Iago and Roderigo Wake Brabantio

Scene summary

In a Venetian street, at night, before the house of Brabantio, Roderigo complains about Iago: Iago used his purse as if it were his own and knew everything without warning him. Iago replies that he hates Othello, the Moorish general he serves, because three nobles of the city went to ask Othello to name Iago lieutenant, and Othello chose Cassio, a man who never commanded troops in the field, while Iago, whose services Othello had seen at Rhodes and in Cyprus, was left only as ensign.

Iago explains to Roderigo why he serves Othello: calculation, not loyalty, after being passed over for the lieutenancy in favor of Cassio. He says there are servants who wear themselves out serving for a ration and others who only pretend to owe duty in order to profit, and that he belongs to the second kind: if he showed outwardly what he feels inside, he would hand his own heart over to the crows to be pecked. He then sends Roderigo to wake Desdemona's father, accuse the Moor in the street and spoil his joy.

The two shout under Brabantio's window that there are thieves, and Iago tells him that an old black ram is covering his white ewe, that is, that his daughter has run off with the Moor. Brabantio recognizes Roderigo, whom he had already forbidden to loiter around the house and told that his daughter was not for him, but, on hearing from Roderigo that the girl had been taken by a Moor, he orders lights and calls the servants. Iago steps away before the father comes down, because it does not suit him to be seen face to face with Othello: the State cannot spare the general in the Cyprus war, and so Iago says he must display the "flags and pennons of love", which are only signs. Brabantio leaves with servants after the runaway, and Roderigo offers to take him to the Moor.