Othello
Act I, Scene I
Venice. A street.
Night, in Venice. Roderigo, a wealthy young Venetian who has been paying Iago for help courting Brabantio’s daughter Desdemona, is furious: he has just learned that Desdemona has eloped with Othello, and accuses Iago of having kept him in the dark. Iago’s answer is to set out, in two long speeches, his own reasons for hating Othello. The Moor has just passed him over for promotion, choosing instead a Florentine bookman named Michael Cassio — an officer who, in Iago’s telling, has never set a squadron in the field. Iago serves Othello, he tells Roderigo, only the better to ruin him: I am not what I am.
The two then rouse Brabantio at his window with a stream of escalating obscenity — an old black ram is topping your white ewe; your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs — and, having lit the fuse, Iago slips away before he can be seen siding against Othello. Brabantio comes down with torches and an armed retinue. Roderigo agrees to lead them to where Othello and Desdemona may be found. The play has begun, and the entire human machinery of the rest of it — Iago’s grudge, his method, his audience — is in place inside the first hundred and ninety lines.
Note: Othello himself does not appear in this scene. The first thing the audience hears about him is what Iago and Roderigo say — the Moor, the thicklips, an old black ram, a lascivious Moor. That gap between how he is described and how he will speak when he finally appears (in Scene II) is one of the play’s opening strategies.
Enter RODERIGO and IAGO.
Roderigo
Tush! never tell me; I take it much unkindly
That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse
As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.
That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse
As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.
Oh, stop — don’t even tell me. I take it very badly that you, Iago, who have had my money to spend as if my purse-strings were your own, should have known about this and said nothing.
Iago
’Sblood, but you will not hear me:
If ever I did dream of such a matter, Abhor me.
If ever I did dream of such a matter, Abhor me.
God’s blood, you won’t let me speak. If I ever so much as dreamed about this, may you hate me forever.
Roderigo
Thou told’st me thou didst hold him in thy hate.
You told me you hated him.
Iago
Despise me, if I do not.
Despise me if I don’t.
Three great ones of the city,
In personal suit to make me his lieutenant,
Off-capp’d to him: and, by the faith of man,
I know my price, I am worth no worse a place:
But he; as loving his own pride and purposes,
Evades them, with a bombast circumstance
Horribly stuff’d with epithets of war;
And, in conclusion,
Nonsuits my mediators; for, ‘Certes,’ says he,
‘I have already chose my officer.’
In personal suit to make me his lieutenant,
Off-capp’d to him: and, by the faith of man,
I know my price, I am worth no worse a place:
But he; as loving his own pride and purposes,
Evades them, with a bombast circumstance
Horribly stuff’d with epithets of war;
And, in conclusion,
Nonsuits my mediators; for, ‘Certes,’ says he,
‘I have already chose my officer.’
Three eminent men of Venice came to him in person, hats in hand, lobbying for me to be made his lieutenant — and (on my honour) I know what I’m worth, the post should have been mine. But he, in love with his own importance, brushed them off with a bombastic speech stuffed full of military jargon, and in the end refused them flat: “Certainly,” says he, “I have already chosen my officer.”
And what was he?
And who is this officer?
Forsooth, a great arithmetician,
One Michael Cassio, a Florentine,
A fellow almost damn’d in a fair wife;
That never set a squadron in the field,
Nor the division of a battle knows
More than a spinster; unless the bookish theoric,
Wherein the toged consuls can propose
As masterly as he: mere prattle, without practise,
Is all his soldiership.
One Michael Cassio, a Florentine,
A fellow almost damn’d in a fair wife;
That never set a squadron in the field,
Nor the division of a battle knows
More than a spinster; unless the bookish theoric,
Wherein the toged consuls can propose
As masterly as he: mere prattle, without practise,
Is all his soldiership.
Why, an accountant — one Michael Cassio, a Florentine, a man practically married to disaster in a wife — who has never led a squadron in the field, knows no more about how a battle is drawn up than a spinning-woman does, and whose entire military skill is the same book-learning that any robed senator could lecture on as well as he can. Talk without practice — that’s the whole of his soldiering.
But he, sir, had the election:
And I, of whom his eyes had seen the proof
At Rhodes, at Cyprus and on other grounds
Christian and heathen, must be be-lee’d and calm’d
By debitor and creditor: this counter-caster,
He, in good time, must his lieutenant be,
And I—God bless the mark!—his Moorship’s ancient.
And I, of whom his eyes had seen the proof
At Rhodes, at Cyprus and on other grounds
Christian and heathen, must be be-lee’d and calm’d
By debitor and creditor: this counter-caster,
He, in good time, must his lieutenant be,
And I—God bless the mark!—his Moorship’s ancient.
