DESDEMONA
Alas, she has no speech.
IAGO
In faith, too much;
I find it still when I have list to sleep:
Marry, before your ladyship, I grant,
She puts her tongue a little in her heart,
And chides with thinking.
EMILIA
You have little cause to say so.
IAGO
Come on, come on; you are pictures out of doors,
Bells in your parlours, wild cats in your kitchens,
Saints in your injuries, devils being offended,
Players in your housewifery, and housewives in your beds.
DESDEMONA
O, fie upon thee, slanderer!
IAGO
Nay, it is true, or else I am a Turk:
You rise to play, and go to bed to work.
EMILIA
You shall not write my praise.
IAGO
No, let me not.
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 harbor?
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 prais'd! 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