Текст книги "William Shakespeare: The Complete Works 2nd Edition"

Автор книги: William Shakespeare

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⌈A noise within⌉

MISTRESS OVERDONE What’s to do here, Thomas Tapster?

Let’s withdraw!

Enter the Provost and Claudio

POMPEY Here comes Signor Claudio, led by the Provost to prison. Exeunt Mistress Overdone and Pompey

CLAUDIO

Fellow, why dost thou show me thus to th’ world?

Bear me to prison, where I am committed.

PROVOST

I do it not in evil disposition,

But from Lord Angelo by special charge.

CLAUDIO

Thus can the demigod Authority

Make us pay down for our offence, by weight,

The bonds of heaven. On whom it will, it will;

On whom it will not, so; yet still ’tis just.

⌈Enter Lucio⌉

LUCIO

Why, how now, Claudio? Whence comes this restraint?

B. 3.1.515-4.1.65

Before revision there would have been no act-break and no song; the lines immediately following the song would also have been absent. The Duke’s soliloquies ‘He who the sword of heaven will bear’ and ‘O place and greatness’ have evidently been transposed in revision; in the original, the end of ‘O place and greatness’ would have led straight on to the Duke’s meeting with Isabella and then Mariana.

ESCALUS I am going to visit the prisoner. Fare you well.

DUKE Peace be with you. Exit Escalus

O place and greatness, millions of false eyes

Are stuck upon thee; volumes of report

Run with their false and most contrarious quest

Upon thy doings; thousand escapes of wit

Make thee the father of their idle dream,

And rack thee in their fancies.

Enter Isabella

Very well met.

What is the news from this good deputy?

ISABELLA

He hath a garden circummured with brick,

Whose western side is with a vineyard backed;

And to that vineyard is a planckèd gate,

That makes his opening with this bigger key.

This other doth command a little door

Which from the vineyard to the garden leads.

There have I made my promise

Upon the heavy middle of the night

To call upon him.

DUKE

But shall you on your knowledge find this way?

ISABELLA

I have ta‘en a due and wary note upon’t.

With whispering and most guilty diligence,

In action all of precept, he did show me

The way twice o’er.

DUKE

Are there no other tokens

Between you ’greed concerning her observance?

ISABELLA

No, none, but only a repair i’th’ dark,

And that I have possessed him my most stay

Can be but brief, for I have made him know

I have a servant comes with me along

That stays upon me, whose persuasion is

I come about my brother.

DUKE

’Tis well borne up.

I have not yet made known to Mariana

A word of this.—What ho, within! Come forth!

Enter Mariana

(To Mariana) I pray you be acquainted with this maid.

She comes to do you good.

ISABELLA I do desire the like.

DUKE (to Mariana)

Do you persuade yourself that I respect you?

MARIANA

Good friar, I know you do, and so have found it.

DUKE

Take then this your companion by the hand,

Who hath a story ready for your ear.

I shall attend your leisure; but make haste,

The vaporous night approaches.

MARIANA

Will’t please you walk aside.

⌈Exeunt Mariana and Isabella⌉

DUKE

He who the sword of heaven will bear

Should be as holy as severe,

Pattern in himself to know,

Grace to stand, and virtue go,

More nor less to others paying

Than by self-offences weighing.

Shame to him whose cruel striking

Kills for faults of his own liking!

Twice treble shame on Angelo,

To weed my vice, and let his grow!

O, what may man within him hide,

Though angel on the outward side!

How may likeness made in crimes

Make my practice on the times

To draw with idle spiders’ strings

Most ponderous and substantial things?

Craft against vice I must apply.

With Angelo tonight shall lie

His old betrothed but despised.

So disguise shall, by th’ disguised,

Pay with falsehood false exacting,

And perform an old contracting.

⌈Enter Mariana and Isabella⌉

Welcome. How agreed?

ISABELLA

She’ll take the enterprise upon her, father,

If you advise it.

