Act 1, Scene 3

Venice. A council chamber.

[The Duke and Senators sitting at a table; Officers attending.]
Duke of Venice
310 There is no composition in these news
311 That gives them credit.
First Senator
312 Indeed, they are disproportion'd;
313 My letters say a hundred and seven galleys.
Duke of Venice
314 And mine a hundred and forty.
Second Senator
315 And mine two hundred:
316 But though they jump not on a just account,—
317 As in these cases, where the aim reports,
318 'Tis oft with difference,—yet do they all confirm
319 A Turkish fleet, and bearing up to Cyprus.
Duke of Venice
320 Nay, it is possible enough to judgement:
321 I do not so secure me in the error,
322 But the main article I do approve
323 In fearful sense.
[Within.]
Sailor
324 What, ho! what, ho! what, ho!
First Officer
325 A messenger from the galleys.
[Enter a Sailor.]
Duke of Venice
326 Now,—what's the business?
Sailor
327 The Turkish preparation makes for Rhodes;
328 So was I bid report here to the state
329 By Signior Angelo.
Duke of Venice
330 How say you by this change?
First Senator
331 This cannot be,
332 By no assay of reason: 'tis a pageant
333 To keep us in false gaze. When we consider
334 The importancy of Cyprus to the Turk;
335 And let ourselves again but understand
336 That, as it more concerns the Turk than Rhodes,
337 So may he with more facile question bear it,
338 For that it stands not in such warlike brace,
339 But altogether lacks the abilities
340 That Rhodes is dress'd in. If we make thought of this,
341 We must not think the Turk is so unskilful
342 To leave that latest which concerns him first;
343 Neglecting an attempt of ease and gain,
344 To wake and wage a danger profitless.
Duke of Venice
345 Nay, in all confidence, he's not for Rhodes.
First Officer
346 Here is more news.
[Enter a Messenger.]
Messenger
347 The Ottomites, reverend and gracious,
348 Steering with due course toward the isle of Rhodes,
349 Have there injointed them with an after fleet.
First Senator
350 Ay, so I thought.—How many, as you guess?
Messenger
351 Of thirty sail: and now they do re-stem
352 Their backward course, bearing with frank appearance
353 Their purposes toward Cyprus.—Signior Montano,
354 Your trusty and most valiant servitor,
355 With his free duty recommends you thus,
356 And prays you to believe him.
Duke of Venice
357 'Tis certain, then, for Cyprus.—
358 Marcus Luccicos, is not he in town?
First Senator
359 He's now in Florence.
Duke of Venice
360 Write from us to him; post-post-haste despatch.
First Senator
361 Here comes Brabantio and the valiant Moor.
[Enter Brabantio, Othello, Iago, Roderigo, and Officers.]
Duke of Venice
362 Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you
363 Against the general enemy Ottoman.—
[To Brabantio.]
Duke of Venice
364 I did not see you; welcome, gentle signior;
365 We lack'd your counsel and your help to-night.
Brabantio
366 So did I yours. Good your grace, pardon me;
367 Neither my place, nor aught I heard of business
368 Hath rais'd me from my bed; nor doth the general care
369 Take hold on me; for my particular grief
370 Is of so flood-gate and o'erbearing nature
371 That it engluts and swallows other sorrows,
372 And it is still itself.
Duke of Venice
373 Why, what's the matter?
Brabantio
374 My daughter! O, my daughter!
Duke and Senators
375 Dead?
Brabantio
376 Ay, to me;
377 She is abused, stol'n from me, and corrupted
378 By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks;
379 For nature so preposterously to err,
380 Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense,
381 Sans witchcraft could not.
Duke of Venice
382 Whoe'er he be that, in this foul proceeding,
383 Hath thus beguiled your daughter of herself,
384 And you of her, the bloody book of law
385 You shall yourself read in the bitter letter
386 After your own sense; yea, though our proper son
387 Stood in your action.
Brabantio
388 Humbly I thank your grace.
389 Here is the man, this Moor; whom now, it seems,
390 Your special mandate for the state affairs
391 Hath hither brought.
Duke and Senators
392 We are very sorry for't.
[To Othello.]
