Part 14

Tavernier saw a pearl in 1663 belonging to the Shah of Persia which was valued at 3200 tomans or about $320,000 of our money. It was very perfect, pear-shaped, and nearly three inches long. It is believed to have come from the ancient fishery at Catifa in Arabia. Even this great sum was exceeded by Pliny in his estimate of the pearl Cleopatra is said to have swallowed. He placed the value of that at $375,000. As the Shah's pearl was about three inches long, Cleopatra's must have been large enough to reflect on the story connected with it.

It is said Julius Cæsar presented a pearl valued at an equivalent of nearly $250,000 to Servilla the sister of Cato of Utica and mother of Marcus Junius Brutus. The pearl taken from the ear-drop of Caecilia Metella by Clodius to dissolve and drink in vinegar was valued at $40,000.

A large pear-shaped pearl weighing one thousand grains was found at the island of Margarita off the Colombian coast and given to Philip II. of Spain. Some reports say it was obtained in 1579; others give the date as 1560 and say it was presented to the monarch by Don Diego de Temes. It was valued then at something over $30,000, but Freco, the king's jeweller, said it might be worth twice to twenty times as much for such a gem was priceless. It was later known among the crown jewels as La Peregrina. Prior to this, a companion of Magellan reported having seen two pearls as large as hen's eggs in the possession of the Rajah of Borneo.

The pearl which Sir Thomas Gresham drank in his wine to Elizabeth of England is said to have been worth seventy-five thousand dollars. It was reported some years ago that the Queen of the Gambiers owned a pearl of extraordinary luster, as large as a pigeon's egg. There is a story that in 1779 a pearl weighing 2312 grains which cost in India $22,500, was offered for sale in St. Petersburg. It was called the sleeping lion because of its shape and must have been therefore a baroque.

The republic of Venice presented a pearl to Soliman The Magnificent, Sultan of Turkey, which was valued at $80,000, and Pope Leo X. bought one of a Venetian jeweller for $70,000. These sums make the prices of to-day seem insignificant and it is very probable that many of the pearls which brought such large amounts would not pass criticism now. Perhaps one reason for the scarcity of large pearls among those taken from the fisheries in this age is that many of them are classed as baroques or are not sufficiently fine and perfect to attract attention. They pass therefore among those considered unworthy of notice.

A brown pearl valued at $25,000 was exhibited by Marchisini of Florence at the Maritime International Exhibition at Naples in 1871. Among the Dudley pearls exhibited at the London Exhibition of 1872 was a necklace of exceptionally fine pearls valued at $150,000. The late Czar of Russia spent twenty-five years in collecting sufficient perfect Virgin pearls to form a necklace for his wife. The Countess Henckel owns a necklace of pearls which for value and associations is unrivalled. It is composed of three strands, each at one time being a separate and historical necklace. One was the famous necklace belonging to the Empress Eugénie which has been valued at £20,000; one known as "the necklace of the Virgin of Atokha," formerly owned by a member of the Spanish nobility, the third belonged to the ex-Queen of Naples. For value this is exceeded by a single strand necklace of large pearls lately bought by a western millionaire of the United States. It is composed of thirty-seven pearls ranging from eighteen to fifty-two and three-quarter grains each, the latter being the largest central pearl. The combined weight of the pearls is 979-3/4 grains and the value is given at $400,000.

A very beautiful and nearly perfect pear-shaped pearl was found on the north-east coast of Australia in the seventies. It weighed 159 grains. There is a pearl about the size of a pigeon's egg in the French crown jewels, valued at $8,000. Many fine pearls, especially black or colored, have been found on the Mexican coast during the last twenty-five years, among them a black pearl of 162 grains and another of 108 grains, a white pear-shape weighing 176 grains, an oval of 128 grains, and three weighing 300 grains, 180 grains and 372 grains respectively, the first two being found in the same year.

In the World's Fair in Paris, 1889, seven black pearls from this district, valued at $22,000 were exhibited. These and others are described in "Gems and Precious Stones" by Kunz. No fresh-water pearl has attained an equal notoriety with the Queen pearl found at Notch Brook near Paterson, New Jersey, in 1857. It weighed 93 grains and was sold to the Empress Eugénie.

Another round pearl of 400 grains, ruined by boiling, had it been properly extracted from the mussel, would probably have been the finest and most notable pearl of this age, though another as large as a pigeon's egg, dropped from the mollusk and lost when the shell was opened, might have rivalled it. The finder was wading in a stream in Ohio, feeling for the projecting edges of the mussels with his feet, and opening them as he brought them to the surface, as was custom there. This, however, may have been like the fish that got away.

PEARLS IN LITERATURE

In all countries where woman has been enthroned in the respect as well as the affections of man, the pearl has been inseparably connected with her in his mind as a peculiarly fitting accompaniment to feminine loveliness. In the romantic dreams of youth, which hide betimes the harsh realism of life under a golden haze of imagery; where belted knights and fair ladies live and move unfettered, and all the impossible delights of sweet desire free from untoward consequences are reasonable; where invincible swords have no thought of the horrors of carnage, and unimpeded love is without cold calculation or following of sorrow, pearls everywhere shimmer.

And when in his exalted moods man paints the shadow picture of the goddess of his life, he finds one gem alone befitting with which to deck her, namely, the pearl. This has come to pass probably because the ideal qualities of woman and the sea-gem are alike, purity and modesty. The beauty of the most lustrous pearl is unobtrusive and its quality is virginal. In our visions of the spectral past, the shades of the consorts of the mighty all wear them.

Pearls hang pendent from the ears of Egypt's voluptuous queens, and Rome's proud matrons. Pearls clasp the dainty flesh of Moslem houris and rest in the soft folds of draperies that cling about those daughters of the Orient, the common mortals of their day might not look upon. Great pearls hang festooned and pendent round the necks of lightly draped Dianas of the warm south lands, and coiled about the brown arms of the daughters of the chiefs in far-off islands of the South Seas.

Upon reclining figures in the ancient palaces of Persia and Arab tents: wherever the proud women of the conquering occident move in stately measure across the high terraces of noble placement: in all dreams of fair women and brave men, are swords and pearls. And this is so because in all the ages, women of high position have loved pearls and writers have told it. In our old world so far, neither earth nor sea has yielded ought else so fit to lie in the bosom of woman, or to symbolize her character and beauty, as the chaste and dainty pearl.

This high atmosphere of precious supremacy and reverence, which surrounds the gem now as it has for more than twenty centuries, is a legacy of Rome. The east loved pearls as beautiful and precious trinkets; while Rome gave to them imperial honors and drew around them the mystic circle of patrician favor. And since that day, in every land where an aristocracy existed or came into existence, pearls have been the familiars of the exclusive.

This natural fitness of the gem for refined associations is recognized by Emerson in his "Friendship." He says:

Thou foolish Hafiz! Say! do churls Know the worth of Oman's pearls? Give the gem which dims the moon To the noblest, or to none.

It is a late echo of the scriptural saying, "Cast not your pearls before swine." No modern poet shows more knowledge of the nature, or a more just appreciation of the delicate beauty of the gem than Emerson. In his "May Day," speaking of the tardiness of the spring, he writes: "Slow grows the palm, too slow the pearl."

Evidently he knew of the slow process by which the successive coats of filmy nacre increase the size of the growing gem. Likewise a couplet in "Nature" betrays the poet's observation of the iridescent nature of the colors in mother-of-pearl, and in the gem occasionally when those fleeting tints are added to the beauty of its luster; the lines are a dainty illustration:

Illusions like the tints of pearl, Or changing colors of the sky.

Some of the great poets, notably Tennyson, apparently confuse the gem with its mother-of-pearl, or refer to the latter only when they speak of pearl. In his "Recollections of the Arabian Nights," however, Tennyson in describing one of his beauties evidently refers to the gem:

And a brow of pearl Tressed with redolent ebony.

Writing of the mermaid, the lines are more suggestive of the shell nacre:

Combing her hair Under the sea, In a golden curl With a comb of pearl.

