“Never!” shouted Brabantio. “Never would a maiden be so bold, to fall in love and marry something she feared to look upon. She would not have gone against her nature as such, without the Moor hid in her drink cunning mixtures to enchant her blood that wrought this imprudent judgment upon her. She’s enchanted by magic, I tell you.”

“Or his crashing huge cock!” offered the puppet Jones, who I had retrieved on my way out the door.

The doge said, “There is no proof of this.”

“No, I’ve seen it,” said I. “It swung out of his robe last week and nearly concussed the landlady’s dog.”

Another senator stood and spoke then. “Othello, speak, did you by indirect and conjured courses subdue and poison this young maid’s affections?”

“I beseech you, signors, send for the lady at my quarters, and let her speak of me before her father. If, after hearing her, you find me in foul report, then take not only my office, but my life, for I would give both gladly if I had sinned so.”

“Fetch Desdemona,” said the doge.

Othello nodded to Cassio, who sent a brace of soldiers to fetch Desdemona.

“Until she comes,” said Othello, “I do confess the vices of my blood, and that the lady doth dwell in my love, as I in hers, but not by enchantment. You know her father found favor in me, and oft did invite me to their home and question me for the story of my life. I spun it, even from my days as a boy, out to the room, and while Desdemona pretended to serve, she devoured my story with a greedy ear. Of moving accidents and hairbreadth escapes, of being sold into slavery, and my redemption from it, of my travels, from vast deserts to the mountains whose heads touch the sky, of cannibals and cutthroats, of battles I had fought, and pains that had been inflicted on me. My story done, she gave me for my troubles a world of sighs. She swore it was strange, ’twas passing strange, ’twas pitiful, ’twas wondrous pitiful, and she wished that she had not heard it, for with my story I had wooed her heart. She loved me for the dangers I had passed, and I loved her that she did pity them. This is the only witchcraft I have used.”

“I think this would win my daughter, too,” said the doge. “Good Brabantio, perhaps you should make the best of this situation—”

“Really, it was the storytelling and not the enormous willy?” I looked to my codpiece, which, under the circumstances, seemed a bit overstated. “Here she is,” said I, seeing Desdemona glide into the hall. “Let’s ask her.”

Brabantio waved Desdemona forward. “Let her speak. Destruction on my head if she confesses her part in this wooing. Tell them, daughter, to whom do you owe obedience?”