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 haft already, with all my heart
I would keep from thee. For your fake, 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 fpeak like yourself; and lay a fentence,
Which, as a grise, or step, may help thefe lovers
Into your favour-

When remedies are paft, the griefs are ended

By feeing 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 preferv'd when Fortune takes,
Patience her injury a mockery makes.

The robb'd, that fmiles, fteals fomething from the thief:

He robs himself, that spends a bootless grief.
Bra. So, let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile,
We lose it not, fo long as we can smile;
He bears the fentence well, that nothing bears
But the free comfort which from thence he hears;
But he bears both the fentence, and the forrow,
That, to pay grief, muft of poor patience borrow.
These fentences to fugar, or to gall,

Being strong on both fides, are equivocal.
But words are words; I never yet did hear,
That the bruis'd heart was pierced through the ear.--
Befeech you, now to the affairs o' th' State.

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

fubftitute of moft allowed fufficiency; yet opinion, a fovereign mistress of effects, throws a more fafe voice on you; you must therefore be content to slubber the glofs of your new fortunes, with this more ftubborn and boisterous expedition.

Oth. The tyrant cuftom, moft grave fenators,.
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 hardnefs; and do undertake
This prefent war againft the Ottomites.
Moft humbly therefore bending to your State,.
I crave fit difpofition for my wife,
Due reference of place and exhibition;
With fuch 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 refide,

To put my father in impatient thoughts-
By being in his eye. Moft gracious Duke,
To my unfolding lend your gracious ear,
And let me find a charter in your voice
T'affift my fimpleness.

Duke. What would you, Desdemona?

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 fubdu'd Ev'n to the very quality of my lord;

I faw Othello's vifage in his mind,

And to his honours and his valiant parts
Did I my foul and fortunes confecrate.
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 fupport,
By his dear absense. Let me go with him.

Oth.

Oth. Your voices, lords; befeech 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 affects In my defunct and proper Satisfaction; But to be free and bounteous to her mind. And heav'n defend your good fouls, that you think, I will your ferious and great business scant, For fhe is with me.-No, when light-wing'd toys Of feather'd Cupid foil with wanton dulness My fpeculative and offic'd inftruments, That my difports corrupt and taint my business; Let housewifes make a skillet of my helm, And all indign and base adversities Make head against my eftimation.

Duke. Be it as you fhall privately determine, Or for her ftay or going; th' affair cries hafte; And speed must answer. You muft hence to-night. Def. 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 fome officer behind,

And he shall our commission bring to you;
And fuch things elfe of quality and respect

As doth import you.

Oth. Please your Grace, my Ancient;

(A man he is of honefty and truft,)

To his conveyance I affign my wife,

With what else needful your good Grace fhall think

To be fent after me.

Duke. Let it be fo;

Good-night to every one.

And, noble Signior,

If virtue no belighted beauty lack,

Your fon-in-law is far more fair than black.

Sen. Adieu, brave Moor, use Desdemona well.

Bra. Look to her, Moor, if thou haft eyes to see,.

She has deceiv'd her father, and may thee.

[Exit Duke, with Senators

Oth. My life upon her faith.-Honeft Iago,
My Desdemona muft I leave to thee;
I pr'ythee, let thy wife attend on her;
And bring her after in the beft advantage.
Come, Defdemona, I have but an hour
Of love, of worldly matter and direction.

To speak with thee. We must obey the time. [Exeunt.

SCENE

AGO

Rod. 14G0

X.

Manent Rodorigo and Iago.

Iago. What fayeft thou, noble heart?

Rod. What will I do, thinkest thou?
Iago. Why, go to bed, and fleep.

Rod. I will incontinently drown myself.

Iago. Well, if thou doft, Í fhall never love thee after. Why, thou filly gentleman!

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

Iago. O villainous! I have look'd upon the world for four times feven years, and fince I could diftinguish 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 confefs, it is my fhame to be fo 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 fow lettuce; fet hyffop, and weed up thyme; fupply it with one gender of herbs, or diftract it with many; either have it fteril with idleness, or manured with induftry; why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our will. If the balance of our lives had not one fcale of reafon to poise another of fenfuality, the blood and baseness our na

tures

tures would conduct us to moft prepofterous conclufions. But we have reafon, to cool our raging motions, our carnal ftings, our unbitted lufts; whereof I take this, that you call love, to be a fect, or fyen. Rod. It cannot be.

Iago. It is merely a luft of the blood, and a permiffion of the will. Come, be a man: drown thyfelf? drown cats and blind puppies. I have profeft me thy friend, and I confefs me knit to thy deserving with cables of perdurable toughness. I could never better fteed thee than now. Put money in thy purfe; follow thou these wars; *diffeat thy favour with an ufurped beard; I fay, put money in thy purfe. It cannot be, that Defdemona fhould long continue her love to the Moor-put money in thy purfe-nor he his to her. It was a violent commencement in her, and thou fhalt fee an answerable fequeftration,-put but money in thy purse.-Thefe Moors are changeable in their wills;-fill thy purfe with money. The food, that to him now is as luscious as loches, fhall shortly be as bitter as a coloquintida. When he is fated with his body, she will find the errors of her choice.She muft have change, fhe muft: 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 fanctimony 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 thyfelf! it is clean out of the way. Seek thou rather to be hang'd in compaffing thy joy, than to be drown'd and go without her.

Rod. Wilt thou be faft to my hopes, if I depend on the iffue?

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

defeat thy favour,] We fhould read, deffeat thy favour. i. e. turn it out of its Seat, change it for another.

Warb.