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Without more certain and more overt test,
Than these thin habits and poor likelihoods
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 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.

Oth. Her father loved me, oft invited me ; Still questioned me the story of my life,

From year to year; the battles, sieges, fortunes,

That I have past.

I ran it through, even 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
Of being taken by the insolent foe, [breach;
And sold to slavery; of my redemption thence,
And portance in my travel's history :

Wherein of antres vast, and desarts idle,

Rough quarriers, rocks, and hills, whose heads touch heaven,

It was my hint to speak; such was the process;
And of the Canibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi; and men whose heads (23)
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 prayer of earnest heart,

(33) Men whose heads, &c. This is a mere circumlocution to express the Antipodes, whose heads (as in respect of us situate on the opposite side of the globe,) do in truth grow beneath their shoulders.

That I would all my pilgrimage dilate;
Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
But not distinctively. I did consent,
And often did beguile her of her tears,
When I did speak of some distressful stroke
That my youth suffered. My story being done,
gave me for my pains a world of sighs :

She

She swore, "In faith, 'twas strange 'twas passing strange,

""Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful"—

She wished she had not heard it;—yet she wished That Heaven had made her such a man :——she

thanked me,

And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,
I should but teach him how to tell my story,

And that would woo her. On this hint I spake ;
She loved me for the dangers I had past,
And I loved her that she did pity them :

This only is the witchcraft I have used.
Here comes the lady, let her witness it.

Enter DESDEMONA, IAGO, and Attendants.

Duke. I think this tale would win my daughter Good Brabantio,

Take up this mangled matter at the best.
Men do their broken weapons rather use,
Than their bare hands.

Bra. I pray you, hear her speak;

[too

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 you most owe obedience!

Des. My noble father,

I do perceive here a divided duty;
To you I'm bound for life and education;
My life and education both do learn me

How to respect you. You're the lord of duty;
I'm hitherto your daughter. But here's my hus-
And so much duty as my mother shewed [band;
To you, preferring you before her father

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 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 grice, 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. [thief;
The robbed, that smiles, steals something from the
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 bruised 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 substitute of most allowed sufficiency; yet opinion, a sovereign mistress of effects, throws a more safe voice on you; you must therefore be content to slubber the gloss of your new fortunes, with this more stubborn and boisterous expedition.

Oth. The tyrant custom, most grave senators,

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