Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
Is tupping your white ewe. Arise, arise !
Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,
Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you :
Arise! I say.

BRA. What, have you lost your wits?
Rod. Most reverend signior, do you

know

my

voice?
BRA. Not I; what are you?
Rod. My name is Roderigo.
BRA.

The worser welcome.
I have charg'd thee not to haunt about my

doors :
In honest plainness thou hast heard me say
My daughter is not for thee; and now, in madness,
(Being full of supper and distempering draughts,)
Upon malicious bravery,* dost thou come
To start my quiet.

Rod. Sir, sir, sir,-
BRA.

But thou must needs be sure,
My spirit and my place have in them f power
To make this bitter to thee.
Rod.

Patience, good sir.
BRA. What tell'st thou me of robbing? this is Venice;
My house is not a grange.a
Rod.

Most grave Brabantio,
In simple and pure soul I come to you.

Lago. 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.

BRA. What profane wretch art thou?

Lago. I am one, sir, that comes to tell you, your daughter and the Moor are now || making the beast with two backs.

BRA. Thou art a villain.
LAGO.
Bra. This thou shalt answer ; I know thee, Roderigo.

Rod. Sir, I will answer any thing. 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,

You are a senator

First folio, knarerie.

(+) First folio, spirits. First folio, their.

() First folio omits, Zounds. (Il First folio omits, now.

this is Venice;

My house is not a grange.] Grange, Warton remarks, is strictly and properly the farm of a monastery. But in Lincolnshire, and in other northern counties, they call every lone house, or farm which stands solitary, a grange. What Brabantio means, then, is, -I am in a populous city, not in a place where robbery can be easily committed.

6. – ruffians, --) Here ruffian is employed in its secondary sense of roisterer, swashbuckler, and the like, though its primary meaning undoubtedly was, pander; the Latin, "leno," the Italian “roffiano."

a

с

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 b of all civility,
I thus would play and trifle with your reverence:
Your daughter,-if you have not given her leaye,-
I say again, hath made a gross revolt;
Tying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes,
In an extravagant and wheeling a 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.
BRA.

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!

[Ecit 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(1) the raised search ;
And there will I be with him. So, farewell.

[Eril. Enter, below, BRABANTIO, and Servants with torches. BRA. It is too true an evil: gone she is !

b

(*) First folio, producted.

(t) First folio, apines. • Transported,–] That is, transported herself. Capell, howerer, inserts De before transported.

from the sense-] Contrary, or opposed to the sense, &c.

extravagant-] Vagabond. d. - wheeling—] Mr. Collier's annotator proposes, wheedling; we should much prefer to read,

an extravagant and whirling stranger Of here and everywhere." e Straight satisfy yourself :) This line and the sixteen preceding lines are not in the quarto 1622.

And what's to come of my despised time
Is nought but bitterness. —Now, Roderigo,
Where didst thou see her?-0, unhappy girl!
With the Moor, say'st thou ?_Who would be a father !-
How didst thou know 't was she?-0, she deceives me
Past thought !- What said she to you?-Get more tapers ;
Raise all my kindred. Are they married, think you?

Rod. Truly, I think they are.

BRA. O, heaven !-How got she out ?_0, treason of the blool !--
Fathers, from hence trust not your davghters' minds
By what you see them act. Are there not charms
By which the property of youth and maidhood
May be abus’d? Have you not read, Roderigo,
Of some such thing?
Rod.

Yes, sir, I have indeed.
BRA. Call up my brother.—0, would you had had her! -
Some one way, some another.-Do you know
Where we may apprehend her and the Moor?

Rod. I think I can discover him, if you please
To get good guard, and go along with me.
BRA. 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.

[Ereunt.

SCENE II.—The same. Another Street.
Enter OTHELLO, LAGO, 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 contriv'd murder: I lack iniquity /
Sometime to do me service. Nine or ten times
I had thought to have yerk'd him here under the ribs.

OTH. 'T is better as it is.
Iago.

Nay, but he prated,
And spoke such scurvy and provoking terms
Against your honour,
That, with the little godliness I have,
I did full hard forbear him. But, I pray you, sir,
Are you fast married ? Be assurd of this,
That the magnifico is much belov'd;
And hath, in hisa 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.
Отн.

Let him do his spite:

(*) First folio, might.

(+) First folio, or. - his effect,-] His is employed for the then scarce known its, and refers to raise.

