Page 1504 - Shakespeare - Vol. 3

OTHELLO

Not?

DESDEMONA
No, faith, my lord.

OTHELLO
That’s a fault: that handkerchief
Did an Egyptian to my mother give,

She was a charmer, and could almost read [55]
The thoughts of people; she told her, while she kept it
’Twould make her amiable, and subdue my father
Entirely to her love: but if she lost it,
Or made a gift of it, my father’s eye

Should hold her loathly, and his spirits should hunt [60]
After new fancies: she dying, gave it me,
And bid me, when my fate would have me wive,

To give it her; I did so, and take heed on’t,
Make it a darling, like your precious eye,
To lose, or give’t away, were such perdition [65]
As nothing else could match.

DESDEMONA
Is ’t possible?

OTHELLO
’Tis true, there’s magic in the web of it;

A sibyl, that had number’d in the world
The sun to make two hundred compasses,
In her prophetic fury sew’d the work; [70]

The worms were hallow’d that did breed the silk,
And it was dyed in mummy, which the skilful
Conserve of maidens’ hearts.

DESDEMONA
I’ faith, is ’t true?

OTHELLO