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 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,
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 stand 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 raisèd 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 despisèd 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 men,
Yet do I hold it very stuff o’ the conscience
To do no contrivèd murder: I lack iniquity
Sometimes to do me service: nine or ten times
I had thought to have yerk’d him here under the ribs.
OTHELLO
‘Tis better as it is.
IAGO
Nay, but he prated,
And spoke such scurvy and provoking terms
Against your honor,
That, with the little godliness I have,
I did full hard forbear him. But, I pray you, sir,
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 and grievance
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