Again in a sonnet, he evidently refers to mother-of-pearl when he says:

All night through archways of the bridgèd pearl, And portals of pure silver, walks the moon.

This indiscriminate use of the gem's name to appropriate its pearly characteristics is a common poetic license. In Ben Jonson's "Hymn to Diana," he bids her,

Lay thy bow of pearl apart.

Sometimes metaphor is worse mixed, as when Milton in "Paradise Lost" describes the waters above the firmament about the gate of Heaven thus:

And underneath a bright sea flowed Of jasper, or of liquid pearl.

In this poem of gorgeous description, the author makes several allusions to the gem and some of them, especially those in his word paintings of scenes in Eden, are poetically beautiful and true. One delightful to the eye of the mind,

How from that sapphire fount the crispèd brooks Rolling on orient pearls and sands of gold,

and another in the description of morning in Eden, equally beautiful though it takes more license:

Now Morn, her rosy steps in th' eastern clime Advancing, sow'd the earth with orient pearl.

In his "Epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester," a couplet shows that he was familiar with the superstition of sorrow connected with them:

And those pearls of dew she wears, Proove to be presaging tears.

Herrick also associated pearls and tears though more happily as in "Corinna's Maying."

Besides, the childhood of the day has kept, Against you come, some orient pearls unwept.

The same poet makes charming reference to pearls in his poem entitled: "To Daffodils."

Or as the pearls of morning dew Ne'er to be found again.

Shakespeare made frequent reference to the gem, sometimes to illustrate the magnificence of wealth and station but more frequently in connection with dew and tears. Oberon says:

And that same dew, which some time on the buds Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls.

King Richard III. when he argues with Queen Elizabeth for her daughter's hand in marriage, promises with smooth and brazen villainy to so offset the wrongs he had done her, that:

The liquid drops of tears that you have shed Shall come again, transformed to orient pearls.

In "King John" Elinor speaking to Constance of Arthur, says, "Draw those heaven moving pearls from his poor eyes;" and in "King Lear," one of the gentlemen, speaking of the Queen of France when she received the news he carried, describes her mood thus:

Those happy smilets, That played on her ripe lip, seemed not to know What guests were in her eyes, which parted thence, As pearls from diamonds dropp'd.

In "Midsummer Night's Dream," Lysander says to Helen:

To-morrow night, when Phœbe doth behold Her silver visage in the wat'ry glass, Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass.

Among his recognitions of pearls as a sign of the luxury of wealth and high position, he makes a lord say, in the "Taming of the Shrew,"

Or wilt thou ride? Thy horses shall be trapp'd Their harness studded all with gold and pearl.

And in "King Henry V," the King while deploring the sorrows incident to kingship, says:

'Tis not The intertissued robe of gold and pearl That beats upon the high shore of this world.

These two quotations indicate that the Roman custom of decorating robes and even the harness of horses with pearls was followed in Shakespeare's day by the nobles.

A line suggestive of the high-esteem in which the pearl was held in his day, and often quoted, occurs in Othello's grand but heart-broken self-denunciation just before he stabs himself:

Of one, whose hand Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away, Richer than all his tribe.

It is evident also that stories were current then of the western Indian's ignorant prodigality in the disposition of things common to him but very precious among more enlightened people.

In "King Richard III," Duke Clarence sees in his dream of drowning, "Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl."

Several times the great dramatist puts the gem in somewhat grewsome setting. In "A Sea Dirge" however, the bare horror of the idea which grins at one in similar connections, is transformed by the poetry in which it is draped:

These are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange.

A favorite use of the sea-gem by the lighter poets is to adorn their images of physical beauty. In "Don Juan," Byron, describing one of the Turk's houris in the harem, says:

Was slumbering with soft breath, And lips apart, which show'd the pearls beneath,

and another poet writes similarly:

Those cherries fairly do enclose Of orient pearls a double row.

Shelley confines his references to pearls almost entirely to descriptions of Nature dew-bedecked, as in the "Revolt of Islam,"

I sate with Cythna; drooping briony, pearled With dew from the mild streamlet's shattered wave,

and another in "Prometheus Unbound" where the chorus of spirits sing:

Nor aught save where some cloud of dew, Hangs each a pearl in the pale flowers Of the green laurel blown anew.