But Cassio got the appointment. And I — whom Othello has actually seen fight, at Rhodes, at Cyprus, in Christian wars and pagan ones — must be becalmed and overtaken by a bookkeeper. This calculator must be his lieutenant; and I (God save us) must be his Moorship’s standard-bearer.
Roderigo
By heaven, I rather would have been his hangman.
I’d rather have been his executioner.
Iago
Why, there’s no remedy; ’tis the curse of service,
Preferment goes by letter and affection,
And not by old gradation, where each second
Stood heir to the first.
Preferment goes by letter and affection,
And not by old gradation, where each second
Stood heir to the first.
There’s nothing to be done about it. It’s the curse of being in service: promotion goes by letters of recommendation and personal favouritism, not by the old principle of seniority, where the next in line inherited the spot.
Now, sir, be judge yourself,
Whether I in any just term am affined
To love the Moor.
Whether I in any just term am affined
To love the Moor.
So you tell me, in fairness, whether I’m under any obligation to love the Moor.
Roderigo
I would not follow him then.
Then I wouldn’t serve him.
Iago
O, sir, content you;
I follow him to serve my turn upon him:
We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
Cannot be truly follow’d.
I follow him to serve my turn upon him:
We cannot all be masters, nor all masters
Cannot be truly follow’d.
Oh, calm yourself. I serve him to use him for my own ends. Not everyone can be the master, and even masters can’t all be served loyally.
You shall mark
Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave,
That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,
Wears out his time, much like his master’s ass,
For nought but provender, and when he’s old, cashier’d:
Whip me such honest knaves.
Many a duteous and knee-crooking knave,
That, doting on his own obsequious bondage,
Wears out his time, much like his master’s ass,
For nought but provender, and when he’s old, cashier’d:
Whip me such honest knaves.
You’ll find any number of dutiful, scraping flunkies who, in love with their own obedient slavery, spend their lives like the master’s donkey — working for nothing but their feed — and then, when they’re old, get turned out. I’d have such “honest” servants flogged.
Others there are
Who, trimm’d in forms and visages of duty,
Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves,
And, throwing but shows of service on their lords,
Do well thrive by them and when they have lined
their coats
Do themselves homage: these fellows have some soul;
And such a one do I profess myself.
Who, trimm’d in forms and visages of duty,
Keep yet their hearts attending on themselves,
And, throwing but shows of service on their lords,
Do well thrive by them and when they have lined
their coats
Do themselves homage: these fellows have some soul;
And such a one do I profess myself.
Others wear the outward forms of duty but keep their hearts on their own interests, and by giving their masters only the appearance of service, they prosper at the masters’ expense — and once their pockets are full, they answer to themselves. Those men have some spirit, and I count myself one of them.
For, sir,
It is as sure as you are Roderigo,
Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago:
In following him, I follow but myself;
Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
But seeming so, for my peculiar end:
For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In compliment extern, ’tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.
It is as sure as you are Roderigo,
Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago:
In following him, I follow but myself;
Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
But seeming so, for my peculiar end:
For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In compliment extern, ’tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.
As surely as you are Roderigo — if I were the Moor, I wouldn’t want to be Iago. In serving him I serve only myself. Heaven is my witness, what looks like love and duty isn’t love and duty — it’s a performance, for purposes of my own. The day my outward conduct actually matched what was in my heart, I’d be pinning my heart to my sleeve for the crows to peck at. I am not what I appear to be.
Roderigo
What a full fortune does the thicklips owe
If he can carry’t thus!
If he can carry’t thus!
What a piece of luck the thick-lipped one will own if he can pull this off!
Iago
Call up her father,
Rouse him: make after him, poison his delight,
Proclaim him in the streets; incense her kinsmen,
And, though he in a fertile climate dwell,
Plague him with flies: though that his joy be joy,
Yet throw such changes of vexation on’t,
As it may lose some colour.
Rouse him: make after him, poison his delight,
Proclaim him in the streets; incense her kinsmen,
And, though he in a fertile climate dwell,
Plague him with flies: though that his joy be joy,
Yet throw such changes of vexation on’t,
As it may lose some colour.
Wake her father. Get him going — chase Othello down, ruin his happiness, call him out publicly in the streets, get her relatives up in arms. He may be in clover, but plague him with flies. Even if his joy stays joy, throw enough irritation at it to fade its colour.
Roderigo
Here is her father’s house; I’ll call aloud.
Here’s her father’s house — I’ll shout for him.
Iago
Do, with like timorous accent and dire yell
As when, by night and negligence, the fire
Is spied in populous cities.
