Othello: Act 1

But he, as loving his own pride and purposes,
Evades them with a bombast circumstance,
Horribly stuffed with epithets of war,
And in conclusion,
Nonsuits my mediators.

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.

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.

...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 them; and when they have lined their coats,
Do themselves homage.

Though that his joy be joy,
Yet throw such chances of vexation on ’t
As it may lose some color.

If she be in her chamber or your house,
Let loose on me the justice of the state
For thus deluding you.

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
Sometimes to do me service. Nine or ten times
I had thought t’ have yerked him here under the ribs.

’Tis yet to know
(Which, when I know that boasting is an honor,
I shall promulgate) 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.

Judge me the world, if ’tis not gross in sense
That thou hast practiced 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.

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

I ran it through, even from my boyish days
To th’ very moment that he bade me tell it,
Wherein I spoke of most disastrous chances:
Of moving accidents by flood and field,
Of hairbreadth ’scapes i’ th’ imminent deadly breach,
Of being taken by the insolent foe
And sold to slavery...

But still the house affairs would draw her ⟨thence,⟩
Which ever as she could with haste dispatch
She’d come again, and with a greedy ear
Devour up my discourse.

These sentences to sugar or to gall,
Being strong on both sides, are equivocal.
But words are words.

I do agnize
A natural and prompt alacrity
I find in hardness, and do undertake
This present war against the Ottomites.