So much I challenge, that I may profess
Due to the Moor, my lord.

Bra. 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'm glad at foul 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 fentence,
Which, as a grise, or step, may help these lovers
Into
your

favourWhen remedies are past, the griefs are ended By seeing the worft, which late on hopes depended. To mourn a mischief that is paft and gone, Is the next way to draw new mischief on. What cannot be preserv'd when Fortune takes, Patience her injury a mockery makes. The robb'd, that smiles, fteals something from the

thief; He robs himself, that spends a bootless grief.

Bra. 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 sorrow, That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow. These sentences to sugar, or to gall, Being strong on both sides, are equivocal. But words are words; I never yet did hear, That the bruis'd heart was pierced through the ear.Beseech you, now to the affairs o'th' State.

Duke. The Turk with a most mighty preparation makes for Cyprus: Othello, the fortitude of the place is best known to you. And though we have there a

fubftitute

E L L

L 1.
substitute of most allowed sufficiency; yet opinion, a
fovereign mistress of effects, throws a more safe voice.
on you; you must therefore be content to subber the
gloss of your new fortunes, with this more stubborn
and boisterous expedition.

Oth. The tyrant cullom, most grave senators,
Hath made the flinty and fteel couch of war.
My thrice-driven bed of down. I do agnize
A'natural and prompt alacrity
I find in hardness; and do undertake
This present war against the Ottomites.
Most humbly therefore bending to your State,
I crave fit difpofition for my wife,
Due reference of place and exhibition ;
With such accommodation and befort
As levels with her breeding.

Duke. Why, at her father's.
Bra. I will not have it fo,
Oth. Nor I.

Def. Nor would I there reside,
To put my father in impatient thoughts -
By being in his eye. Most gracious Duke,
To my unfolding lend your gracious ear,
And let me find a charter in

your

voice T'aflift my simpleness.

Duke. What would you, Defilemona?

Def. That I did love the Moor to live with him,
My down-right violence to forms, my fortunes
May trumpet to the world. My heart's subdu'd
Ev'n to the very quality of my
I saw Othello's visage in his mind,
And to his honours and his valiant parts
Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.
So that, dear lords, if I be left behind
A moth of peace, and he go to the war,
The rights, for which I love him, are bereft me:
And I a heavy interim fhall support,
By his dear absense. Let me go with him.

Oth.

lord ;

Oth. Your voices, lords ; beseech you, let her will Have a free way.

I therefore beg it not, To please the palate of my appetite ; Nor to comply with heat, the young affe&s In my defunct and proper Satisfa&ion; But to be free and bounteous to her mind. And heav'n defend your good souls, that you think, I will your serious and great business scant, For she is with me. No, when light-wing'd toys Of feather'd Cupid foil with wanton dulness My fpeculative and offic'd instruments, That my disports corrupt and taint my business ; Let housewifes make a lillet of my helm, And all indign and base adversities Make head against my estimation.

Duke. Be it as you shall privately determine,
Or for her stay or going; th' affair cries haste;
And speed must answer. You must hence to-night.

Des To-night, my lord ?
Duke. This night.
Oth. With all my heart.

Duke. At nine i'th' morning here we'll meet again..
Othello, leave some officer behind,
And he shall our commission bring to you;
And such things. else of quality and respect
As doth import you.

Oth. Please your Grace, my Ancient;
(A man he is of honesty and trust)
To his conveyance I assign my wise,
With what else needful your good Grace shall think
To be sent after me.

Duke. Let it be so ;
Good-night to every one. And, noble Signior,
If virtue no belighted beauty lack,
Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.

Sca. Adieu, brave Moor, use Desdemona well.

Bra. Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see, She has deceiv'd her father, and may thee.

[Exit Duke, with Senators

;

Oth. My life upon her faith.-Honest Iago, My Desdemona muft I leave to thee I pr’ythee, let thy wife attend on her; And bring her after in the best advantage. Come, Desdemona, I have but an hour Of love, of worldly matter and direction To speak with thee. We must obey the time. (Exeunt.

S CE N E X.

Manent Rodorigo and lago.
Rod.

14
AGO-

lago. What sayest thou, noble heart?
Rod. What will I do, thinkest thou ?
Iago. Why, go to bed, and sleep.
Rod. I will incontinently drown myself.

Iago. Well, if thou dost, Í shall never love thee after. Why, thou filly genıleman!

Rod. It is filliness to live, when to live is a torment; and then have we a prescription to die, when death is our physician.

Iago. O villainous ! I have look'd upon the world for four times seven years, and since I could diftin. guish betwixt a benefit and an injury, I never found man that knew how to love himself. Ere I would say, I would drown myself for the love of a Guinney-hen, I would change my humanity with a baboon. Rod. What should I do? I confess, it is my

thame to be so fond, but it is not in my virtue to amend it.

Iago. Virtue ? a fig: 'tis in ourfelves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners. So that if we will plant nettles, or low lettuce; set hyssop, and weed up thyme ; fupply it with one gender of herbs, or diltraat it with many; either have it fteril with idleness, or manured with industry; why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our will. If the balance of our lives had not one scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness our na

tures

363 tures would conduct us to most preposterous conclufions. But we have reason, to cool our raging motions, our carnal ftings, our unbitted lufts; whereof I take this, that you call love, to be a sect, or fyen.

Rod. It cannot be.

Iago. It is merely a lust of the blood, and a permission of the will. Come, be a man: drown thyself? drown cats and blind puppies. I have profeft me thy friend, and I confess me knit to thy deserving with cables of perdurable toughness. I could never better steed thee ihan now. Put money in thy purse; follow thou these wars; *disseat thy favour with an ufurped beard; I say, put money in thy purse. It cannot be, that Desdemona should long continue her love to the Moor---put money in thy purse--nor he his to her. It was a violent commencement in her, and thou fhalt see an answerable fequestration,--put but money in thy purse.—These Moors are changeable in their wills ;-fill thy purse with money. The food, that to him now is as luscious as loches, shall shortly be as bitter as a coloquintida. When she is sated with his body, she will find the errors of her choice.She must have change, she must: therefore put money in thy purse.--If thou wilt needs damn thyself, do it a more delicate way than drowning. Make all the money thou canst. If sanctimony and a frail vow, betwixt an errant Barbarian and a super-subtle Venetian, be not too hard for my wits, and all the tribe of hell, thou shalt enjoy her; therefore make money. A pox of drowning thyself! it is clean out of the way. Seek thou rather to be hang’d in compassing thy joy, than to be drown's and go without her.

Rod. Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend on the iflue?

lago. Thou art sure of me.-Go, make money.-I have told thee often, and I re-tell thee again and

* defeat thy favour,] We should read, defeat thy favour. i. c. turn it out of its Seat, change it for another.

Warb.