The Duke and other members of his counsel are moved by the speech, but Brabanzio is not convinced. He wants to hear what Desdemona has to say for herself. Desdemona explains that she has a divided duty (180). She respects her father and owes him for raising her, but she also has a duty to serve her husband Othello just as Brabanzio’s wife had a duty to serve Brabanzio. During the Middle Ages and continuing on into the Renaissance, a daughter was frequently viewed as the property of the father until she was married. And then she was the property of her husband. But (as one can see in Romeo and Juliet), the father had the right to choose a husband for his daughter. Desdemona had not received the permission of Brabanzio to get married, and Brabanzio is extremely angry.
Brabanzio, more or less, disowns his daughter. He tells Othello that he can have her even though Brabanzio does not like the situation (191-94). And he tells Desdemona that he is happy that he does not have any other children, for he would never trust any of them. He says that he would “hang clogs” on them if he did have other children (197). A clog is a block of wood that would be tied to the legs of prisoners so that they could not run away. In other words, Brabanzio is stating that he should have tied up or chained Desdemona so that she would not have been able to run away with Othello.
The Duke, well aware of Brabanzio’s anger and sense of disappointment, attempts to advise Brabanzio. The Duke wants to reconcile Brabanzio to Othello and Desdemona, he wants them to become friendly to one another. And, so, the Duke tries to propose a moral or lesson (sentence in line 198) to be learned from the experience. The reader should also note here that Shakespeare switches poetic styles from blank verse to rhymed couplets (beginning in line 201: ended-depended, takes-makes, thief-grief, and so on). The change draws the audience’s attention to a slight digression on the topic of impartial (or objective) advice.
The Duke asserts the following:
To mourn a mischief that is past and gone Is the next way to draw new mischief on.
(203-04)
The Duke is advising Brabanzio that there is nothing else he can do about this situation; there is no remedy (201). Therefore, the Duke suggests that Brabanzio should just accept the situation and stop being so angry about it. He adds that being angry will just add to the problem. It will just make it worse.
The Duke then describes the problem and solution in more philosophical terms. He notes that the only way to overcome the problems brought on by destiny or fate (fortune in line 205) is through the use of Patience. The Duke uses personification here for both Fortune and Patience. The Duke is telling Brabanzio to be calm or just smile in the face of his problem. That is the way to defeat the injuries or harms that Fortune brings. In other words, the Duke is telling Brabanzio to just accept the marriage and not be bothered by it. The Duke tells Brabanzio simply to smile in the midst of his trouble.
Brabanzio, though, does not find the Duke’s advice useful at all. And, to show the Duke how ridiculous the advice is, Brabanzio (in a splendid example of verbal irony) advises the Duke to do the same regarding the Turkish invasion of Cyprus:
So let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile,
We lose it not so long as we can smile. (209-10)
The word beguile here means to cheat or steal. Thus, Brabanzio is saying this: So, we should allow the Turks to steal Cyprus from us; as long as we smile, the loss of Cyprus will not matter to us.
Brabanzio then proceeds to explain that the objective observer (someone who is not directly involved the situation and who does not feel the emotions that accompany that situation) can easily accept such sayings or morals and believe that they are easy to follow. But when a person is in the same situation, he will find that the advice is difficult or perhaps even impossible to follow. Brabanzio knows that the Duke would never follow his own advice regarding Cyprus, and he is telling the Duke that he cannot follow the advice regarding the marriage for the same reason.
This passage is another fine example of Shakespeare illustrating the Reason vs. Emotion Conflict. The objective or detached person may think or know that his advice is reasonable, but one cannot always follow reasonable advice when the emotions are involved. Brabanzio is experiencing many emotions: anger, disappointment, sadness, loss. He cannot simply smile away those emotions. Nor could the Duke smile away similar emotions if he should lose Cyprus.
Brabanzio sums up his argument with the following:
But words are words. I never yet did hear
That the bruised heart was pierced through the ear.
(217-18)
In this line, the word pierced means cured (a boil or cyst might be cured by lancing it, by piercing it with a needle). Thus, Brabanzio is saying that a broken heart cannot be cured by words or that sorrow cannot be relieved by words. Shakespeare, perhaps the greatest poet of all time, certainly understood the power of words. But even more so, Shakespeare understood the power of emotions. Time and again, Shakespeare expresses the belief that emotions are more powerful than reason.