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.
Desdemona
O heavy ignorance! thou praisest the worst best. But what praise couldst thou bestow on a deserving woman indeed, one that, in the authority of her merit, did justly put on the vouch of very malice itself?
Iago
Had tongue at will and yet was never loud,
Never lack’d gold and yet went never gay,
Fled from her wish and yet said “Now I may,”
She that being anger’d, her revenge being nigh,
Bade her wrong stay and her displeasure fly,
She that in wisdom never was so frail
To change the cod’s head for the salmon’s tail;
She that could think and ne’er disclose her mind,
See suitors following and not look behind,
She was a wight, if ever such wight were—