> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://theparnassian.com/en/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Othello's Handkerchief in Shakespeare's Play and the Contradictions in Its Origin
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/otello-podaril-svoei-iunoi-zhene-vesma-skromnuiu-veshch-platok-s-vyshivkoi-dostavshiisia-emu-ot-materi-kotoryi-v-konechnom-schete-i-sygral-rokovuiu-rol-buduchi-podbroshennym-soratniku-r/
- Published: 2021-03-05T09:00:25.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T19:08:38.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Books, Observations, Mores

Othello gave his young wife a rather modest gift, an embroidered handkerchief that had come to him from his mother, which in the end played a fatal part, being planted on the jealous Moor's comrade as a token of infidelity. With this handkerchief everything is very far from simple. In one place in the play Othello says that the handkerchief was given to his mother by a gypsy woman, with the words that his father would love her for as long as she kept it. In another place he reports that the handkerchief was given to his mother by his father. Who, then, gave the handkerchief after all? Where did it come from in the first place? Shakespeare, in all likelihood, never thought about it himself. That the handkerchief is given after the wedding makes it, in effect, a gift belonging to the marriage ritual. But why is this gift made? And above all, what is the handkerchief's function? That is not clear.