Folk-lore of Shakespeare Part 78

In "Richard III." (i. 2) when Gloster brings his hasty wooing to a conclusion, he gives the Lady Anne a ring, saying:

"Look, how my ring encompa.s.seth thy finger, Even so thy breast encloseth my poor heart; Wear both of them, for both of them are thine."

In "Cymbeline" (i. 1) Imogen gives Posthumus a ring when they part, and he presents her with a bracelet in exchange:

"Look here, love; This diamond was my mother's; take it, heart; But keep it till you woo another wife, When Imogen is dead.

_Posthumus._ How! how! another?- You gentle G.o.ds, give me but this I have, And sear up my embracements from a next With bonds of death! Remain, remain thou here, (_Putting on the ring_) While sense can keep it on."

Yet he afterwards gives it up to Iachimo (ii. 4)-upon a false representation-to test his wife's honor:

"Here, take this too; It is a basilisk unto mine eye, Kills me to look on't."

The exchange of rings, a solemn mode of private contract between lovers, we have already referred to in the chapter on Marriage, a practice alluded to in the "Two Gentlemen of Verona" (ii. 2), where Julia gives Proteus a ring, saying:

"Keep this remembrance for thy Julia's sake;"

and he replies:

"Why, then we'll make exchange: here, take you this."

_Death's-head rings._ Rings engraved with skulls and skeletons were not necessarily mourning rings, but were also worn by persons who affected gravity; and, curious to say, by the procuresses of Elizabeth's time.

Biron, in "Love's Labour's Lost" (v. 2), refers to "a death's face in a ring;" and we may quote Falstaff's words in "2 Henry IV." (ii. 4): "Peace, good Doll! do not speak like a death's head; do not bid me remember mine end." We may compare the following from "The Chances" (i.

5), by Beaumont and Fletcher:

"As they keep deaths' heads in rings, To cry 'memento' to me."

According to Mr. Fairholt, "the skull and skeleton decorations for rings first came into favor and fashion at the obsequious court of France, when Diana of Poictiers became the mistress of Henry II. At that time she was a widow, and in mourning, so black and white became fashionable colors; jewels were formed like funeral memorials; golden ornaments, shaped like coffins, holding enamelled skeletons, hung from the neck; watches, made to fit in little silver skulls, were attached to the waists of the denizens of a court that alternately indulged in profanity or piety, but who mourned for show."[755]

[755] See Jones's "Finger-Ring Lore," 1877, p. 372.

_Posy-rings_ were formerly much used, it having been customary to inscribe a motto or "posy" within the hoop of the betrothal ring. Thus, in the "Merchant of Venice" (v. 1), Gratiano, when asked by Portia the reason of his quarrel with Nerissa, answers:

"About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring That she did give me; whose posy was For all the world like cutlers' poetry Upon a knife, 'Love me, and leave me not.'"

In "As You Like It" (iii. 2), Jaques tells Orlando, "You are full of pretty answers. Have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths' wives, and conned them out of rings?"

Again, "Hamlet" (iii. 2) asks:

"Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?"

Many of our old writers allude to the posy-rings. Thus Herrick, in his "Hesperides," says:

"What posies for our wedding rings, What gloves we'll give, and ribbonings."

Henry VIII. gave Anne of Cleves a ring with the following posy: "G.o.d send me well to kepe;" a most unpropitious alliance, as the king expressed his dislike to her soon after the marriage.

_Thumb-rings._ These were generally broad gold rings worn on the thumb by important personages. Thus Falstaff ("1 Henry IV." ii. 4) bragged that, in his earlier years, he had been so slender in figure as to "creep into an alderman's thumb-ring;" and a ring thus worn-probably as more conspicuous-appears to have been considered as appropriate to the customary attire of a civic dignitary at a much later period. A character in the Lord Mayor's Show, in 1664, is described as "habited like a grave citizen-gold girdle, and gloves hung thereon, rings on his fingers, and a seal ring on his thumb."[756] Chaucer, in his "Squire's Tale," says of the rider of the brazen horse who advanced into the hall, Cambuscan, that "upon his thumb he had of gold a ring." In "Romeo and Juliet" (i. 4), Mercutio speaks of the

"agate stone On the forefinger of an alderman."

[756] See Jones's "Finger-Ring Lore," 1877, p. 88.

It has been suggested that Shakespeare, in the following pa.s.sage, alludes to the annual celebration, at Venice, of the wedding of the Doge with the Adriatic, when he makes Oth.e.l.lo say (i. 2):

"But that I love the gentle Desdemona, I would not my unhoused free condition Put into circ.u.mscription and confine For the sea's worth."

This custom, it is said, was inst.i.tuted by Pope Alexander III., who gave the Doge a gold ring from his own finger, in token of the victory by the Venetian fleet, at Istria, over Frederick Barbarossa, in defence of the Pope's quarrel. When his holiness gave the ring, he desired the Doge to throw a similar ring into the sea every year on Ascension Day, in commemoration of the event.

_Agate._ This stone was frequently cut to represent the human form, and was occasionally worn in the hat by gallants. In "2 Henry IV." (i. 2) Falstaff says: "I was never manned with an agate till now"-meaning, according to Johnson, "had an agate for my man," was waited on by an agate.

_Carbuncle._ The supernatural l.u.s.tre of this gem[757] is supposed to be described in "t.i.tus Andronicus" (ii. 3), where, speaking of the ring on the finger of Ba.s.sia.n.u.s, Martius says:

"Upon his b.l.o.o.d.y 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."

[757] See Sir Thomas Browne's "Vulgar Errors."

In Drayton's "Muses' Elysium" ("Nymphal." ix.) it is thus eulogized:

"That admired mighty stone, The carbuncle that's named, Which from it such a flaming light And radiancy ejecteth, That in the very darkest night The eye to it directeth."

Milton, speaking of the cobra, says:

"His head Crested aloof, and carbuncle his eyes."

John Norton,[758] an alchemist in the reign of Edward IV., wrote a poem ent.i.tled the "Ordinal," or a manual of the chemical art. One of his projects, we are told, was a bridge of gold over the Thames, crowned with pinnacles of gold, which, being studded with carbuncles, would diffuse a blaze of light in the dark. Among the other references to it given by Shakespeare may be mentioned one in "Henry VIII." (ii. 3), where the Princess Elizabeth is spoken of as

"a gem To lighten all this isle."

[758] Jones's "Precious Stones," 1880, p. 62.

And Hamlet (ii. 2) uses the phrase, "With eyes like carbuncles."

_Chrysolite._ This stone was supposed to possess peculiar virtues, and, according to Simon Maiolus, in his "Dierum Caniculares" (1615-19), Thetel the Jew, who wrote a book, "De Sculpturiis," mentions one naturally in the form of a woman, which was potent against fascination of all kinds. "Oth.e.l.lo" (v. 2) thus alludes to this stone in reference to his wife:

"Nay, had she been true, If heaven would make me such another world Of one entire and perfect chrysolite, I'd not have sold her for it."

_Pearls._ The Eastern custom of powdering sovereigns at their coronation with gold-dust and seed-pearl is alluded to in "Antony and Cleopatra"[759] (ii. 5):

"I'll set thee in a shower of gold, and hail Rich pearls upon thee."

[759] See Singer's "Shakespeare," vol. x. p. 213.

So Milton ("Paradise Lost," ii. 4):

"The gorgeous East, with liberal hand, Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold."

Again, to swallow a pearl in a draught seems to have been common to royal and mercantile prodigality. In "Hamlet" (v. 2) the King says: