2223TLN 2223: mummy,

The handkerchief has traditionally been assumed to be white silk dotted with embroidered red strawberries, and scholars have explored at length the ocular impacts and symbolic dimensions of this crucial prop. The most influential of these readings has been Lynda Boose's association of the handkerchief's red-spotted whiteness with blood-stained bridal sheets ("Othello's Handkerchief"). However, Ian Smith's recent observation that cloth dyed in a bituminous liquid would likely darken has raised the possibility of a brownish or black handkerchief and thus unsettled what have become critical commonplaces about the play's symbolic shades and colors ("Othello's Black Handkerchief").