OTHELLO

Othello was given before James I in the Banqueting House at Whitehall on I November 1604. Information about the Turkish invasion of Cyprus appears to derive from Richard Knolles’s History of the Turks, published no earlier than 30 September 1603, so Shakespeare probably completed his play some time between that date and the summer of 1604. It first appeared in print in a quarto of 1622; the version printed in the 1623 Folio is about 160 lines longer, and has over a thousand differences in wording. It seems that Shakespeare partially revised his play, adding, for example, Desdemona’s willow song (4.3) and building up Emilia’s role in the closing scenes. We base our text on the Folio as that seems to represent Shakespeare’s second thoughts.

Shakespeare’s decision to make a black man a tragic hero was bold and original: by an ancient tradition, blackness was associated with sin and death; and blackamoors in plays before Shakespeare are generally villainous (as is Aaron in Titus Andronicus). The story of a Moorish commander deluded by his ensign (standard-bearer) into believing that his young wife has been unfaithful to him with another soldier derives from a prose tale by the Italian Giambattista Cinzio Giraldi first published in 1565 in a collection of linked tales, Gli Ecatommiti (The Hundred Tales). Shakespeare must have read it either in Italian or in a French translation of 1584, he may have looked at both. Giraldi tells the tale in a few pages of compressed, matter-of-fact narrative interspersed with brief conversations. His main characters are a Moor of Venice (Othello), his Venetian wife (Desdemona), his ensign (Iago), his ensign’s wife (Emilia), and a corporal (Cassio) ‘who was very dear to the Moor’. Only Desdemona is named. Shakespeare’s invented characters include Roderigo, a young, disappointed suitor of Desdemona, and Brabanzio, Desdemona’s father, who opposes her marriage to Othello. Bianca, Cassio’s mistress, is developed from a few hints in the source. Shakespeare also introduces the military action between Turkey and Venice—infidels and Christians—which gives especial importance to Othello’s posting to Cyprus, a Venetian protectorate which the Turks attacked in 1570 and conquered in the following year. In the source, Othello and Desdemona are already happily settled into married life when they go to Cyprus; Shakespeare compresses the time-scheme and makes many changes to the narrative.

Othello, a great success in Shakespeare’s time, was one of the first plays to be acted after the reopening of the theatres in 1660, and since that time has remained one of the most popular plays on the English stage.

THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY

OTHELLO, the Moor of Venice

DESDEMONA, his wife

Michael CASSIO, his lieutenant

BIANCA, a courtesan, in love with Cassio

IAGO, the Moor’s ensign

EMILIA, Iago’s wife

A CLOWN, a servant of Othello

The DUKE of Venice

BRABANZIO, Desdemona’s father, a Senator of Venice

GRAZIANO, Brabanzio’s brother

LODOVICO, kinsman of Brabanzio

SENATORS of Venice

RODERIGO, a Venetian gentleman, in love with Desdemona

MONTANO, Governor of Cyprus

A HERALD

A MESSENGER

Attendants, officers, sailors, gentlemen of Cyprus, musicians

The Tragedy of Othello the Moor of Venice

1.1 Enter Iago and Roderigo

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.

IAGO ’Sblood, but you’ll not hear me!

If ever I did dream of such a matter, abhor me.

RODERIGO

Thou told’st me thou didst hold him in thy hate.

IAGO Despise me

If I do not. Three great ones of the city,

In personal suit to make me his lieutenant,

Off-capped 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 stuffed with epithets of war,

Nonsuits my mediators; for ‘Certes,’ says he,

‘I have already chose my officer.’

And what was he?

Forsooth, a great arithmetician,

One Michael Cassio, a Florentine,

A fellow almost damned 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 togaed consuls can propose

As masterly as he. Mere prattle without practice

Is all his soldiership; but he, sir, had th’election,

And I—of whom his eyes had seen the proof

At Rhodes, at Cyprus, and on other grounds

Christened and heathen—must be beleed and calmed

By debitor and creditor. This counter-caster,

He in good time must his lieutenant be,

And I—God bless the mark!—his Moorship’s ensign.