In "Arethusa" he uses them to enhance the idea of regal magnificence in these lines:

Where the Ocean Powers Sit on their pearlèd thrones.

The poets rarely refer to the gem as a symbol of spiritual attributes though it is peculiarly adapted by its natural qualities to illustrate purity, innocence, and other qualities of the human soul: nor is it often connected with religious ideas. Among the few, Andrew Marvell in his "Song of the Emigrants in Burmuda," avails himself of it somewhat prosaically thus,

He cast (of which we rather boast) The Gospel's pearl upon our coast.

One of the most poetically beautiful references ever made to the Ocean's modest jewel occurs in the "The Rosary" by Robert Cameron Rogers.

The hours I spend with thee, dear heart, Are as a string of pearls to me; I count them over every one apart, My rosary. Each hour a pearl, each pearl a prayer, To still a heart in absence wrung; I tell each bead unto the end, and there A cross is hung.

No poet has made more frequent allusion to pearls than Thomas Moore. His poems give evidence that he had read much of them in ancient writings and was alive to their poetic value. In his description of Ireland in "Fairest! Put on Awhile," the lines—

Lakes, where the pearl lies hid, And caves, where the gem is sleeping,

were founded on the statements of Nennius, a British writer of the IXth century, concerning Irish pearls. In passing, it is worthy of notice that Nennius recorded also that the princes of Ireland hung them behind their ears; a fashion similar to that of Persian and Athenian youth many centuries earlier. From Cardanus, Moore learned of the ancient fable that pearls were improved by leaving them awhile with doves, and utilizes the fancy in "A Dream of Antiquity" thus:

As pearls, we're told, that fondling doves Have played with, wear a smoother whiteness.

An early reference to the gem is found in his "Odes of Anacreon" No. XXII:

Or even those envious pearls that show So faintly round that neck of snow—

If this ode was really written by Anacreon, that poet must have been more familiar with pearls than some later Grecian writers. A similar idea quite as beautifully expressed occurs in "The Loves of the Angels."

Then too the pearl from out its shell Unsightly, in the sunless sea, (As 'twere a spirit, forced to dwell In form unlovely) was set free, And round the neck of woman threw A light it lent and borrowed too.

Unlike most of the poets, Moore does not describe the sparkling dew-drop as pearly and his references to tears of pearls include the idea of metamorphosis, as in "The Light of the Haram."

And precious their tears as that rain from the sky, Which turns into pearls as it falls in the sea.

These lines embody the ancient Hindu superstition which is also apparent in his "Lines to—:"

Put off the fatal zone you wear, The shining pearls around it Are tears, that fell from Virtue there, The hour when Love unbound it.

In his adoration of female beauty, he often holds the lustrous gem as a foil to the exceeding charms of woman, or to lift her to higher esteem by holding her, for preciousness, above the gem. Beyond all other things most lovely, only woman was lovelier yet. In "To weave a Garland for the Rose," he writes:

Where is the pearl whose orient lustre Would not, beside thee, look less bright?

And in one of the "Odes to Nea," he expresses the jealous regard of love thus:

If I were yonder conch of gold And thou the pearl within it placed, I would not let an eye behold The sacred gem my arms embraced.

Of the threads in which the woof of "The Genius of Harmony" is woven, there is one that sings thus to the passing of the shuttle:

To the small rill, that weeps along Murmuring o'er beds of pearl.

Betraying as he did so frequently in his poems, such a high regard for the pearl, it is somewhat curious that the gem was used descriptively in connection with himself. N. P. Willis, describing Thomas Moore as he met him at Lady Blessington's said of him, "His forehead shines with the lustre and smooth polish of a pearl."

Schiller takes the gem from the warm touch of human sentiment and builds it into a grand conception, poetical but untrue to Nature. In common with other poets, he credits the pearl with a play of color seldom found even to a limited degree though it does occur in the mother-of-pearl. In "Parables and Riddles," he describes the rainbow thus:

A bridge of pearls its fabric weaves, A gray sea arching proudly over.

