Zounds, sir, you’re robbed, for shame put on your gown!
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Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul,
Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
Is tupping your white ewe! Arise, arise,
Awake the snorting citizens with the bell
Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you,
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Arise I say!
BRABANTIO What, have you lost your wits?
RODERIGO
Most reverend signior, do you know my voice?
BRABANTIO Not I, what are you?
RODERIGO My name is Roderigo.
BRABANTIO The worser welcome!
I have charged thee not to haunt about my doors:
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In honest plainness thou hast heard me say
My daughter is not for thee; and now in madness,
Being full of supper and distempering draughts,
Upon malicious bravery dost thou come
To start my quiet?
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RODERIGO Sir, sir, sir –
BRABANTIO But thou must needs be sure
My spirit and my place have in them power
To make this bitter to thee.
RODERIGO Patience, good sir!
BRABANTIO
What tell’st thou me of robbing? This is Venice:
My house is not a grange.
RODERIGO Most grave Brabantio,
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In simple and pure soul I come to you –
IAGO Zounds, sir, you are one of those that will not
serve God, if the devil bid you. Because we come to do
you service, and you think we are ruffians, you’ll have
your daughter covered with a Barbary horse; you’ll
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have your nephews neigh to you, you’ll have coursers
for cousins and jennets for germans!
BRABANTIO What profane wretch art thou?
IAGO I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter
and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.
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BRABANTIO
Thou art a villain!
IAGO You are a senator!
BRABANTIO
This thou shalt answer. I know thee, Roderigo!
RODERIGO
Sir, I will answer anything. But I beseech you,
If ’t be your pleasure and most wise consent,
As partly I find it is, that your fair daughter
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At this odd-even and dull watch o’th’ night,
Transported with no worse nor better guard
But with a knave of common hire, a gondolier,
To the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor –
If this be known to you, and your allowance,
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We then have done you bold and saucy wrongs.
But if you know not this, my manners tell me
We have your wrong rebuke. Do not believe
That from the sense of all civility
I thus would play and trifle with your reverence.
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Your daughter, if you have not given her leave,
I say again, hath made a gross revolt,
Tying her duty, beauty, wit and fortunes
In an extravagant and wheeling stranger
Of here and everywhere. Straight satisfy yourself:
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If she be in her chamber or your house
Let loose on me the justice of the state
For thus deluding you.
BRABANTIO Strike on the tinder, ho!
Give me a taper, call up all my people.
This accident is not unlike my dream,
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Belief of it oppresses me already.
Light, I say, light! Exit above.
IAGO Farewell, for I must leave you.
It seems not meet, nor wholesome to my place,
To be produced, as, if I stay, I shall,
Against the Moor. For I do know the state,
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However this may gall him with some check,
Cannot with safety cast him, for he’s embarked
With such loud reason to the Cyprus wars,
Which even now stands in act, that for their souls
Another of his fathom they have none
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To lead their business – in which regard,
Though I do hate him as I do hell-pains,
Yet for necessity of present life
I must show out a flag and sign of love,
Which is indeed but sign. That you shall surely find him,
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Lead to the Sagittary the raised search,
And there will I be with him. So farewell. Exit.
EnterBRABANTIO in his night-gown and servants with torches.
BRABANTIO It is too true an evil, gone she is,
And what’s to come of my despised time
Is nought but bitterness. Now Roderigo,
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Where didst thou see her? – O unhappy girl! –
With the Moor, say’st thou? – Who would be a father? –
How didst thou know ’twas she? – O, she deceives me
Past thought! – What said she to you? – Get more tapers,
Raise all my kindred. Are they married, think you?
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RODERIGO Truly I think they are.
BRABANTIO
O heaven, how got she out? O treason of the blood!
– Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters’ minds
By what you see them act. – Is there not charms
By which the property of youth and maidhood
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May be abused? Have you not read, Roderigo,
Of some such thing?
RODERIGO Yes sir, I have indeed.
BRABANTIO
Call up my brother. – O, would you had had her!
Some one way, some another. – Do you know
Where we may apprehend her and the Moor?
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RODERIGO I think I can discover him, if you please
To get good guard and go along with me.
BRABANTIO Pray you lead on. At every house I’ll call,
I may command at most: get weapons, ho!
And raise some special officers of night.
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On, good Roderigo, I’ll deserve your pains. Exeunt.
