William Shakespeare: Othello, Moor of Venice

ACT I. 3. SCENE III. Venice. A council chamber. (continued)

BRABANTIO.
So let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile;
We lose it not so long as we can smile;
He bears the sentence well, that nothing bears
But the free comfort which from thence he hears;
But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow
That, to pay grief, must of poor patience borrow.
These sentences, to sugar or to gall,
Being strong on both sides, are equivocal:
But words are words; I never yet did hear
That the bruis'd heart was pierced through the ear.--
I humbly beseech you, proceed to the affairs of state.

DUKE.
The Turk with a most mighty preparation makes for Cyprus.--
Othello, the fortitude of the place is best known to you; and
though we have there a substitute of most allowed sufficiency,
yet opinion, a sovereign mistress of effects, throws a more safer
voice on you: you must therefore be content to slubber the gloss
of your new fortunes with this more stubborn and boisterous
expedition.

OTHELLO.
The tyrant custom, most grave senators,
Hath made the flinty and steel couch of war
My thrice-driven bed of down: I do agnize
A natural and prompt alacrity
I find in hardness; and do undertake
These present wars against the Ottomites.
Most humbly, therefore, bending to your state,
I crave fit disposition for my wife;
Due reference of place and exhibition;
With such accommodation and besort
As levels with her breeding.

DUKE.
If you please,
Be't at her father's.

BRABANTIO.
I'll not have it so.

OTHELLO.
Nor I.

DESDEMONA.
Nor I. I would not there reside,
To put my father in impatient thoughts,
By being in his eye. Most gracious duke,
To my unfolding lend a gracious ear;
And let me find a charter in your voice
To assist my simpleness.

DUKE.
What would you, Desdemona?