In "The Celebrated Woman" he alludes twice to pearls; once when the husband, bemoaning the passage of his choice vintages down the throats of unappreciative celebrities, realizes that the only reward from his spouse for his endurance of it is, "sour looks—deep sighs." Because he has no stomach for her notables and their wit, she regrets—

That such a pearl should fall to swine—

Later on the husband refers satirically to the meeting of "learned Dons and folks of fashion" at their resorts, where he says:

All sorts of Fame sit cheek-by-jowl, Pearls in that string—the Table d'Hote.

Few later writers have set the pearl in as wide a range of ideas or in language as beautiful as Edmund Spenser. The tears of Stella in "The Mourning Muse of Thestylis" are more precious and gem-like than those in any lines which have followed until now. In these lines they are priceless jewels royally set.

And from those two bright starres to him sometime so deere, Her heart sent drops of pearle, which fell in foyson downe Twixt lilly and the rose.

As a means to wake imagination to the physical charms of woman his use of the gem is equally happy and graceful, for there is always a soul in the flesh of his beauty as when he depicts the charms of a fair one in one of his "Sonnets."

But fairest she, when so she doth display The gate with pearles and rubyes richly dight; Through which her words so wise do make their way To bear the message of her gentle spright.

In another place he expresses the worship of his love in this fashion:

For loe, my love doth in her selfe containe All this worlds riches that may farre be found; If Pearles, her teeth be Pearles, both pure and round.

Several of his poems show the fashion of pearls in his day as for instance where he describes the Scarlet Lady in "The Faerie Queene" as—

A goodly Lady clad in scarlet red, Purfled with gold and pearle of rich assay.

and Hymen in "Epithalamion"—

Her long loose yellow locks lyke golden wyre, Sprinckled with perle.

There is a passing breath of spice-laden gales and the wonder magic of ships in far-off seas, carrying to perils and adventure men seeking the treasures of strange lands, while he tells in Virgil's Gnat of the shepherd's content:

Ne ought the whelky pearles esteemeth hee, Which are from Indian seas brought far away.

Poets are reminded not only of the teeth and neck of beauty by the luster of the pearl but of the forehead also. Whittier like Tennyson gives to woman a brow of pearl. In "Memories" the girl has—

Eyes glad with smiles, and brow of pearl,

and in "Stanzas," he places the beauty of flesh above that of the dainty jewel thus:

O'er a forehead more pure than the Parian stone— Shaming the light of those Orient pearls Which bind o'er its whiteness thy soft wreathing curls.

Similarly Heinrich Heine in Longfellow's translation of "The Sea hath its Pearls" says:

And fairer than pearls and stars Flashes and beams my love.

Probably in no poem is the pearl referred to so frequently or with so wide significance as in Whittier's "The Vaudois Teacher." The missionary in his guise of peddler having obtained an audience with the fair chatelaine, while extolling his wares, says:

And my pearls are pure as thy own fair neck, with whose radiant light they vie.

Naturally, this wisdom of the serpent with which his innocence was garnished brought favorable response:

And the lady smiled on the worn old man through the dark and clustering curls, Which veiled her brow as she bent to view his silks and glittering pearls.

After she had bought of his trinkets, the old teacher carefully introduces the covered object of his visit.

Oh, lady fair, I have yet a gem which a purer lustre flings, Than the diamond flash of the jewelled crown on the lofty brow of Kings, A wonderful pearl of exceeding price, whose virtue shall not decay.

This statement at once arouses a keen interest, for in those days great gems came from unexpected sources and by unlikely hands and coming seldom, excited desire to an extent unknown in these abundant times. Glancing at the mirrored pearls in her own hair the lady says:

Bring forth thy pearl of exceeding worth, thou traveller gray and old— And name the price of thy precious gem, and my page shall count thy gold.

Here is the golden opportunity of the zealot. From its place of concealment beneath the tempting wares in his pack he takes a shabby little book and gives it to her saying:

Here, lady fair, is the pearl of price, may it proove as such to thee, Nay—keep thy gold—I ask it not; for the Word of God is free!