RODERIGO

By heaven, I rather would have been his hangman.

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 th’ first. Now, sir, be judge yourself

Whether I in any just term am affined

To love the Moor.

RODERIGO I would not follow him then.

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 followed. 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 naught but provender, and when he’s old,

cashiered.

Whip me such honest knaves. Others there are

Who, trimmed 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 ‘em, and when they have lined their

coats,

Do themselves homage. These fellows have some soul,

And such a one do I profess myself—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.

RODERIGO

What a full fortune does the thick-lips owe

If he can carry’t thus!

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 chances of vexation on’t

As it may lose some colour.

RODERIGO

Here is her father’s house. I’ll call aloud.

IAGO

Do, with like timorous accent and dire yell

As when, by night and negligence, the fire

Is spied in populous cities.

RODERIGO (calling)

What ho, Brabanzio, Signor Brabanzio, ho!

IAGO (calling)

Awake, what ho, Brabanzio, thieves, thieves, thieves!

Look to your house, your daughter, and your bags.

Thieves, thieves!

Enter Brabanzio in his nightgown at a window above

BRABANZIO

What is the reason of this terrible summons?

What is the matter there?

RODERIGO

Signor, is all your family within?

IAGO

Are your doors locked?

BRABANZIO

Why, wherefore ask you this?

IAGO

’Swounds, sir, you’re robbed. 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 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.

BRABANZIO What, have you lost your wits?

RODERIGO

Most reverend signor, do you know my voice?

BRABANZIO Not I. What are you?

RODERIGO My name is Roderigo.

BRABANZIO 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.

RODERIGO Sir, sir, sir.

BRABANZIO But thou must needs be sure

My spirits and my place have in their power

To make this bitter to thee.

RODERIGO

Patience, good sir.

BRABANZIO

What tell’st thou me of robbing? This is Venice.

My house is not a grange.

RODERIGO Most grave Brabanzio,

In simple and pure soul I come to you.

IAGO (to Brabanzio) ’Swounds, 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 jennets for germans.

BRABANZIO 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.

BRABANZIO

Thou art a villain.

IAGO

You are a senator.

BRABANZIO

This thou shalt answer. I know thee, Roderigo.

RODERIGO

Sir, I will answer 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’th’ 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,

Tying her duty, beauty, wit, and fortunes

In an extravagant and wheeling 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.

BRABANZIO (calling)

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!

Exit

IAGO Farewell,

for I must leave you.

It seems not meet nor wholesome to my place

To be producted—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 embarked

With such loud reason to the Cyprus wars,

Which even now stands 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 the raised search,

And there will I be with him. So farewell. Exit

Enter below Brabanzio in his nightgown, and

servants with torches

BRABANZIO

It is too true an evil. Gone she is,

And what’s to come of my despised time

Is naught but bitterness. Now, Roderigo,

Where didst thou see her?—O unhappy girl!—

With the Moor, sayst thou?—Who would be a

father?—

How didst thou know ’twas she?—O, she deceives me

Past thought!—What said she to you? (To servants)

Get more tapers,

Raise all my kindred.

⌈Exit one or more⌉

(To Roderigo) Are they married, think you?

RODERIGO Truly, I think they are.

BRABANZIO

O heaven, how got she out? O, treason of the blood!

Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters’ minds

By what you see them act. Is there not charms

By which the property of youth and maidhood

May be abused? Have you not read, Roderigo,

Of some such thing?

RODERIGO

Yes, sir, I have indeed.

BRABANZIO (to servants)

Call up my brother. (To Roderigo) O, would you had

had her.

(To servants) Some one way, some another.

⌈Exit one or more⌉

(To Roderigo) Do you know

Where we may apprehend her and the Moor?

RODERIGO

I think I can discover him, if you please

To get good guard and go along with me.