Duke of Venice
393 What, in your own part, can you say to this?
Brabantio
394 Nothing, but this is so.
Othello
395 Most potent, grave, and reverend signiors,
396 My very noble and approv'd good masters,—
397 That I have ta'en away this old man's daughter,
398 It is most true; true, I have married her:
399 The very head and front of my offending
400 Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech,
401 And little bless'd with the soft phrase of peace;
402 For since these arms of mine had seven years' pith,
403 Till now some nine moons wasted, they have us'd
404 Their dearest action in the tented field;
405 And little of this great world can I speak,
406 More than pertains to feats of broil and battle;
407 And therefore little shall I grace my cause
408 In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,
409 I will a round unvarnish'd tale deliver
410 Of my whole course of love: what drugs, what charms,
411 What conjuration, and what mighty magic,—
412 For such proceeding I am charged withal,—
413 I won his daughter.
Brabantio
414 A maiden never bold:
415 Of spirit so still and quiet that her motion
416 Blush'd at herself; and she,—in spite of nature,
417 Of years, of country, credit, everything,—
418 To fall in love with what she fear'd to look on!
419 It is judgement maim'd and most imperfect
420 That will confess perfection so could err
421 Against all rules of nature; and must be driven
422 To find out practices of cunning hell,
423 Why this should be. I therefore vouch again,
424 That with some mixtures powerful o'er the blood,
425 Or with some dram conjur'd to this effect,
426 He wrought upon her.
Duke of Venice
427 To vouch this is no proof;
428 Without more wider and more overt test
429 Than these thin habits and poor likelihoods
430 Of modern seeming do prefer against him.
First Senator
431 But, Othello, speak:
432 Did you by indirect and forced courses
433 Subdue and poison this young maid's affections?
434 Or came it by request, and such fair question
435 As soul to soul affordeth?
Othello
436 I do beseech you,
437 Send for the lady to the Sagittary,
438 And let her speak of me before her father.
439 If you do find me foul in her report,
440 The trust, the office I do hold of you,
441 Not only take away, but let your sentence
442 Even fall upon my life.
Duke of Venice
443 Fetch Desdemona hither.
Othello
444 Ancient, conduct them; you best know the place.—
[Exeunt Iago and Attendants.]
Othello
445 And, till she come, as truly as to heaven
446 I do confess the vices of my blood,
447 So justly to your grave ears I'll present
448 How I did thrive in this fair lady's love,
449 And she in mine.
Duke of Venice
450 Say it, Othello.
Othello
451 Her father lov'd me; oft invited me;
452 Still question'd me the story of my life,
453 From year to year,—the battles, sieges, fortunes,
454 That I have pass'd.
455 I ran it through, even from my boyish days
456 To the very moment that he bade me tell it:
457 Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,
458 Of moving accidents by flood and field;
459 Of hair-breadth scapes i' the imminent deadly breach;
460 Of being taken by the insolent foe,
461 And sold to slavery; of my redemption thence,
462 And portance in my travels' history:
463 Wherein of antres vast and deserts idle,
464 Rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven,
465 It was my hint to speak,—such was the process;
466 And of the Cannibals that each other eat,
467 The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
468 Do grow beneath their shoulders. This to hear
469 Would Desdemona seriously incline:
470 But still the house affairs would draw her thence;
471 Which ever as she could with haste despatch,
472 She'd come again, and with a greedy ear
473 Devour up my discourse; which I observing,
474 Took once a pliant hour; and found good means
475 To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart
476 That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,
477 Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
478 But not intentively; I did consent;
479 And often did beguile her of her tears,
480 When I did speak of some distressful stroke
481 That my youth suffer'd. My story being done,
482 She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:
483 She swore,—in faith, 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange;
484 'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:
485 She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd
486 That heaven had made her such a man: she thank'd me;
487 And bade me, if I had a friend that lov'd her,
488 I should but teach him how to tell my story,
489 And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:
490 She lov'd me for the dangers I had pass'd;
491 And I lov'd her that she did pity them.
492 This only is the witchcraft I have us'd:—
493 Here comes the lady; let her witness it.
[Enter Desdemona, Iago, and Attendants.]
