DESDEMONA
What wouldst thou write of me, if thou shouldst
praise me?
IAGO
O gentle lady, do not put me to't;
For I am nothing, if not critical.
DESDEMONA
Come on assay. There's one gone to the harbour?
IAGO
Ay, madam.
DESDEMONA
I am not merry; but I do beguile
The thing I am, by seeming otherwise.
Come, how wouldst thou praise me?
IAGO
I am about it; but indeed my invention
Comes from my pate as birdlime does from frize;
It plucks out brains and all: but my Muse labours,
And thus she is deliver'd.
If she be fair and wise, fairness and wit,
The one's for use, the other useth it.
DESDEMONA
Well praised! How if she be black and witty?
IAGO
If she be black, and thereto have a wit,
She'll find a white that shall her blackness fit.
DESDEMONA
Worse and worse.
EMILIA
How if fair and foolish?
IAGO
She never yet was foolish that was fair;
For even her folly help'd her to an heir.
DESDEMONA
These are old fond paradoxes to make fools laugh i'
the alehouse. What miserable praise hast thou for
her that's foul and foolish?
IAGO
There's none so foul and foolish thereunto,
But does foul pranks which fair and wise ones do.