BRABANZIO

Pray you lead on. At every house I’ll call;

I may command at most. (Calling) Get weapons, ho,

And raise some special officers of night.

On, good Roderigo. I will deserve your pains. Exeunt

1.2 Enter Othello, Iago, and attendants with torches

IAGO

Though in the trade of war I have slain men,

Yet do I hold it very stuff o’th’ conscience

To do no contrived murder. I lack iniquity,

Sometime, to do me service. Nine or ten times

I had thought to’ve yerked him here, under the ribs.

OTHELLO

’Tis 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 assured of this:

That the magnifico is much beloved,

And hath in his effect a voice potential

As double as the Duke’s. He will divorce you,

Or put upon you what restraint or grievance

The law, with all his might to enforce it on,

Will give him cable.

OTHELLO

Let him do his spite.

My services which I have done the signory

Shall out-tongue his complaints. ’Tis yet to know—

Which, when I know that boasting is an honour,

I shall promu]gate—I fetch my life and being

From men of royal siege, and my demerits

May speak unbonneted to as proud a fortune

As this that I have reached. For know, Iago,

But that I love the gentle Desdemona

I would not my unhousèd free condition

Put into circumscription and confine

For the seas’ worth.

Enter Cassio and officers, with torches

But look, what lights come yond?

IAGO

Those are the raised father and his friends.

You were best go in.

OTHELLO Not I. I must be found.

My parts, my title, and my perfect soul

Shall manifest me rightly. Is it they?

IAGO By Janus, I think no.

OTHELLO

The servants of the Duke, and my lieutenant!

The goodness of the night upon you, friends.

What is the news?

CASSIO

The Duke does greet you, general,

And he requires your haste-post-haste appearance

Even on the instant.

OTHELLO

What is the matter, think you?

CASSIO

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, raised and met,

Are at the Duke’s already. You have been hotly called

for,

When, being not at your lodging to be found,

The senate sent about three several quests

To search you out.

OTHELLO

’Tis well I am found by you.

I will but spend a word here in the house

And go with you. Exit

CASSIO

Ensign, what makes he here?

IAGO

Faith, he tonight hath boarded a land-carrack.

If it prove lawful prize, he’s made for ever.

CASSIO

I do not understand.

IAGO

He’s married.

CASSIO

To who?

Enter Brabanzio, Roderigo, and officers, with lights

and weapons

IAGO

Marry, to—

Enter Othello

(To Othello) Come, captain, will you go?

OTHELLO Have with you.

CASSIO

Here comes another troop to seek for you.

IAGO

It is Brabanzio. General, be advised.

He comes to bad intent.

OTHELLO

Holla, stand, there!

RODERIGO (to Brabanzio)

Signor, it is the Moor.

BRABANZIO

Down with him, thief!

IAGO (drawing his sword)

You, Roderigo? Come, sir, I am for you.

OTHELLO

Keep up your bright swords, for the dew will rust ’em.

(To Brabanzio) Good signor, you shall more command

with years

Than with your weapons.

BRABANZIO

O thou foul thief, where hast thou stowed my

daughter?

Damned 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 shunned

The wealthy curled darlings of our nation,

Would ever have, t‘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 ’tis not gross in sense

That thou hast practised on her with foul charms,

Abused her delicate youth with drugs or minerals

That weakens motion. I’ll have’t disputed on.

’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.

(To officers) Lay hold upon him. If he do resist,

Subdue him at his peril.

OTHELLO

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. Whither will you that I go

To answer this your charge?

BRABANZIO

To prison, till fit time

Of law and course of direct session

Call thee to answer.

OTHELLO

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?

OFFICER (to Brabanzio) ’Tis true, most worthy signor.

The Duke’s in council, and your noble self,

I am sure, is sent for.

BRABANZIO

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 ’twere their own;

For if such actions may have passage free,

Bondslaves and pagans shall our statesmen be. Exeunt