Duke of Venice
494 I think this tale would win my daughter too.—
495 Good Brabantio,
496 Take up this mangled matter at the best.
497 Men do their broken weapons rather use
498 Than their bare hands.
Brabantio
499 I pray you, hear her speak:
500 If she confess that she was half the wooer,
501 Destruction on my head, if my bad blame
502 Light on the man!—Come hither, gentle mistress:
503 Do you perceive in all this noble company
504 Where most you owe obedience?
Desdemona
505 My noble father,
506 I do perceive here a divided duty:
507 To you I am bound for life and education;
508 My life and education both do learn me
509 How to respect you; you are the lord of duty,—
510 I am hitherto your daughter: but here's my husband;
511 And so much duty as my mother show'd
512 To you, preferring you before her father,
513 So much I challenge that I may profess
514 Due to the Moor, my lord.
Brabantio
515 God be with you!—I have done.—
516 Please it your grace, on to the state affairs:
517 I had rather to adopt a child than get it.—
518 Come hither, Moor:
519 I here do give thee that with all my heart
520 Which, but thou hast already, with all my heart
521 I would keep from thee.—For your sake, jewel,
522 I am glad at soul I have no other child;
523 For thy escape would teach me tyranny,
524 To hang clogs on them.—I have done, my lord.
Duke of Venice
525 Let me speak like yourself; and lay a sentence
526 Which, as a grise or step, may help these lovers
527 Into your favour.
528 When remedies are past, the griefs are ended
529 By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended.
530 To mourn a mischief that is past and gone
531 Is the next way to draw new mischief on.
532 What cannot be preserved when fortune takes,
533 Patience her injury a mockery makes.
534 The robb'd that smiles steals something from the thief;
535 He robs himself that spends a bootless grief.
Brabantio
536 So let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile;
537 We lose it not so long as we can smile;
538 He bears the sentence well, that nothing bears
539 But the free comfort which from thence he hears;
540 But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow
541 That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow.
542 These sentences, to sugar or to gall,
543 Being strong on both sides, are equivocal:
544 But words are words; I never yet did hear
545 That the bruis'd heart was pierced through the ear.—
546 I humbly beseech you, proceed to the affairs of state.
Duke of Venice
547 The Turk with a most mighty preparation makes for Cyprus.—
548 Othello, the fortitude of the place is best known to you; and
549 though we have there a substitute of most allowed sufficiency,
550 yet opinion, a sovereign mistress of effects, throws a more safer
551 voice on you: you must therefore be content to slubber the gloss
552 of your new fortunes with this more stubborn and boisterous
553 expedition.
Othello
554 The tyrant custom, most grave senators,
555 Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
556 My thrice-driven bed of down: I do agnize
557 A natural and prompt alacrity
558 I find in hardness; and do undertake
559 These present wars against the Ottomites.
560 Most humbly, therefore, bending to your state,
561 I crave fit disposition for my wife;
562 Due reference of place and exhibition;
563 With such accommodation and besort
564 As levels with her breeding.
Duke of Venice
565 If you please,
566 Be't at her father's.
Brabantio
567 I'll not have it so.
Othello
568 Nor I.
Desdemona
569 Nor I. I would not there reside,
570 To put my father in impatient thoughts,
571 By being in his eye. Most gracious duke,
572 To my unfolding lend your prosperous ear;
573 And let me find a charter in your voice
574 To assist my simpleness.
Duke of Venice
575 What would you, Desdemona?
Desdemona
576 That I did love the Moor to live with him,
577 My downright violence and storm of fortunes
578 May trumpet to the world: my heart's subdu'd
579 Even to the very quality of my lord:
580 I saw Othello's visage in his mind;
581 And to his honors and his valiant parts
582 Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate.
583 So that, dear lords, if I be left behind,
584 A moth of peace, and he go to the war,
585 The rites for which I love him are bereft me,
586 And I a heavy interim shall support
587 By his dear absence. Let me go with him.
Othello
588 Let her have your voices.
589 Vouch with me, heaven, I therefore beg it not
590 To please the palate of my appetite;
591 Nor to comply with heat,—the young affects
592 In me defunct,—and proper satisfaction;
593 But to be free and bounteous to her mind:
594 And heaven defend your good souls, that you think
595 I will your serious and great business scant
596 For she is with me: no, when light-wing'd toys
597 Of feather'd Cupid seel with wanton dullness
598 My speculative and offic'd instruments,
599 That my disports corrupt and taint my business,
600 Let housewives make a skillet of my helm,
601 And all indign and base adversities
602 Make head against my estimation!
Duke of Venice
603 Be it as you shall privately determine,
604 Either for her stay or going: the affair cries haste,
605 And speed must answer it.
First Senator
606 You must away to-night.
Othello
607 With all my heart.
Duke of Venice
608 At nine i' the morning here we'll meet again.—
609 Othello, leave some officer behind,
610 And he shall our commission bring to you;
611 With such things else of quality and respect
612 As doth import you.
Othello
613 So please your grace, my ancient,—
614 A man he is of honesty and trust,—
615 To his conveyance I assign my wife,
616 With what else needful your good grace shall think
617 To be sent after me.
Duke of Venice
618 Let it be so.—
619 Good night to everyone.—
[To Brabantio.]
