Othello | Page 7

find out practices of cunning hell,
Why this
should be. I therefore vouch again,
That with some mixtures powerful
o'er the blood,
Or with some dram conjur'd to this effect,
He
wrought upon her.
DUKE.
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:
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.
Fetch Desdemona hither.
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.
Say it, Othello.
OTHELLO.
Her father lov'd me; oft invited me;
Still question'd
me the story of my life,
From year to year,--the battles, sieges,
fortunes,
That I have pass'd.
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,
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 despatch,
She'd
come again, and with a greedy ear
Devour up my discourse; which I
observing,
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; '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 lov'd her,
I should but teach him how to tell
my story,
And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:
She
lov'd me for the dangers I had pass'd;
And I lov'd her that she did pity
them.
This only is the witchcraft I have us'd:--
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.
BRABANTIO.
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?
DESDEMONA.
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 husband;
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.
BRABANTIO.
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:
I here do give thee that with all my heart

Which, but thou hast already, with all my heart
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 lord.
DUKE.
Let me speak like yourself; and lay a sentence
Which, as a
grise or step, may help these lovers
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 preserved
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.
BRABANTIO.
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