MESSENGER. The Ottomites, reverend and gracious, Steering with due course toward the isle of Rhodes, Have there injointed them with an after fleet. 

FIRST SENATOR. Ay, so I thought. How many, as you guess? 

MESSENGER. Of thirty sail, and now they do re-stem Their backward course, bearing with frank appearance Their purposes toward Cyprus. Signior Montano, Your trusty and most valiant servitor, With his free duty recommends you thus, And prays you to believe him. 

DUKE. ’Tis certain, then, for Cyprus. Marcus Luccicos, is not he in town? 

FIRST SENATOR. He’s now in Florence. 

DUKE. Write from us to him; post-post-haste dispatch. 

FIRST SENATOR. Here comes Brabantio and the valiant Moor. 

 Enter Brabantio, Othello, Iago, Roderigo and Officers.

Brabantio, Othello, Iago, Roderigo

DUKE. Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you Against the general enemy Ottoman. [To Brabantio.] I did not see you; welcome, gentle signior, We lack’d your counsel and your help tonight. 

BRABANTIO. So did I yours. Good your grace, pardon me. Neither my place, nor aught I heard of business Hath rais’d me from my bed, nor doth the general care Take hold on me; for my particular grief Is of so flood-gate and o’erbearing nature That it engluts and swallows other sorrows, And it is still itself. 

DUKE. Why, what’s the matter? 

BRABANTIO. My daughter! O, my daughter! 

DUKE and SENATORS. Dead? 

BRABANTIO. Ay, to me. She is abused, stol’n from me, and corrupted By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks; For nature so preposterously to err, Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense, Sans witchcraft could not. 

DUKE. Whoe’er he be, that in this foul proceeding, Hath thus beguil’d your daughter of herself, And you of her, the bloody book of law You shall yourself read in the bitter letter, After your own sense, yea, though our proper son Stood in your action. 

 Prev. P 10/96 next