Duke of Venice
620 And, noble signior,
621 If virtue no delighted beauty lack,
622 Your son-in-law is far more fair than black.
First Senator
623 Adieu, brave Moor; use Desdemona well.
Brabantio
624 Look to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see:
625 She has deceiv'd her father, and may thee.
[Exeunt Duke, Senators, Officers. &c.]
Othello
626 My life upon her faith!—Honest Iago,
627 My Desdemona must I leave to thee:
628 I pr'ythee, let thy wife attend on her;
629 And bring them after in the best advantage.—
630 Come, Desdemona, I have but an hour
631 Of love, of worldly matters and direction,
632 To spend with thee: we must obey the time.
[Exeunt Othello and Desdemona.]
Roderigo
633 Iago,—
Iago
634 What say'st thou, noble heart?
Roderigo
635 What will I do, thinkest thou?
Iago
636 Why, go to bed and sleep.
Roderigo
637 I will incontinently drown myself.
Iago
638 If thou dost, I shall never love thee after. Why, thou silly
639 gentleman!
Roderigo
640 It is silliness to live when to live is torment; and then
641 have we a prescription to die when death is our physician.
Iago
642 O villainous! I have looked upon the world for four times seven
643 years, and since I could distinguish betwixt a benefit and an
644 injury, I never found man that knew how to love himself. Ere I
645 would say I would drown myself for the love of a Guinea-hen, I
646 would change my humanity with a baboon.
Roderigo
647 What should I do? I confess it is my shame to be so fond,
648 but it is not in my virtue to amend it.
Iago
649 Virtue! a fig! 'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus.
650 Our bodies are gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners;
651 so that if we will plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and
652 weed up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it
653 with many, either to have it sterile with idleness or manured
654 with industry; why, the power and corrigible authority of this
655 lies in our wills. If the balance of our lives had not one scale
656 of reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness
657 of our natures would conduct us to most preposterous conclusions:
658 But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings,
659 our unbitted lusts; whereof I take this, that you call love, to
660 be a sect or scion.
Roderigo
661 It cannot be.
Iago
662 It is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the will.
663 Come, be a man: drown thyself! drown cats and blind puppies. I
664 have professed me thy friend, and I confess me knit to
665 thy deserving with cables of perdurable toughness; I could
666 never better stead thee than now. Put money in thy purse; follow
667 thou the wars; defeat thy favour with an usurped beard; I say,
668 put money in thy purse. It cannot be that Desdemona should long
669 continue her love to the Moor,—put money in thy purse,—nor he
670 his to her: it was a violent commencement, and thou shalt see an
671 answerable sequestration;—put but money in thy purse.—These
672 Moors are changeable in their wills:—fill thy purse with money:
673 the food that to him now is as luscious as locusts shall be to
674 him shortly as acerb as the coloquintida. She must change for
675 youth: when she is sated with his body, she will find the error
676 of her choice: she must have change, she must: therefore put
677 money in thy purse.—If thou wilt needs damn thyself, do it a
678 more delicate way than drowning. Make all the money thou canst;
679 if sanctimony and a frail vow betwixt an erring barbarian and a
680 supersubtle Venetian be not too hard for my wits and all the
681 tribe of hell, thou shalt enjoy her; therefore make money. A pox
682 of drowning thyself! it is clean out of the way: seek thou rather
683 to be hanged in compassing thy joy than to be drowned and go
684 without her.
Roderigo
685 Wilt thou be fast to my hopes, if I depend on the issue?
Iago
686 Thou art sure of me:—go, make money:—I have told thee
687 often, and I re-tell thee again and again, I hate the Moor: my
688 cause is hearted; thine hath no less reason. Let us be
689 conjunctive in our revenge against him: if thou canst cuckold
690 him, thou dost thyself a pleasure, me a sport. There are many
691 events in the womb of time which will be delivered. Traverse; go;
692 provide thy money. We will have more of this to-morrow. Adieu.
Roderigo
693 Where shall we meet i' the morning?
Iago
694 At my lodging.
Roderigo
695 I'll be with thee betimes.
Iago
696 Go to; farewell. Do you hear, Roderigo?
Roderigo
697 What say you?
Iago
698 No more of drowning, do you hear?
Roderigo
699 I am changed: I'll go sell all my land.
[Exit.]
Iago
700 Thus do I ever make my fool my purse;
701 For I mine own gain'd knowledge should profane
702 If I would time expend with such a snipe
703 But for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor;
704 And it is thought abroad that 'twixt my sheets
705 He has done my office: I know not if't be true;
706 But I, for mere suspicion in that kind,
707 Will do as if for surety. He holds me well,
708 The better shall my purpose work on him.
709 Cassio's a proper man: let me see now;
710 To get his place, and to plume up my will
711 In double knavery,—How, how?—Let's see:—
712 After some time, to abuse Othello's ear
713 That he is too familiar with his wife:—
714 He hath a person, and a smooth dispose,
715 To be suspected; fram'd to make women false.
716 The Moor is of a free and open nature,
717 That thinks men honest that but seem to be so;
718 And will as tenderly be led by the nose
719 As asses are.
720 I have't;—it is engender'd:—hell and night
721 Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.
[Exit.]

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Word definitions on hover

Notes

TLN 310archaic vocab
“no composition in these news”
'Composition' here means consistency or agreement. The Duke is saying that the conflicting dispatches do not hang together — the reports contradict one another and cannot all be believed.
TLN 316archaic vocab
“they jump not on a just account”
'Jump' means agree or tally exactly. 'Account' means reckoning or total. The Senator is saying that even though the numbers in the different dispatches do not match precisely, they all point to the same conclusion: the Turks are heading for Cyprus.
TLN 319historical topical
“bearing up to Cyprus”
Cyprus was the strategic gateway between the eastern Mediterranean and the Venetian trade routes. The Ottoman fleet advancing on it was the crisis that drives the entire first act, forcing Venice to dispatch Othello rather than deal with Brabantio's complaint first.
historical Cyprus and the Ottoman threat
TLN 332archaic vocab
“a pageant to keep us in false gaze”
A 'pageant' was a theatrical show or spectacle — here used figuratively for a deceptive performance. 'False gaze' means a misdirected look. The First Senator argues the fleet's move toward Rhodes is a feint to distract Venetian attention while the real target, Cyprus, is left unguarded.
TLN 351archaic vocab
“re-stem their backward course”
'Re-stem' means to steer back along the same route already sailed. The Messenger reports that after briefly heading toward Rhodes, the Ottoman fleet has reversed course and is now openly making for Cyprus — confirming the First Senator's analysis that Rhodes was a feint.
TLN 363historical topical
“the general enemy Ottoman”
The Duke calls the Turks the 'general enemy' — the enemy common to all Christendom. The Ottoman Empire was the great military power of the sixteenth-century eastern Mediterranean, and Venice had fought several wars against it for control of Aegean and eastern trade routes. The phrase frames the coming campaign as a defensive war for Christian Europe.
historical Cyprus and the Ottoman threat
TLN 378historical topical
“spells and medicines bought of mountebanks”
A 'mountebank' was a travelling charlatan who sold fake remedies from a raised platform ('banco', the Italian bench) in public squares. Brabantio accuses Othello of using love-potions and magic drugs purchased from such quacks to bewitch Desdemona — insisting that a white Venetian woman could not otherwise choose a man like Othello of her own free will.
TLN 384archaic vocab
“the bloody book of law you shall yourself read in the bitter letter”
The Duke is telling Brabantio that whoever committed this offence will be punished by the most severe reading of the law — the 'bitter letter,' meaning its harshest, most literal application. 'Bloody' intensifies the gravity; the Duke promises that not even his own son would be spared. The speech is ironic: the offender turns out to be Othello, whom Venice cannot now afford to lose.
TLN 399rhetorical device
“The very head and front of my offending hath this extent, no more”
'Head and front' is a doublet meaning the full extent, the utmost limit. Othello uses it to set strict boundaries on his confession: the worst thing he has done is marry Desdemona — nothing more, no witchcraft or coercion. The rhetorical tactic is to admit the charge bluntly and then define its scope before his accusers can expand it.
TLN 400rhetorical device
“Rude am I in my speech, and little bless'd with the soft phrase of peace”
Othello disclaims eloquence — 'rude' means rough or uneducated, not rude in the modern sense — and then delivers one of the most magnificent speeches in the play. This self-deprecating opening ('I am no orator') is itself a classical rhetorical device: occupatio, the tactic of denying one's skill in order to disarm the audience before demonstrating it.
