ello gears up to press his cause, bantering about the “heraldry of hands” and
finding her hand too “liberal,” “hot, hot and moist!” she interrupts him
( 3. 4. 36 – 37 , 45 ). Insisting that she “cannot speak of this,” she reminds him of
his “promise” and announces that she has “bid Cassio to come speak with
[him]” ( 3. 4. 46 , 48 ). What follows is an almost comic back-and-forth between
the two speakers and causes, with Othello insistently demanding “the hand-
kerchief!” “the handkerchief!” while his wife as insistently talks of Cassio
( 3. 4. 91 , 94 ). But what makes matters seriously worse is that Desdemona does
not simply counter Othello’s issue with an issue of her own; she treats his re-
quest with a dismissive insouciance. If on the side she is covering for the
handkerchief ’s loss (which she has noticed), her reactions nonetheless belittle
his demand as “a trick to put me from my suit” ( 3. 4. 86 ). It is in the face of
this emergent disregard that Othello produces the token’s past, weaving
“magic” into its “web” in order to make her “look to’t well,” as to him and to
his demand (3.4.75). His exotic story provides an explanatory context for his
interest, substituting for the “truth” he does not yet want to disclose and giv-
ing needed credence to an obsession which otherwise appears “startling” and
“rash.”
The exchange will reach no resolution; Desdemona holds her ground
until Othello exits in frustration, on an impassioned “ ’swounds!” ( 3. 4. 95 ). Yet
his representation of the handkerchief ’s “magic” subtly cues a transformation
in Desdemona at this moment, from a position of unstinting skepticism to a
loosened embrace of “wonder.” Before the exchange, she registers the hand-
kerchief ’s loss only to deny its import, imagining that if her “noble Moor”
were not“true of mind, and made of no such baseness / As jealous creatures
are,” that loss might put him to “ill thinking” ( 3. 4. 24 – 27 ). Whatever hints of
insecurity her hypothesis holds, her articulated resolve is to believe that Oth-
ello is inherently, even racially, incapable of jealousy and change, that “the sun
where he was born / Drew all such humours from him” ( 3. 4. 28 – 29 ). But after
Othello weaves his exotic explanation, she not only begins to question the
pertinence of his terms, whether they are “possible” and “true”; once he exits
she admits seeing what she “ne’er saw...before” and acknowledges newly
that there is “sure” “some wonder in this handkerchief ” ( 3. 4. 96 – 97 ). Regard-
less of whether she actually buys into the literal magic that Othello imposes
on the prop, she projects his “wonder” there, according it properties that, for
whatever reason, are worth “some” note. The magic Othello produces, then,
not only provides her terms for understanding and validating his reactions; it
also incites her to wonder herself, her naïve surety giving way to the possibil-
186 chapter seven