Original: Sir, I will answer any thing. But, I beseech you,
Modern: Sir, I’ll answer whatever you ask. But please,

Original: If’t be your pleasure and most wise consent,
Modern: If it’s what you want and you’ve wisely agreed to it,

Original: As partly I find it is, that your fair daughter,
Modern: Which I’m starting to think might be true, that your beautiful daughter,

Original: At this odd-even and dull watch o’ the night,
Modern: At this late and dreary hour of the night,

Original: Transported, with no worse nor better guard
Modern: Has run off with no other protection

Original: But with a knave of common hire, a gondolier,
Modern: Than a lowly servant for hire, a gondola driver,

Original: To the gross clasps of a lascivious Moor—
Modern: Into the crude embraces of a lustful Moor—

Original: If this be known to you and your allowance,
Modern: If you know about this and have given your permission,

Original: We then have done you bold and saucy wrongs;
Modern: Then we’ve been rude and disrespectful to you;

Original: But if you know not this, my manners tell me
Modern: But if you don’t know about this, good manners tell me

Original: We have your wrong rebuke. Do not believe
Modern: That you’re wrongly scolding us. Don’t think

Original: That, from the sense of all civility,
Modern: That I would abandon all sense of proper behavior

Original: I thus would play and trifle with your reverence:
Modern: And joke around or waste the time of a man I respect like you:

Original: Your daughter, if you have not given her leave,
Modern: Your daughter, if you haven’t given her permission,

Original: I say again, hath made a gross revolt;
Modern: I’m telling you again, has committed a disgusting rebellion;

Original: Tying her duty, beauty, wit and fortunes
Modern: Binding her family loyalty, beauty, intelligence, and wealth

Original: In an extravagant and wheeling stranger
Modern: To a wild and wandering foreigner

Original: Of here and every where. Straight satisfy yourself:
Modern: Who’s from nowhere in particular. Go check for yourself right now:

Original: If she be in her chamber or your house,
Modern: If she’s in her bedroom or anywhere in your house,

Original: Let loose on me the justice of the state
Modern: Then unleash the full punishment of the law on me

Original: For thus deluding you.
Modern: For deceiving you like this.

Act I, Scene i of Othello opens on a street in Venice at night, where Roderigo and Iago are in the middle of a heated argument. Roderigo is angry with Iago, whom he has been paying to help him court Desdemona, accusing him of withholding information about her recent secret marriage to Othello, the Moorish general in the Venetian military. Iago defends himself by expressing his own bitter resentment toward Othello, explaining that he was passed over for the position of lieutenant in favor of Cassio, a Florentine whom Iago dismisses as more of a bookish theorist than a practical soldier. Iago declares that he serves Othello only in appearance, for his own purposes, and not out of genuine loyalty, famously suggesting that he is not what he appears to be.

Iago then convinces Roderigo to help him stir up trouble by waking Brabantio, Desdemona’s father, and informing him of his daughter’s elopement with Othello. The two men shout up at Brabantio’s window in the night, delivering the news of his daughter’s marriage in crude and alarming terms, telling him that Desdemona has run off with Othello. Brabantio, initially dismissive, becomes increasingly distressed as he realizes that Desdemona is indeed missing from the house. He calls for lights and summons his household, and the scene closes with Brabantio in a state of agitation, preparing to search for his daughter and confront Othello.

Othello opens in Venice, where the Moorish general Othello has secretly married Desdemona, the daughter of the Venetian senator Brabantio. When Iago, Othello’s ensign who harbors deep resentment for being passed over for promotion in favor of Cassio, reveals this marriage to Brabantio, the senator accuses Othello of using witchcraft to seduce his daughter. However, when the Duke of Venice summons Othello to lead the Venetian forces against a Turkish invasion of Cyprus, Desdemona herself testifies that she married Othello willingly out of love. The Duke dismisses Brabantio’s charges, and Othello departs for Cyprus with Desdemona, Iago, and his officers.

Once in Cyprus, the Turkish fleet is destroyed by a storm, but Iago begins executing his plan for revenge. He manipulates Cassio into a drunken brawl that results in Cassio’s demotion, then convinces Cassio to seek Desdemona’s help in regaining Othello’s favor. Iago uses these innocent meetings between Desdemona and Cassio as evidence to plant seeds of jealousy in Othello’s mind, suggesting that his wife is having an affair with the former lieutenant. To strengthen his deception, Iago arranges for Othello to overhear him speaking suggestively with Cassio about Bianca, Cassio’s mistress, while Othello believes they are discussing Desdemona.

The manipulation reaches its climax when Iago obtains Desdemona’s handkerchief—Othello’s first gift to her—through his wife Emilia, who serves as Desdemona’s attendant. Iago plants the handkerchief in Cassio’s chambers and later shows it to Othello as proof of the affair. Consumed by jealousy and convinced of Desdemona’s infidelity, Othello smothers her in their bed. When Emilia discovers the murder, she reveals Iago’s treachery before he kills her. Othello, realizing he has murdered his innocent wife, stabs himself and dies beside Desdemona. Iago is arrested, Cassio is appointed to govern Cyprus, and Iago is taken away to face torture and execution for his crimes.