TLN 402archaic vocab
“since these arms of mine had seven years' pith, till now some nine moons wasted”
'Pith' means strength or vigor (the pithy core of a plant or bone). Othello says that from the age of seven until nine months ago (nine moons), he has spent his life in active military service — which is why he says he lacks the polished speech of peacetime courtiers.
TLN 409archaic vocab
“a round unvarnish'd tale deliver”
'Round' means plain, direct, without rhetorical ornament. 'Unvarnished' means unpolished, undecorated — just the plain facts without embellishment. Othello promises a straightforward account, continuing the rhetorical strategy of appearing to abjure rhetoric.
TLN 415syntax grammar
“her motion blush'd at herself”
'Motion' here means impulse, desire, or stirring of the will — not physical movement. Brabantio is saying that Desdemona was so modest that her own emotions made her blush: even her inward desires were shy. This is his way of arguing that such a girl could never have acted boldly enough to choose a man like Othello on her own.
TLN 424historical topical
“with some mixtures powerful o'er the blood, or with some dram conjur'd”
'Mixtures powerful o'er the blood' are love-potions — drugs believed to inflame desire or alter the will. A 'dram' is a small measure of liquid medicine. Brabantio insists Othello used magic pharmcology to overcome Desdemona's resistance, because in his view no natural feeling could account for her choice.
TLN 437historical topical
“the Sagittary”
The Sagittary is the inn or house in Venice where Othello and Desdemona have been staying since their marriage. The name comes from Sagittarius, the archer constellation — probably the sign above the inn's door. It is named in the play's first scene as the place Iago sends Brabantio to find them.
TLN 444historical topical
“Ancient, conduct them”
'Ancient' is a military rank: a standard-bearer or ensign, the officer who carries a regiment's colours and ranks below a lieutenant. Iago's rank as Othello's ensign is central to the play: he was passed over for the lieutenancy (given to Cassio instead), and his fury at this slight is the root of his revenge.
TLN 459archaic vocab
“hair-breadth scapes i' the imminent deadly breach”
A 'hair-breadth scape' is an escape by the narrowest of margins — the width of a hair. 'Imminent deadly breach' means the immediate threat of a wall or fortification being broken open by the enemy. Othello is describing his life as a soldier full of narrow escapes from death in siege warfare.
TLN 463archaic vocab
“antres vast and deserts idle, rough quarries, rocks, and hills whose heads touch heaven”
'Antres' (from Latin 'antrum', cavern) means vast caves. 'Idle' means barren or desolate, not lazy. Othello is recounting the exotic landscapes of his travels — immense caves, empty wastelands, craggy quarries, and sky-scraping mountains — the kind of wonders that made Desdemona's 'greedy ear' hunger for more.
TLN 466historical topical
“the Cannibals that each other eat, the Anthropophagi, and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders”
'Anthropophagi' is the Greek word for man-eaters (anthropos = human, phagein = to eat). 'Men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders' were the Blemmyae — a legendary headless people with their faces on their chests — reported by ancient geographers and popularised in medieval travel writing. Both figures come from Pliny the Elder and were retold in Mandeville's Travels, a widely-read medieval account of exotic wonders.
TLN 476archaic vocab
“all my pilgrimage dilate”
'Dilate' means to expand or tell at length. 'Pilgrimage' is used figuratively for the whole journey of Othello's life — his travels, wars, and experiences. Desdemona asked him to unfold the whole story in full, not just by 'parcels' (fragments) as she had heard it before.
TLN 492rhetorical device
“This only is the witchcraft I have us'd”
Othello turns Brabantio's accusation of witchcraft back on itself: his only 'magic' was telling his story. The line is the climactic punchline of his entire speech — after three hundred lines of storytelling, he defines that very act of storytelling as his only charm. It reframes romantic love as something that is earned through mutual trust and shared experience.
TLN 506historical topical
“I do perceive here a divided duty”
Desdemona's 'divided duty' — owed to father versus husband — invokes the precise legal and social expectation of Elizabethan women, whose obedience was transferred from father to husband at marriage. Her argument that she owes Othello the same duty her mother showed her father is legally exact and socially conventional; what is radical is that she makes it in public, before the entire Venetian senate.
TLN 517archaic vocab
“I had rather to adopt a child than get it”
'Get' means to beget — to father a biological child. Brabantio bitterly says he would rather have adopted a child than begotten one, now that his biological daughter has defied and humiliated him by marrying Othello against his will.
