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Good your grace, pardon me; Neither my place nor aught I heard of business
Hath raised me from my bed, nor doth the general care
Take hold on me, for my particular grief Is of so flood-gate and o'erbearing nature
That it engluts and swallows other sorrows And it is still itself.
DUKE OF VENICE Why, what's the matter? BRABANTIO My daughter! O, my daughter!
DUKE OF VENICE, Senator Dead? BRABANTIO Ay, to me;
She is abused, stol'n from me, and corrupted 60
By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks; For nature so preposterously to err,
Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense, Sans witchcraft could not.
DUKE OF VENICE Whoe'er he be that in this foul proceeding
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.
BRABANTIO Humbly I thank your grace. 70 Here is the man, this Moor, whom now, it seems,
Your special mandate for the state-affairs Hath hither brought.
DUKE OF VENICE, Senator We are very sorry for't.
DUKE OF VENICE To OTHELLO BRABANTIO Nothing, but this is so.
OTHELLO Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors, 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 80 Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my
speech, And little bless'd 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 broil and battle,
And therefore little shall I grace my cause In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious
patience, I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver 90
Of my whole course of love; what drugs, what charms,
What conjuration and what mighty magic, For such proceeding I am charged withal,
I won his daughter. BRABANTIO A maiden never bold;
Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion Blush'd at herself; and she, in spite of nature,
Of years, of country, credit, every thing, To fall in love with what she fear'd to look
on! It is a judgment maim'd and most imperfect
That will confess perfection so could err 100
Against all rules of nature, and must be driven To find out practises 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 OF VENICE 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. First Senator But, Othello, speak: 110
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 OF VENICE Fetch Desdemona hither. 120
OTHELLO Ancient, conduct them: you best know the place.
Exeunt IAGO and Attendants. 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 OF VENICE Say it, Othello. OTHELLO Her father loved me; oft invited me;
Still question'd me the story of my life, From year to year, the battles, sieges, fortunes,
130 That I have passed.
I ran it through, even from my boyish days, To the very moment that he bade me tell it;
Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances, Of moving accidents by flood and field
Of hair-breadth scapes i' the imminent deadly breach,
Of being taken by the insolent foe And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence
And portance in my travels' history: Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle, 140
Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven
It was my hint to speak,--such was the process; And of the Cannibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi and men whose heads Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear
Would Desdemona seriously incline: But still the house-affairs would draw her
thence: Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,
She'ld come again, and with a greedy ear Devour up my discourse: which I observing,
150 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 suffer'd. My story being done, She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:
She swore, in faith, twas strange, 'twas passing strange, 160
'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful: She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd
That heaven had made her such a man: she thank'd 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 pass'd, And I
loved her that she did pity them. This only is the witchcraft
I have used: