Duke.
Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you,
Against the general enemy Ottoman.
I did not see you; welcome, gentle signior, [To Brab.
We lack'd your counsel, and your help to night.

Bra.
So did I yours. Good your Grace, pardon me;
Neither my place, nor aught I heard of business,
Hath rais'd me from my bed; nor doth the ^{3 note}general care
Take hold on me, for my particular grief

Is of so flood-gate and o'er-bearing nature,
That it ingluts and swallows other sorrows,
And yet is still itself.

Duke.
Why, what's the matter?

Bra.
My daughter! oh, my daughter!—

Sen.
Dead?—

Bra.
To me;
She is abus'd, stoll'n from me, and corrupted
^{4 note}
By spells and medicines, bought of mountebanks;
For nature so preposterously to err,
Being not deficient, blind, nor lame of sense,
Sans witchcraft could not—

Duke.
Who-e'er he be, that in this foul proceeding
Hath thus beguil'd 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
^{5 note}Stood in your action.

Bra.
Humbly I thank your Grace.
Here is the man, this Moor, whom now it seems,
Your special mandate for the State-affairs,
Hath hither brought.

All.
We're very sorry for't.

Duke.
What in your own part can you say to this? [To Othello.

Bra.
Nothing, but this is so.

Oth.
Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,
My very noble and approv'd good masters;
That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter,
It is most true; true, I have married her;
^{6 note}The very head and front of my offending
Hath this extent; no more. Rude am I in speech,
^{7 note}

Bra.
A maiden, never bold;
Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion
Blush'd at itself; and she, in spight 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, ^{9 note}

Duke.
To vouch this is no proof,
Without more certain and more ^{1 note}overt test,
Than these ^{2 note}
thin habits and poor likelyhoods
Of modern Seeming do prefer against him.

1 Sen.
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?

Oth.
I 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. [Exeunt two or three.

Oth.
Ancient, conduct them, you best know the place. [Exit Iago.
And till she come, as truly as to heav'n
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.

Oth.
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 past.
I ran it through, e'en from my boyish days,
To th' very moment that he bade me tell it:
Wherein I spoke of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field;
Of hair-breadth 'scapes in th' imminent deadly breach;
Of being taken by the insolent foe,
And sold to slavery; of my redemption thence,
^{3 note}

^{4 note}

And of the Canibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi; and ^{7 note}
men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders. All these to hear
Would Desdemona seriously incline;
But still the house-affairs would draw her thence,
Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,
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 pray'r 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 ^{8 note}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 heav'n 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. On this hint I spake,
She lov'd me for the dangers I had past,
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.

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