Here the exceeding softness of Desdemona's temper is turned against her by Iago, so that it suddenly strikes Othello in a new point of view, as the inability to resist temptation; but to us who perceive the character as a whole, this extreme gentleness of nature is yet delineated with such exceeding refinement, that the effect never approaches to feebleness. It is true that _once_ her extreme timidity leads her in a moment of confusion and terror to prevaricate about the fatal handkerchief. This handkerchief, in the original story of Cinthio, is merely one of those embroidered handkerchiefs which were as fashionable in Shakspeare's time as in our own; but the minute description of it as "lavorato alla morisco sottilissimamente,"[52] suggested to the poetical fancy of Shakspeare one of the most exquisite and characteristic passages in the whole play. Othello makes poor Desdemona believe that the handkerchief was a talisman. There's magic in the web of it. A sibyl, that had numbered in the world The sun to make two hundred compasses, In her prophetic fury sew'd the work: The worms were hallowed that did breed the silk, And it was dyed in mummy, which the skilful Conserv'd of maidens' hearts. DESDEMONA. Indeed! is't true? OTHELLO. Most veritable, therefore look to't well. DESDEMONA. Then would to heaven that I had never seen it! OTHELLO. Ha! wherefore! DESDEMONA. Why do you speak so startingly and rash? OTHELLO. Is't lost,--Is't gone? Speak, is it out of the way? DESDEMONA. Heavens bless us! OTHELLO. Say you? DESDEMONA. It is not lost--but what an' if it were? OTHELLO. Ha! DESDEMONA. I say it is not lost. OTHELLO. Fetch it, let me see it. DESDEMONA. Why so I can, sir, but I will not now, &c. Desdemona, whose soft credulity, whose turn for the marvellous, whose susceptible imagination had first directed her thoughts and affections to Othello, is precisely the woman to be frightened out of her senses by such a tale as this, and betrayed by her fears into a momentary tergiversation. It is most natural in such a being, and shows us that even in the sweetest natures there can be no completeness and consistency without moral energy.[53] With the most perfect artlessness, she has something of the instinctive, unconscious address of her sex; as when she appeals to her father-- So much duty as my mother show'd To you, preferring you before her father, So much I challenge, that I may profess Due to the Moor, my lord. And when she is pleading for Cassio--