Page 1432 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

Even fall upon my life.

DUKE
Fetch Desdemona hither. [120]
Two or three attendants move towards the door.

OTHELLO
(To Iago)
Ancient, conduct them, you best know the place:

Exeunt Attendants and Iago.
And till she come, as faithful as to heaven
I do confess the vices of my blood,
So justly to your grave ears I’ll present

How I did thrive in this fair lady’s love, [125]
And she in mine.

DUKE
Say it, Othello.

OTHELLO
Her father lov’d me, oft invited me,
Still question’d me the story of my life,

From year to year; the battles, sieges, fortunes, [130]
That I have pass’d:
I ran it through, even from my boyish days,
To the very moment that he bade me tell it.

Wherein I spake of most disastrous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field; [135]
Of hair-breadth scapes i’ th’ imminent deadly breach;
Of being taken by the insolent foe;

And sold to slavery, and my redemption thence,
And with it all my travel’s history;
Wherein of antres vast, and deserts idle, [140]
Rough quarries, rocks and hills, whose heads touch heaven,

It was my hint to speak, such was the process:
And of the Cannibals, that each other eat;
The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders: this to hear [145]