Witches' Brew

BRABANTIO

O thou foul thief, where hast thou stow'd my daughter?

Damn'd as thou art, thou hast enchanted her;

For I'll refer me to all things of sense,

If she in chains of magic were not bound,

Whether a maid so tender, fair and happy,

So opposite to marriage that she shunned

The wealthy curled darlings of our nation,

Would ever have, to incur a general mock,

Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom

Of such a thing as thou, to fear, not to delight.

Judge me the world, if 'tis not gross in sense

That thou hast practised on her with foul charms,

Abused her delicate youth with drugs or minerals

That weaken motion: I'll have't disputed on;

'Tis probable and palpable to thinking.

I therefore apprehend and do attach thee

For an abuser of the world, a practiser

Of arts inhibited and out of warrant.

Othello (Act I Scene 2)

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Thus the accusation by Desdemona’s father against Othello. How could the Moor win his bride unless he “hast enchanted her”? He has used “chains of magic” to bind her. He “hast practised on her with foul charms” and used “drugs or minerals.” And, overall, Othello is “an abuser of the world, a practiser/ Of arts inhibited and out of warrant.”

Brabantio later complains to the Duke of Venice about his daughter (Act I, Scene 3):

She is abused, stol'n from me, and corrupted

By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks;

For nature so preposterously to err,

Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense,

Sans witchcraft could not.

Othello counters that the only “witchcraft” he has used was telling Desdemona the story of his life and the adventures that he underwent. 

My story being done,

She gave me for my pains a world of sighs:

She swore, in faith, twas strange, 'twas passing strange,

'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful:

She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd

That heaven had made her such a man: she thank'd me,

And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,

I should but teach him how to tell my story.

And that would woo her. Upon this hint I spake:

She loved me for the dangers I had pass’d,

And I loved her that she did pity them.

This only is the witchcraft I have used.

The Duke wisely notes that Brabantio’s vouching 

is no proof,

Without more wider and more overt test

Than these thin habits and poor likelihoods

Of modern seeming do prefer against him.

 

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How often do people, when faced with an outcome they deplore, refuse to accept that a better story has won the day, insisting instead that their opponent has used underhanded methods to fool others? 

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Let’s move from 16th century Venice to 21st century America.

A Republican House candidate claimed Saturday that college education turns young people into “radical, leftist, hating-America atheists.”

“We know how important the youth are to our future because you can raise them the right way. You can work your butts off every day to put food on the table, send them off to college, and then what ends up happening?” said Christian Collins, a Republican candidate for Texas’ 8th Congressional district, at a rally just north of Houston at the Grace Woodlands church.

“They go off to college not knowing what they believe sometimes, and their teachers, their professors, try to deconstruct everything that you’ve taught them. And they go off with the college that you paid for and come out radical, leftist, hating-America atheists, and they don’t have any usable skills to get employed. And then they’re even more cynical.”*

Oh, those poor, innocent Desdemonas and Desdemonos, lured from their natural homegrown biases—if not by charms and minerals—then by the witchcraft of the coven of PhDs who inhabit the iniquitous dens of university halls!

That students in colleges around the country hear stories (and arguments and proofs) that touch their hearts and their minds, and so, freely, do take up liberal causes cannot be accepted by those who, as the Duke of Venice says, “vouch” without further proof that it can only be some sort of black magic that has been practiced on the vulnerable young.

*

Of course, there is no reason to trust this post. I spent over a third of the 20th century as a modern-day warlock.

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* https://news.yahoo.com/gop-house-candidate-says-college-015817343.html