Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

Here comes the lady, let her witness it.

Enter Desdemona, Iago, and Attendants.

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.

Bra.

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?

Des.

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 hus-

band;

And so much duty as my mother show'd
To you, preferring you before her father,
So much I challenge that I may profess
Due to the Moor, my lord.

Bra. 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:

heart

I here do give thee that with all my heart,
Which, but thou hast already, with all
my
I would keep from thee.-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
Duke. Let me speak like yourself; and lay a

lord.

sentence, Which, as a grise, or step, may help these lovers (1) Grise from degrees.

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 preserv'd, when fortune takes,
Patience her injury a mockery makes.

The robb'd, that smiles, steals something from the thief;

He robs himself, that spends a bootless grief.
Bra. 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 bruis'd heart was pierced through the ear.1
I humbly beseech you, proceed to the 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 sovereign mistress of effects, throws a
more safer voice on you: you must therefore be
content to slubber2 the gloss of your new fortunes
with this more stubborn and boisterous expedition.
Oth. The tyrant custom, most grave senators,
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
My thrice-driven bed of down: I do agnize3
A natural and prompt alacrity,

I find in hardness; and do undertake
These present wars against the Ottomites.
Most humbly therefore bending to your state,

(1) i. e. That the wounds of sorrow were ever cured by the words of consolation.

(2) Obscure.

(3) Acknowledge.

I crave fit disposition for my wife;
Due reference of place, and exhibition;'
With such accommodation, and besort,
As levels with her breeding.

Duke.

Be't at her father's.
Bra.

Oth. Nor I.

If you please,

I'll not have it so.

Des. 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 a gracious ear, And let me find a charter in your voice, To assist my simpleness.

Duke. What would you, Desdemona ?

Des. 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.

Oth. Your voices, lords :-'beseech you, let her will

Have a free way.

Vouch with me, heaven; I therefore beg it not,
To please the palate of my appetite;

Nor to comply with heat, the young affects,2
In my distinct and proper satisfaction;

But to be free and bounteous to her mind:

And heaven defend3 your good souls, that you think

I will your serious and great business scant,

(1) Allowance.
(3) Forbid.

(2) Affections.

For she is with me: No, when light-wing'd toys
Of feather'd Cupid seel? with wanton dulness
My speculative and active instruments,

That my disports corrupt and taint my business,
Let housewives make a skillet3 of my helm,4
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: the affair cries-haste, And speed must answer it; you must hence to-night. Des. To-night, my lord?

Duke.

Oth.

This night.

With all my heart.

Duke. At nine i'the morning here we'll meet

again.

Othello, leave some officer behind,

And he shall our commission bring to you;
With such things else of quality and respect,
As doth import you.

Oth.

Please your grace, my ancient;

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 every one.-And, noble signior,

If virtue no delighted beauty lack,

[To Brabantio.

Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.

1 Sen. Adieu, brave Moor! use Desdemona well. Bra. Look to her, Moor; have a quick eye to see; She has deceiv'd her father, and may thee.

[Exeunt Duke, Senators, Officers, &c. Oth. My life upon her faith.-Honest Iago, My Desdemona must I leave to thee;

I pr'ythee, let thy wife attend on her;

And bring them after in the best advantage.—

(1) Because.
(3) A small kettle.

(2) Blind.
(4) Helmet.

Come, Desdemona; I have but an hour
Of love, of worldly matters and direction,
To spend with thee: we must obey the time.
[Exeunt Othello and Desdemona.

Rod. Iago.

Iago. What say'st thou, noble heart? Rod. What will I do, thinkest thou? lago. Why, go to bed and sleep.

Rod. I will incontinently drown myself. Iago. Well, if thou dost, I shall never love thee after it. Why, thou silly gentleman!

Rod. It is silliness to live, when to live is a torment: and then have we a prescription to die, when death is our physician.

Iago. O villanous! I have looked upon the world for four times seven years; and since I could distinguish between a benefit and an injury, I never found a 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.

Rod. What should I do? I confess, it is my shame to be so fond ;2 but it is not in 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 steril 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

(1) Immediately.

(2) Foolish.

« AnteriorContinua »