William Shakespeare: Othello, Moor of Venice

ACT I. 1. SCENE I. Venice. A street. (continued)

IAGO.
I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the
Moor are now making the beast with two backs.

BRABANTIO.
Thou are a villain.

IAGO.
You are--a senator.

BRABANTIO.
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' 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. 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.

BRABANTIO.
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 from above.]

IAGO.
Farewell; for I must leave you:
It seems not meet nor wholesome to my place
To be produc'd,--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 embark'd
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.]