а

My services, which I have done the signiory,
Shail out-tongue his complaints. T is yet to know,-
Which, when I know that boasting is an honour,
I shall promulgate, I fetch my life and being
From men of royal siege; and my demerits a
May speak, unbonneted, to as proud a fortune
As this that I have reach'd: for know, Iago,
But that I love the gentle Desdemona,
I would not my unhoused free condition
Put into circumscription and confine,
For the sea's worth. But, look! what lights come yond ?

Iago. Those are the raised father and his friends:
You were best

go

in. Отн.

Not I; I must be found;
My parts, my title, and my perfect soul,
Shall manifest me rightly. Is it they?

Iago. By Janns, I think no.

a

Enter Cassio, and certain Officers with torches.
OTH. The servants of the duke! and my lieutenant !-
The goodness of the night upon you, friends!
What is the news ?
Cas.

The duke does greet you, general ;
And he requires your haste-post-haste appearance,
Even on the instant.
Отн.

What is the matter, think you?
Cas. Something from Cyprus, as I may divine:
It is a business of some heat; the galleys
Have sent a dozen sequent messengers
This very night at one another's heels;
And many of the consuls, rais’d and met,
Are at the duke's already. You have been hotly call'd for ;
When, being not at your lodging to be found,
The senate hath sent about three several quests
To search you out.
Отн.

'T is well I am found by you.
I will but spend a word here in the house,
And go with you.

[Erit. and my demerits May speak, unbonneted, to as proud a fortune

As this that I have reach'd :] Demerit now signifies only ill desert; in Shakespeare's day it was used indiscriminately for good or ill deserving. In the present instance it is apparently employed in the good sense, for Othello could hardly mean that his blemishes might stand without conceal. ment beside the dignity he had achieved. The import we take to be, -my services when revealed (unbonneted), may aspire or lay claim to (may speak to) as proud a fortune as this which I have attained. Mr. Fuseli, however, has given another explanation, founded on the fact that at Venice the bonnet has always been a badge of patrician honours :-I am his equal or superior in rank; and were it not so, such are my demerits, that, unbonneted, without the addition of patrician or senatorial dignity, they may speak to as proud a fortune, &c. But here, too, it is indispensable for the integrity of

passage that “ speak to " be understood in the sense just mentioned of aspire, or lay claim to.

the

CAS.

Ancient, what makes he here?
Lago. Faith, he to-night hath boarded a land-carack ;
If it prove lawful prize, he's made for ever.

CAS. I do not understand.
IAGO.

He's married.
CAS.

To who?
Re-enter OTHELLO.
Iago. Marry, to-Come, captain, will you go?
Отн.

Have with you.
Cas. Here comes another troop to seek for you.
IAGO. It is Brabantio:-general, be advis’d;
He comes to bad intent.

Enter BRABANTIO, RODERIGO, and Officers with torches.
Отн.

Holla! stand there!
Rod. Signior, it is the Moor.
BRA.

Down with him, thief!

[They draw on both sides. Iago. Yon, Roderigo! come, sir, I am for you.

OTH. Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.-
Good signior, you shall more command with years
Than with your weapons.

BRA. O, thou foul thief, where hast thou stow'd my daughter?
Damn'd as thou art, thou hast enchanted her ;
For I 'll refer me to all things of sense,
If she in chains of magic were not bound,"
Whether a maid so tender, fair, and happy,
So opposite to marriage, that she shunn'd
The wealthy curled darlingse of our nation,
Would ever have, to incur a general mock,
Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom
Of such a thing as thou,-to fear, not to delight.
Judge me the world, if 't is not gross in sense
That thou hast practis'd on her with foul charms;
Abus'd her delicate youth with drugs or minerals
That wakend motion :-I'll have 't disputed on;(2)

•-a land-carack ;] A carack was a ship of large burden, like the Spanish galleon , but the compound in the text appears to have been a dissolute expression, the meaning of which may be gathered from the following:

“Here to his Land-Friggat hee's ferried by Charon,
He bords her: a service a hot and a rare one."

Verses prefixed to Coryať s Crudities. • If she in chains of magic were not bound,-) A line not found in the quarto 1622. <- curled darlings-] * Curled” was an epithet characteristic of gentility. Thus D'Avenant, in “ The Just Italian,” Act III. Sc. 1,

"—the curld and silken Nobles of the Town." The folio reads, "dearlings."

. That waken motion :-) So Hanmer; the original having, "That weakens motion," &c. The upholders of the old reading contend that Brabantio's accusation is that the Moor, by magical devices and the administering of drugs or minerals, had weakened those natural impulses of youth and maidhood in his daughter, which, uncontrolled,

VOL. VI.