Othello | Page 4

lose some color.
RODERIGO.?Here is her father's house: I'll call aloud.
IAGO.?Do; with like timorous accent and dire yell?As when, by night and negligence, the fire?Is spied in populous cities.
RODERIGO.?What, ho, Brabantio! Signior Brabantio, ho!
IAGO.?Awake! what, ho, Brabantio! thieves! thieves! thieves!?Look to your house, your daughter, and your bags!?Thieves! thieves!
[Brabantio appears above at a window.]
BRABANTIO.?What is the reason of this terrible summons??What is the matter there?
RODERIGO.?Signior, is all your family within?
IAGO.?Are your doors locked?
BRABANTIO.?Why, wherefore ask you this?
IAGO.?Zounds, sir, you're robb'd; for shame, put on your gown;?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:?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;?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.
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,?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 have your nephews neigh to you; you'll have coursers for cousins and gennets 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.
BRABANTIO.?Thou are 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,?At this odd-even and dull watch o' the 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,?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:?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:?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:?Belief of it oppresses me already.--?Light, I say! light!
[Exit from above.]
IAGO.?Farewell; for I must leave you:?It seems not meet nor wholesome to my place?To be produc'd,--as if I stay I shall,--?Against the Moor: for I do know the state,--?However this may gall him with some check,--?Cannot with safety cast him; for he's embark'd?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?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,?Lead to the Sagittary the raised search;?And there will I be with him. So, farewell.
[Exit.]
[Enter, below, Brabantio, and Servants with torches.]
BRABANTIO.?It is too true an evil: gone she is;?And what's to come of my despised time?Is naught but bitterness.--Now, Roderigo,?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?
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.--Are there not charms?By which the property of youth and maidhood?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?
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.--?On, good Roderigo:--I'll deserve your pains.
[Exeunt.]
SCENE II. Venice. Another street.
[Enter Othello, Iago, and Attendants with torches.]
IAGO.?Though in the trade of war I have slain