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

b

*

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.

BRA. 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.

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,
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;

(*) First folio omits, Zounds.

a

(+) 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.

bruffians,-] Here ruffian is employed in its secondary sense of roisterer, swash-buckler, and the like, though its primary meaning undoubtedly was, pander; the Latin, "leno," the Italian, "roffiano."

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.

[Exit.

Enter, below, BRABANTIO, and Servants with torches.

BRA. It is too true an evil: gone she is! And what's to come of my despised time Is nought 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 '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 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 abus'd? Have you not read, Roderigo,
Of some such thing?

ROD.
Yes, sir, I have indeed.
BRA. Call up my brother.-O, would you had

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 darlings 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 waken motion
: - I'll have 't disputed
on; (2)

с

'Tis probable, and palpable to thinking. I therefore apprehend and do attach thee For an abuser of the world, a practiser Of arts inhibited and out of warrant.Lay hold upon him; if he do resist, Subdue him at his peril.

Отн.

Hold your hands! Both you of my inclining, and the rest : Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it Without a prompter.-Where* will you that I go To answer this your charge?

BRA.
To prison; till fit time
Of law, and course of direct session,
Call thee to answer.

Отн.
What if I do obey?
How may the duke be therewith satisfied,
Whose messengers are here about my side,
Upon some present business of the state,
To bring me to him?

1 OFF. 'Tis true, most worthy signior, The duke's in council, and your noble self, I am sure is sent for.

BRA. How the duke in council In this time of the night!-Bring him away: Mine 's not an idle cause: the duke himself, Or any of my brothers of the state, Cannot but feel this wrong as 't were their own; For if such actions may have passage free, Bond-slaves and pagans shall our statesmen be. [Exeunt.

* If she in chains of magic were not bound,-] A line not found in the quarto 1622.

bcurled darlings-] "Curled" was an epithet characteristic of gentility. Thus D'Avenant, in "The Just Italian," Act III. Sc. 1,

"the curl'd and silken Nobles of the Town." The folio reads, “dearlings."

e That waken motion:-] So Hanmer; the original having, "That wokens 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, would have inclined to those of her own clime, complexion, and degree; but this is expressly contradicted by what he has himself just said,—

SCENE III.-The same. A Council Chamber.

The DUKE, and Senators, sitting; Officers
attending.

DUKE. There is no composition in these news That gives them credit.

1 SEN. Indeed, they are disproportioned; My letters say a hundred and seven galleys. DUKE. And mine, a hundred forty.

2 SEN. And mine, two hundred : But though they jump not on a just account,As in these cases, where the aim reports, 'T is oft with difference, yet do they all confirm A Turkish fleet, and bearing up to Cyprus.

DUKE. Nay, it is possible enough to judgment I do not so secure me in the error, But the main article I do approve

In fearful sense.

a maid so tender, fair, and happy,

So opposite to marriage, that she shunn'd
The wealthy curled darlings of our nation."

We therefore readily accept the easy emendation Hanmer offers. Brabantio's grievance, it is plain, was not that Othello had, by charms and medicines, abated the motions of Desdemona's sense, but that he had aroused and stimulated them.

d and do attach thee-] The passage beginning,-"Judge me the world," to the above words inclusive, is not in the quarto 1622.

e - where the aim reports,-] To aim is to conjecture or surmise. f I do not so secure me in the error,-] I do not so over-confidently build on the discrepancy, but that, &c.

g So may he with more facile question bear it. The remainder of the speech, after this line, is found only in the folio 1623 and the quarto 1630.