Chapter 1

following injunction:

I most go seek some dewdrops here And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear. _Midsummer Night's Dream_, Act ii, sc. 1. First Folio, "Comedies", p. 148, col. A, line 38.

And later still we have the lines:

That same dew, which sometime on the buds Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls. _Midsummer Night's Dream_, Act iv, sc. 1. "Comedies", p. 157, col. B, line 10.

The pearl as a simile for great and transcendent value, perhaps suggested by the Pearl of Great Price of the Gospel, is used of Helen of Greece in the lines (_Troilus and Cressida_, Act ii, sc. 2):

She is a pearl Whose price hath launch'd above a thousand ships. At end of "Histories", page unnumbered (p. 596 of facsimile), Col. A, line 19.

This being an allusion to the Greek fleet sent out under Agamemnon and Menelaus to bring back the truant wife from Troy. The idea of a supremely valuable pearl is also apparent in the lines embraced in Othello's last words before his self-immolation as an expiation of the murder of Desdemona, where he says of himself:[1]

Whose hand Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away Richer than all his tribe. _Othello_, Act v, sc. 2. "Tragedies", p. 338, col. B, line 53.

[Footnote 1: For a Venetian tale that may have suggested these lines to Shakespeare, see the present writer's "The Magic of Jewels and Charms", Philadelphia and London, 1915, p. 393. The text of the First Folio gives "Iudean", instead of "Indian".]

Although the term "Orient pearl" is that used by Shakespeare, and undoubtedly many of the older pearls of his day were really of Cinghalese or Persian origin, the principal source of supply was then the Panama fishery discovered by the Spaniards about a century earlier and actively exploited by them.[2] However, through the old inventories made by experts familiar with the real sources of precious stones and pearls--though not always correctly with those of the latter--the term "Orient pearl" came in time to denote one of fine hue, so that the "orient" of a pearl is still spoken of as signifying a sheen of the first quality.

[Footnote 2: On the pearls brought to Europe from both North and South America in Shakespeare's time, see the writer's "Gems and Precious Stones of North America", New York, 1890, pp. 240-257; 2d. ed., 1892.]

Many fine pearls of the fresh-water variety, not the marine pearls, were found in the Scotch rivers. It was these that are mentioned as having been obtained by Julius Cæsar to ornament a buckler which he dedicated to the shrine of the Temple of Venus Genetrix. It was also this type of pearl that was so eagerly sought by the late Queen Victoria when she visited Scotland. Many of these pearls exist in old, especially in ecclesiastical jewelry, and several are in the Ashburnham missal now in the J. Pierpont Morgan library.[3]

[Footnote 3: See "The Book of the Pearl", by George Frederick Kunz and Charles Hugh Stevenson, New York, 1908, colored plate opposite p. 16.]

Of the glowing ruby Shakespeare seems to have known little, since he uses its name only in the conventional way to signify a bright or choice shade of red. In _Measure for Measure_ (Act ii, sc. 4) the "impression of keen whips" produced ruby streaks on the skin; even more materialistic is the nose "all o'er embellished with rubies, carbuncles and sapphires" (_Comedy of Errors_, Act iii, sc. 2). The common employment of the designation carbuncle for a precious stone and also for a boil was usual from ancient times. At least, we might gather from this passage that the poet was aware of the distinction between ruby and carbuncle (pyrope garnet). Rubies as "fairy favors" is a dainty mention in the fairy drama _Midsummer Night's Dream_ (Act ii, sc. 1). Cæsar's wounds "ope their ruby lips" (_Julius Cæsar_, Act iii, sc. 1). Macbeth speaks of the "natural ruby of your cheeks", in addressing his wife at the apparition of Banquo's ghost; with her this is unchanged, while with him terror or remorse has blanched it (_Macbeth_, Act iii, sc. 4). Lastly, the term "ruby lips", so often used by poets, is employed by Shakespeare with consummate art in _Cymbeline_ (Act ii, sc. 2) where he writes:

But kiss; one kiss! Rubies unparagon'd, How dearly they do't. First Folio, "Tragedies", p. 376, col. B, line 18.

The "rubies" of the poet's time were frequently ruby spinels, or the so-called "balas rubies" from Badakshan, in Afghan Turkestan. The most noted one in the England of that period was probably the one said to have been given to Edward the Black Prince by Pedro the Cruel of Castile, after the battle of Najera, in 1367, and now the most prized adornment of the English Crown, excepting the great historic diamond, the Koh-i-nûr. The immense Star of South Africa, weighing 531 metric carats, five times the weight of the Koh-i-nûr, is intrinsically worth much more, but lacks the manifold dramatic and historic associations of its Indian sister.

Strange to say, the beautiful sapphire is only twice named by Shakespeare, once as an adjunct to the pearl in embroidery (_Merry Wives of Windsor_, Act v, sc. 5). The single mention of chrysolite is much more impressive:

If heaven would make me such another world, Of one entire and perfect chrysolite! _Othello_, Act v, sc. 2. "Tragedies", p. 337, col. A, line 5.