As when, by night and negligence, the fire
Is spied in populous cities.
Do — and use the same panicked tone and screaming pitch you’d use if a fire broke out at night in a crowded city.
Roderigo
What, ho, Brabantio! Signior Brabantio, ho!
Hey! Hello there, Brabantio! Signior Brabantio — ho!
Iago
Awake! what, ho, Brabantio! thieves! thieves! thieves!
Look to your house, your daughter and your bags!
Thieves! thieves!
Look to your house, your daughter and your bags!
Thieves! thieves!
Wake up! Hey, Brabantio! Thieves! Thieves! Thieves! Look to your house, your daughter, your money-bags! Thieves! Thieves!
BRABANTIO appears above, at a window.
Brabantio
What is the reason of this terrible summons?
What’s the meaning of this dreadful shouting?
What is the matter there?
What’s going on down there?
Roderigo
Signior, is all your family within?
Sir, is your whole household inside?
Iago
Are your doors lock’d?
Are your doors locked?
Brabantio
Why, wherefore ask you this?
Why — why are you asking?
Iago
’Zounds, sir, you’re robb’d; for shame, put on
your gown;
Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul;
Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
Is topping your white ewe.
your gown;
Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul;
Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
Is topping your white ewe.
Christ’s wounds, sir — you’ve been robbed. For shame, throw on a robe. Your heart has burst, half of your soul is gone. Right now, this very moment, an old black ram is mounting 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.
Awake the snorting citizens with the bell,
Or else the devil will make a grandsire of you:
Arise, I say.
Get up, get up — ring the bell and wake the snoring townspeople, or the devil will be making you a grandfather. Get up, I say.
Brabantio
What, have you lost your wits?
What — have you lost your minds?
Roderigo
Most reverend signior, do you know my voice?
Honoured sir — do you recognize my voice?
Brabantio
Not I what are you?
No, I don’t. Who are you?
Roderigo
My name is Roderigo.
My name is Roderigo.
Brabantio
The worser welcome:
I have charged 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.
I have charged 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.
All the less welcome, then. I’ve forbidden you to hang around my house. I’ve told you plainly: my daughter is not for you. And now, in some drunken rage from a heavy supper and too much drink, you’ve come to break my peace out of pure spite.
Roderigo
Sir, sir, sir,—
Sir, sir, sir —
Brabantio
But thou must needs be sure
My spirit and my place have in them power
To make this bitter to thee.
My spirit and my place have in them power
To make this bitter to thee.
But know perfectly well — my temper and my office both have the power to make you regret this.
Roderigo
Patience, good sir.
Calm down, sir, please.
Brabantio
What tell’st thou me of robbing? this is Venice;
My house is not a grange.
My house is not a grange.
What are you telling me about robbing? This is Venice — my house isn’t some isolated farmhouse you can ride up to and shout at.
Roderigo
Most grave Brabantio,
In simple and pure soul I come to you.
In simple and pure soul I come to you.
Honourable Brabantio — I come to you in honest goodwill.
Iago
’Zounds, sir, you are one of those that will not serve God, if the devil bid you.
Christ’s wounds, sir, you’re the kind of man who’d refuse to serve God if the devil told him to do it.
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.
Because we come to do you a favour and you take us for thugs, you’re going to have your daughter mounted by a Barbary stallion, your nephews neighing at you, and racehorses and Spanish jennets for blood relatives.
Brabantio
What profane wretch art thou?
What kind of foul-mouthed scoundrel are you?
Iago
I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.
I am someone, sir, who’s come to tell you that your daughter and the Moor are at this moment making the beast with two backs.
Brabantio
Thou art a villain.
You’re a villain.
Iago
You are—a senator.
And you are — a senator.
Brabantio
This thou shalt answer; I know thee, Roderigo.
You’ll answer for this. I know who you are, Roderigo.
Roderigo
Sir, I will answer any thing.
Sir, I’ll answer for 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.
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.
But I beg you — if it’s with your knowledge and approval (as I half suspect it is) that your beautiful daughter, in the dead of night, with no guard better than a hired gondolier, has been carried off to the gross embraces of a lecherous Moor — then yes, we’ve done you a bold and impudent wrong. But if you don’t know about it, then my good manners tell me you’re berating us unjustly.
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 every where.
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 every where.
Don’t imagine that I’d have so abandoned ordinary civility as to make a joke at your expense. Your daughter, if you haven’t given her permission, has — I say it again — committed a gross betrayal: tied her duty, her beauty, her wit and her fortune to a wandering foreigner who belongs everywhere and nowhere.
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.
