That she should feel attracted by him must have seemed to outsiders like madness or the effect of sorcery. For, far from being of an inviting, forward, or coquettish nature Desdemona is represented as more than ordinarily reserved and modest. Her father calls her (i. 3):
"A maiden never bold;
Of spirit so still and quiet, that her motion
Blush'd at herself."
She has been brought up as a tenderly-nurtured patrician child in rich, happy Venice. The gilded youth of the city have fluttered around her daily, but she has shown favour to none of them, Therefore, her father says (i. 2):
"For I'll refer me to all things of sense,
If she in chains of magic were not bound,
Whether a maid so tender, fair, and happy,
So opposite to marriage, that she shunn'd
The wealthy curled darlings of our nation,
Would ever have, to incur a general mock,
Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom
Of such a thing as thou."
Shakespeare, who knew everything about Italy, knew that the Venetian youth of that period had their hair curled, and wore a lock down on the forehead.
Othello, on his part, at once feels himself strongly drawn to Desdemona. And it is not merely the fair, delicate girl in her that allures him. Had he not loved her, her only, with burning passion, he would never have married her; for he has the fear of marriage that belongs to his wild, freedom-loving nature, and he in no wise considers himself honoured and exalted by this connection with a patrician family. He is descended from the princes of his country (i. 2):
"I fetch my life and being
From men of royal siege;"
And he has shrunk from binding himself:
"But that I love the gentle Desdemona,
I would not my unhoused free condition
Put into circumscription and confine
For the sea's worth."
Truly there is magic in it—not the gross and common sorcery which the others believe in and suppose to have been employed— not the "foul charms" and "drugs or minerals that weaken motion," to which her father alludes—but the sweet, alluring magic by which a man and a woman are mysteriously enchained.