1.2 Enter OTHELLO, IAGO and attendants with torches.
IAGO Though in the trade of war I have slain men
Yet do I hold it very stuff o’th’ conscience
To do no contrived murder: I lack iniquity
Sometimes to do me service. Nine or ten times
I had thought t’have yerked him here, under the ribs.
5
OTHELLO ’Tis better as it is.
IAGO Nay, but he prated
And spoke such scurvy and provoking terms
Against your honour,
That with the little godliness I have
I did full hard forbear him. But I pray, sir,
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Are you fast married? Be assured of this,
That the magnifico is much beloved
And hath in his effect a voice potential
As double as the duke’s: he will divorce you
Or put upon you what restraint or grievance
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The law, with all his might to enforce it on,
Will give him cable.
OTHELLO Let him do his spite;
My services, which I have done the signiory,
Shall out-tongue his complaints. ’Tis yet to know –
Which, when I know that boasting is an honour,
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I shall promulgate – I fetch my life and being
From men of royal siege, and my demerits
May speak unbonneted to as proud a fortune
As this that I have reached.
For know, Iago,
But that I love the gentle Desdemona
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I would not my unhoused free condition
Put into circumscription and confine
For the sea’s worth. But look, what lights come yond?
EnterCASSIO, with officers and torches.
IAGO Those are the raised father and his friends,
You were best go in.
OTHELLO Not I, I must be found.
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My parts, my title and my perfect soul
Shall manifest me rightly. Is it they?
IAGO By Janus, I think no.
OTHELLO
The servants of the Duke? and my lieutenant?
The goodness of the night upon you, friends.
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What is the news?
CASSIO The duke does greet you, general,
And he requires your haste-post-haste appearance,
Even on the instant.
OTHELLO What’s the matter, think you?
CASSIO Something from Cyprus, as I may divine;
It is a business of some heat. The galleys
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Have sent a dozen sequent messengers
This very night, at one another’s heels,
And many of the consuls, raised and met,
Are at the duke’s already. You have been hotly called for,
When, being not at your lodging to be found,
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The Senate hath sent about three several quests
To search you out.
OTHELLO ’Tis well I am found by you:
I will but spend a word here in the house
And go with you. Exit.
CASSIO Ancient, what makes he here?
IAGO Faith, he tonight hath boarded a land carrack:
50
If it prove lawful prize, he’s made for ever.
CASSIO I do not understand.
IAGO He’s married.
CASSIO To whom?
IAGO Marry, to –
EnterOTHELLO.
Come, captain, will you go?
OTHELLO Ha’ with you.
CASSIO Here comes another troop to seek for you.
Enter BRABANTIO, RODERIGO, with officers and torches and weapons.
IAGO It is Brabantio: general, be advised,
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He comes to bad intent.
OTHELLO Holla, stand there!
RODERIGO Signior, it is the Moor.
BRABANTIO Down with him, thief!
[They draw on both sides.]
IAGO You, Roderigo! come sir, I am for you.
OTHELLO
Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.
Good signior, you shall more command with years
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Than with your weapons.
BRABANTIO
O thou foul thief, where hast thou stowed my daughter?
Damned as thou art, thou hast enchanted her,
For I’ll refer me to all things of sense,
If she in chains of magic were not bound,
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Whether a maid so tender, fair and happy,
So opposite to marriage that she shunned
The wealthy, curled darlings of our nation,
Would ever have, t’incur a general mock,
Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom
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Of such a thing as thou? to fear, not to delight.
Judge me the world if ’tis not gross in sense
That thou hast practised on her with foul charms,
Abused her delicate youth with drugs or minerals
That weakens motion: I’ll have’t disputed on,
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’Tis probable and palpable to thinking.
I therefore apprehend and do attach thee
For an abuser of the world, a practiser
Of arts inhibited and out of warrant.
Lay hold upon him; if he do resist
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Subdue him at his peril!
OTHELLO Hold your hands,
Both you of my inclining and the rest:
Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it
Without a prompter. Where will you that I go
To answer this your charge?
BRABANTIO To prison, till fit time
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Of law, and course of direct session
Call thee to answer.
OTHELLO What if I do obey?
How may the duke be therewith satisfied,
Whose messengers are here about my side
Upon some present business of the state,
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To bring me to him?
OFFICER ’Tis true, most worthy signior,
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 413