TLN 523archaic vocab
“thy escape would teach me tyranny, to hang clogs on them”
A 'clog' was a heavy block of wood fastened to an animal's leg (or a prisoner's ankle) to prevent escape. Brabantio says Desdemona's elopement has taught him a lesson — if he had other daughters, he would now shackle them to prevent them running away. The image is deliberately dehumanizing, treating daughters like livestock to be penned in.
TLN 525archaic vocab
“Let me speak like yourself; and lay a sentence which, as a grise or step, may help these lovers”
The Duke asks permission to speak in Brabantio's own voice — to adopt the tone of a wise elder — and to 'lay a sentence', that is, offer a maxim or moral proverb. A 'grise' (also 'grece' or 'greese') is an archaic word for a step or stair. The Duke is proposing to use aphoristic wisdom as a stepping-stone toward reconciliation.
TLN 528rhetorical device
“When remedies are past, the griefs are ended by seeing the worst”
The Duke delivers his consolation in a series of rhyming couplets — a formal, sententious style that signals proverbial wisdom. The couplets shift the scene briefly into a more artificial register, which Brabantio then parodies by capping them with his own mocking couplets, showing that words cannot cure grief. The exchange is one of Shakespeare's sharpest demonstrations that political wisdom and personal pain do not speak the same language.
TLN 545rhetorical device
“the bruis'd heart was pierced through the ear”
Brabantio dismisses the Duke's string of consoling proverbs: words heard through the ears cannot reach a truly wounded heart. 'Pierced' carries the double sense of wounded and penetrated — he concedes that words can pierce, but insists they cannot reach the deeper injury already there. This is his sharpest line, and it effectively ends the personal dispute.
TLN 551archaic vocab
“content to slubber the gloss of your new fortunes”
'Slubber' means to smear, soil, or work carelessly — here, to tarnish. 'The gloss of your new fortunes' refers to the shine of Othello's recent happiness (his marriage). The Duke is asking Othello to put his new domestic bliss on hold and accept the roughness of an immediate military expedition to Cyprus.
TLN 555archaic vocab
“flinty and steel couch of war my thrice-driven bed of down”
A 'thrice-driven bed of down' is the softest possible feather-bed: 'driven' means the feathers have been blown or winnowed three times to remove the coarsest quills, leaving only the finest down. Othello says custom has made the hard soldier's bed feel as comfortable as the softest mattress — he is acclimatised to hardship.
TLN 556archaic vocab
“I do agnize a natural and prompt alacrity”
'Agnize' is a rare, Latinate word meaning to acknowledge or recognise in oneself. 'Alacrity' means eager readiness. Othello is saying he recognises and confirms in himself a natural, instinctive willingness for hardship — he is not just accepting the expedition reluctantly; it suits him.
TLN 580historical topical
“I saw Othello's visage in his mind”
Desdemona is saying she fell in love with who Othello is internally — his 'mind', his character, his valour — rather than with his appearance. This directly refutes the racist premise of Brabantio's charge that her attraction was unnatural because of Othello's face. Her line is the clearest statement in the play that she has made a free, reasoned, inward choice.
historical The 'Moor' on the Elizabethan stage
TLN 584archaic vocab
“A moth of peace, and he go to the war, the rites for which I love him are bereft me”
A 'moth of peace' is a useless, idle creature of peacetime — something that does nothing but consume (moths eat cloth). Desdemona says if she stays behind while Othello goes to war, she will be reduced to a pointless domestic creature, deprived of the 'rites' of marriage. 'Rites' means the full rights and intimacies of married life, including (for Elizabethan audiences) the conjugal relationship.
TLN 591archaic vocab
“the young affects in me defunct”
'Young affects' means youthful passions or desires. 'Defunct' means dead, extinguished. Othello is swearing before the senate that he does not want Desdemona's company on campaign to satisfy physical appetite; he says those young passions are dead in him. The claim sets up one of the play's tragic ironies: Iago will later exploit exactly the suspicion that Othello is too old and black for Desdemona to remain faithful.
TLN 625historical topical
“She has deceiv'd her father, and may thee”
This is Brabantio's parting warning to Othello, and it will become one of the most lethal lines in the play. Iago will later repeat it almost word for word (3.3) as 'evidence' that Desdemona's deception of her father proves her capacity to deceive her husband. Brabantio intends it as a bitter farewell; Iago will weaponise it as a psychological poison.