If she be in her chamber or your house,
Let loose on me the justice of the state
For thus deluding you.
Check for yourself, right now. If she’s in her room, or anywhere in the house, then turn the law of the state on me for having lied to you.
Brabantio
Strike on the tinder, ho!
Give me a taper! call up all my people!
Give me a taper! call up all my people!
Strike a light, there! Bring me a candle! Wake the whole household!
This accident is not unlike my dream:
Belief of it oppresses me already.
Belief of it oppresses me already.
This isn’t unlike a dream I had — and I already half believe it.
Light, I say! light!
Light, I say — bring light!
Exit above.
Iago
Farewell; for I must leave you:
It seems not meet, nor wholesome to my place,
To be produced—as, if I stay, I shall—
Against the Moor: for, I do know, the state,
However this may gall him with some cheque,
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.
It seems not meet, nor wholesome to my place,
To be produced—as, if I stay, I shall—
Against the Moor: for, I do know, the state,
However this may gall him with some cheque,
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.
Goodbye — I have to leave you. It isn’t fitting, and it won’t do my position any good, to be seen here (as I will be, if I stay) standing against the Moor. I know the state — however much this scandal may chafe him with some reprimand — can’t safely dismiss him. The Cyprus wars are starting right now and they have nobody else of his calibre to lead the campaign — on which account, much as I hate him like I hate the torments of hell…
Yet, for necessity of present life,
I must show out a flag and sign of love,
Which is indeed but sign.
I must show out a flag and sign of love,
Which is indeed but sign.
…still, for the practical needs of the moment, I have to put on a show of loving him — which is nothing more than a show.
That you shall surely find him,
Lead to the Sagittary the raised search;
And there will I be with him.
Lead to the Sagittary the raised search;
And there will I be with him.
To be sure you’ll find him — lead the search-party to the Sagittary; that’s where I’ll be, with him.
So, farewell.
So — goodbye.
Exit.
Enter, below, BRABANTIO, and Servants with torches.
Enter, below, BRABANTIO, and Servants with torches.
Brabantio
It is too true an evil: gone she is;
And what’s to come of my despised time
Is nought but bitterness.
And what’s to come of my despised time
Is nought but bitterness.
It’s all too true an evil — she’s gone. The rest of my wretched life is going to be nothing but bitterness.
Now, Roderigo,
Where didst thou see her?
Where didst thou see her?
Now, Roderigo — where did you see her?
O unhappy girl!
Oh, miserable girl!
With the Moor, say’st thou?
With the Moor, you say?
Who would be a father!
Who would ever choose to be a father!
How didst thou know ’twas she?
How did you know it was her?
O she deceives me
Past thought!
Past thought!
Oh, she has deceived me past anything I could have imagined.
What said she to you?
What did she say to you?
Get more tapers:
Raise all my kindred.
Raise all my kindred.
Get more candles. Rouse my whole family.
Are they married, think you?
Are they married, do you think?
Roderigo
Truly, I think they are.
Honestly, I think they are.
Brabantio
O heaven!
Oh God!
How got she out?
How did she get out of the house?
O treason of the blood!
Oh, betrayal in one’s own flesh and blood!
Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters’ minds
By what you see them act.
By what you see them act.
Fathers — from now on, don’t judge what’s in your daughters’ minds by how they behave.
Is there not charms
By which the property of youth and maidhood
May be abused?
By which the property of youth and maidhood
May be abused?
Aren’t there charms that can corrupt the very nature of youth and virginity?
Have you not read, Roderigo,
Of some such thing?
Of some such thing?
Haven’t you read of such things, Roderigo?
Roderigo
Yes, sir, I have indeed.
Yes, sir — I have.
Brabantio
Call up my brother.
Send for my brother.
O, would you had had her!
Oh, if only you’d been the one to marry her!
Some one way, some another.
[To the servants:] Some of you that way, some this way.
Do you know
Where we may apprehend her and the Moor?
Where we may apprehend her and the Moor?
Do you know where we can lay hands on her and the Moor?
Roderigo
I think I can discover him, if you please,
To get good guard and go along with me.
To get good guard and go along with me.
I think I can find him — if you’ll get a good guard together and come with me.
Brabantio
Pray you, lead on.
Please, lead the way.
At every house I’ll call;
I may command at most.
I may command at most.
I’ll knock at every house — at most I have the authority to be obeyed.
Get weapons, ho!
Get weapons, there!
And raise some special officers of night.
And call out some of the city’s night-watch officers.
On, good Roderigo: I’ll deserve your pains.
On, good Roderigo — I’ll make sure your trouble is repaid.
Exeunt. — End of Act I, Scene I.