thee often,
  2. and I retell thee again and again, I hate the Moor. My cause
  3. is hearted; thine hath no less reason. Let us be conjunctive
  4. in our revenge against him. If thou canst cuckold him, thou
  5. dost thyself a pleasure, me a sport. There are many events
  6. in the womb of time which will be deliver’d. Traverse, go,
  7. provide thy money. We will have more of this tomorrow.
  8. Adieu.
Luigi Lablanche as the Doge of Venice

Luigi Lablanche as the Doge of Venice

Alfred Bryan, 19th century

Roderigo

389
  1. Where shall we meet i’ th’ morning?

Iago

390
  1. At my lodging.

Roderigo

391
  1. I’ll be with thee betimes.

Iago

392
  1. Go to, farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo?

Roderigo

393
  1. What say you?

Iago

394
  1. No more of drowning, do you hear?

Roderigo

395
  1. I am chang’d.

Iago

396
  1. Go to, farewell. Put money enough in your purse.

Roderigo

397
  1. I’ll sell all my land.
  1. Exit.

Iago

398 - 419
  1. Thus do I ever make my fool my purse;
  2. For I mine own gain’d knowledge should profane
  3. If I would time expend with such a snipe
  4. But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor,
  5. And it is thought abroad that ’twixt my sheets
  6. H’as done my office. I know not if’t be true,
  7. But I, for mere suspicion in that kind,
  8. Will do as if for surety. He holds me well,
  9. The better shall my purpose work on him.
  10. Cassio’s a proper man. Let me see now:
  11. To get his place and to plume up my will
  12. In double knavery—How? How?—Let’s see—
  13. After some time, to abuse Othello’s ear
  14. That he is too familiar with his wife.
  15. He hath a person and a smooth dispose
  16. To be suspected—fram’d to make women false.
  17. The Moor is of a free and open nature,
  18. That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,
  19. And will as tenderly be led by th’ nose
  20. As asses are.
  21. I have’t. It is engend’red. Hell and night
  22. Must bring this monstrous birth to the world’s light.
  1. Exit.
Thomas Keene in Othello

Thomas Keene in Othello

W.J. Morgan & Co., lithographers; 1884

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