TLN 637archaic vocab
“I will incontinently drown myself”
'Incontinently' means immediately, without delay — not in the modern sense (lacking self-control, though that secondary meaning was also current). Roderigo's melodramatic announcement that he will drown himself at once is the cue for Iago's long speech reducing love to an affair of the will, designed to redirect Roderigo's money toward Iago's schemes.
TLN 650rhetorical device
“Our bodies are gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners”
Iago builds an extended metaphor (conceit) comparing the human body to a garden and the rational will to the gardener who decides what to plant. The argument sounds philosophically reasonable — reason should govern appetite — but Iago is weaponising it to convince Roderigo that love is mere appetite that can be redirected at will, so he should stop moping and start spending money on Iago's schemes.
TLN 658archaic vocab
“our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts”
'Unbitted' means unbridled — without the bit in the mouth that a rider uses to control a horse. 'Carnal stings' are the goads of physical desire. The metaphor extends the garden conceit into horsemanship: lust is an uncontrolled animal that reason must bridle. Iago is using conventional morality-sermon language to manipulate Roderigo.
TLN 665archaic vocab
“cables of perdurable toughness”
'Perdurable' means permanent, everlasting — from Latin perdurare, to endure to the end. Iago is telling Roderigo his friendship is bound to him by cables (ropes) of lasting toughness. The elaborate flattery is Iago's sales technique: bind Roderigo with promises of loyalty before picking his purse.
TLN 667archaic vocab
“defeat thy favour with an usurped beard”
'Favour' means face or appearance. 'Defeat' means to disfigure or unmake. 'Usurped beard' means a false, borrowed beard — a disguise. Iago is advising Roderigo to disguise himself (grow or wear a false beard) and follow the army to Cyprus, where Iago will manoeuvre him into Desdemona's orbit.
TLN 673archaic vocab
“as luscious as locusts shall be to him shortly as acerb as the coloquintida”
'Locusts' here are the sweet pods of the locust-tree (carob), a Mediterranean delicacy — not the insect. 'Acerb' means harshly bitter. 'Coloquintida' (also colocynth) is a wild gourd whose flesh is intensely bitter and was used as a purgative. Iago is predicting that Othello will tire of Desdemona: she who now tastes as sweet as carob will soon seem as bitter as a purgative drug.
TLN 689archaic vocab
“conjunctive in our revenge against him”
'Conjunctive' means joined together, united. Iago is proposing to Roderigo that they form a joint alliance of revenge against Othello. The word comes from Latin coniungere, to join. Iago has now given Roderigo two motivations — love for Desdemona and revenge against Othello — while his own driving motive remains hidden: professional resentment at being passed over for the lieutenancy.
TLN 690rhetorical device
“many events in the womb of time which will be delivered”
Iago uses the image of time as a pregnant woman carrying events not yet born. The metaphor is common in Renaissance writing, but here it is particularly apt: Iago is plotting events himself, which he intends to 'deliver' into the world — so the womb of time is, in effect, Iago's own scheming mind.
TLN 700rhetorical device
“Thus do I ever make my fool my purse”
Iago's first solo speech to the audience (a soliloquy) opens by stating his method plainly: he turns fools into his source of income. Addressing the audience directly in this way is the stage convention of the theatrical villain inherited from the morality play tradition — the character who steps outside the scene to confide in the crowd.
historical The Stage Machiavel
TLN 710archaic vocab
“to plume up my will in double knavery”
'Plume up' means to preen or gratify — as a bird smooths and admires its own feathers. Iago is saying he will satisfy and inflate his ego through 'double knavery': scheming against both Othello (via jealousy) and Cassio (via the plot to disgrace him). The image of self-preening fits Iago's theatrical vanity — he admires his own cleverness.
TLN 716rhetorical device
“The Moor is of a free and open nature, that thinks men honest that but seem to be so; and will as tenderly be led by the nose as asses are”
Iago identifies Othello's openness and trust as the exact vulnerability he will exploit. 'Free and open nature' is not a compliment in Iago's mouth: it is a diagnosis of exploitable naivety. The simile 'led by the nose as asses are' dehumanises Othello while revealing Iago's method — not violence but manipulation of trust. The speech is a precise blueprint for the entire subsequent tragedy.
historical The Stage Machiavel
TLN 720rhetorical device
“hell and night must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light”
Iago ends his soliloquy — and the whole act — with an image of his plan as a monstrous pregnancy that hell and darkness must deliver into the light of day. The 'monstrous birth' language echoes the womb-of-time metaphor just used and frames Iago's scheme as something unnatural and diabolical. The couplet gives the scene a theatrically ominous close.