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 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 frieze,
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.