Chrysolite (peridot, or olivine) was regarded in Shakespeare's time and earlier as of exceptional rarity. The fine peridots of the Chapel of the Three Kings in Cologne Cathedral were believed to be emeralds of extraordinary size and were once valued at $15,000,000, although they are really worth barely $100,000; some of them are more than an inch in diameter. Whence they came is uncertain, but it is probable that they were brought from the East at some time during the Crusades. Indeed the origin of the fine peridots of the Middle Ages is shrouded in mystery; they are, however, believed to have been found in one or more of the islands in the Red Sea. In our day a number of specimens have been discovered on the small island of St. John in that sea; the deposit here is a jealously-guarded monopoly of the Egyptian Government. Peridots have also been found at Spyrget Island, in the Arabian Gulf. The most remarkable source of gem-material of this stone is meteoric, a few gems weighing as much as a carat each having been cut out of some yellowish-green peridot obtained by the writer from the meteoric iron of Glorieta Mountain, New Mexico.

That a turquoise, presumably set in a ring, was given to Shylock by Leah before their marriage, perhaps at their betrothal, is all that Shakespeare has found occasion to write of this pretty stone, one of the earliest used for adornment in the world's history, as the great mines of Nishapur, in Persia, and those of the Sinai Peninsula were worked at a very early time, the latter by the Egyptians as far back as 4000 B.C. With the opal, the poet has seized upon its most characteristic quality, its changeableness of hue, where he says in _Twelfth Night_ (Act ii, sc. 4): "Thy mind is a very opal".

A luminous ring is poetically described in one of Shakespeare's earliest plays, _Titus Andronicus_, written in or about 1590. The lines referring to the ring are highly expressive. After the murder of Bassianus, Martius searches in the depths of a dark pit for the dead body, and suddenly cries out to his companion Quintus that he has discovered the bloody corpse. As the interior of the pit is pitch dark, Quintus can scarcely believe what he hears, and he asks Martius how the latter could possibly see what he has described. The answer is given in the following lines:

Upon his bloody finger he doth wear A precious ring, that lightens all the hole, Which, like a taper in some monument, Doth shine upon the dead man's earthy cheeks, And shows the ragged entrails of the pit. _Titus Andronicus_, Act ii, sc. 3. First Folio, "Tragedies", p. 38, col. B, lines 53-57.

This certainly was suggested by the common belief in naturally luminous stones, a belief partly due to a superstitious explanation of the ruddy brilliancy of rubies and garnets as resulting from a hidden fire in the stone, and partly, perhaps, to the occasional observation of the phenomena of phosphorescence or fluorescence in certain precious stones.

It will have been seen that the text of Shakespeare's plays gives no evidence tending to show any greater familiarity with precious stones than could be gathered from the poetry of his day, and from his intercourse with classical scholars, such as Francis Bacon, Ben Jonson, and others of those who formed the unique assemblage wont to meet together at the old Mermaid Tavern in London. That a diamond could cost 2000 ducats ($5000), a very large sum in Shakespeare's time, is noted in one of his earliest plays, the _Merchant of Venice_ (Act iii, sc. 1), and the following injunction emphasizes the great value of a fine diamond:

Set this diamond safe In golden palaces, as it becomes. _I Henry VI_, Act v, sc. 3. "Histories", p. 116, col. B, line 54.

In _Pericles_ we read (Act iii, sc. 2):

The diamonds of a most praisèd water Do appear, to make the world twice rich. Third Folio, 1664, p. 7, col. B, line 38; separate pagination.

In Shakespeare's time but few of the world's great diamonds were in Europe, though two, at least, were in his native country. All of them must have been of East Indian origin, as this was before the discovery of the Brazilian mines (1728). In 1547, Henry VIII of England bought of the Fuggers of Augsburg--the great money-lending bankers and jewel setters, or royal pawnbrokers, who generally sold or forced some jewels upon those who obtained a loan--the jewel of Charles the Bold, called the "Three Brethren", from three large balas-rubies with which it was set; the central ornament was a "great pointed diamond"; of its weight nothing is known. This jewel was lost by Duke Charles on the field of Granson, March 2, 1476, where it was secured by the Swiss victors; it was eventually bought by the Fuggers. The other fine English diamond was that known as the Sancy, weighing 53-3/4 carats (55.23 metric carats), acquired by James I from Nicholas Harley de Sancy, in 1604, for 500,000 crowns. This is also stated to have belonged to Charles the Bold. In 1657 it was redeemed by Cardinal Mazarin, after having been pledged for a loan by Queen Henrietta Maria, and at Mazarin's death, in 1661, was bequeathed, with his other diamonds, to the French Crown. After passing through many vicissitudes, it has recently come into the possession of Baron Astor of Hever (William Waldorf Astor).

There is a possibility that the Florentine diamond of 133-22/32 carats (137.27 metric carats) was already owned by the grand-ducal house of Tuscany before Shakespeare's death, but the earliest notice of it appears to be that given by Fermental, a French traveller, who saw it in Florence in 1630. The other great diamonds of former days are of more recent date. The Regent of 136-7/8 carats (140.64 metric carats), found in India about 1700, was acquired by the Duke of Orleans in 1717; the Orloff (194-3/4 old carats = 199.73 metric carats) was bought by Prince Orloff for Catherine II, in 1775, for 1,400,000 Dutch florins, or about $560,000. The famous Koh-i-nûr, weighing 186-1/16 carats (191.1 metric carats) in its old cutting, came to Europe, as a gift to Queen Victoria from the East India Company, only in 1850; although, if it be the same as the great diamond taken by Humayun, son of Baber, at the battle of Paniput, April 21, 1526, its history dates back at least to 1304, when Sultan Ala-ed-Din took it from the Sultan of Malva, whose family had already owned it for generations.

As fresh-colored lips are likened to rubies, so it is said of a bright eye, that it "would emulate the diamond" (_Merry Wives of Windsor_,