Shakespeare and Precious Stones Part 1

Shakespeare and Precious Stones.

by George Frederick Kunz.

FOREWORD

As no writer has made a more beautiful and telling use of precious stones in his verse than did Shakespeare, the author believed that if these references could be gathered together for comparison and for quotation, and if this were done from authentic and early editions of the great dramatist-poet's works, it would give the literary and historical student a better understanding as to what gems were used in Shakespeare's time, and in what terms he referred to them. This has been done here, and comparisons are made with the precious stones of the present time, showing what mines were known and gems were worn in Shakespeare's day, and also something of those that were not known then, but are known at this time.

The reader is also provided with a few important data serving to show what could have been the sources of the poet's knowledge regarding precious stones and whence were derived those which he may have seen or of which he may have heard. As in this period the beauty of a jewel depended as much, or more, upon the elaborate setting as upon the purity and brilliancy of the gems, the author has given some information regarding the leading goldsmith-jewellers, both English and French, of Shakespeare's age. Thus the reader will find, besides the very full references to the poet's words and clear directions as to where all the pa.s.sages can be located in the First Folio of 1623, much material that will stimulate an interest in the subject and promote further independent research.

The author wishes to express his thanks to Dr. Appleton Morgan, President of the Shakespeare Society of New York; Miss H.C. Bartlett, the Shakespearean bibliophile; the New York Public Library and H.M.

Leydenberg, a.s.sistant there; Gardner C. Teall; Frederic W. Erb, a.s.sistant librarian of Columbia University; the Council of the Grolier Club, Miss Ruth S. Granniss, librarian of the Club, and Vechten Waring, all of New York City.

G.F.K.

NEW YORK April, 1916

SHAKESPEARE AND PRECIOUS STONES

So wide is the range of the immortal verse of Shakespeare, and so many and various are the subjects he touched upon and adorned with the magic beauty of his poetic imagery, that it will be of great interest to refer to the allusions to gems and precious stones in his plays and poems. These allusions are all given in the latter part of this volume. What can we learn from them of Shakespeare's knowledge of the source, quality, and use of these precious stones?

The great favor that pearls enjoyed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is, as we see, reflected by the frequency with which he speaks of them, and the different pa.s.sages reveal in several instances a knowledge of the ancient tales of their formation and princ.i.p.al source. Thus, in _Troilus and Cressida_ (Act i, sc. 1) he writes: "Her bed is India; there she lies, a pearl"; and Pliny's tales of the pearl's origin from dew are glanced at indirectly when he says:

The liquid drops of tears that you have shed Shall come again, transform'd to orient pearl.

_Richard III_, Act iv, sc. 4.

First Folio, "Histories", p. 198, col. A, line 17.

This is undoubtedly the reason for the comparison between pearls and tears, leading to the German proverb, "_Perlen bedeuten Tranen_"

(Pearls mean tears), which was then taken to signify that pearls portended tears, instead of that they were the offspring of drops of liquid. The world-famed pearl of Cleopatra, which she drank after dissolving it, so as to win her wager with Antony that she would entertain him with a banquet costing a certain immense sum of money, is not even noticed, however, in Shakespeare's _Antony and Cleopatra_. In the poet's time pearls were not only worn as jewels, but were extensively used in embroidering rich garments and upholstery and for the adornment of harnesses. To this Shakespeare alludes in the following pa.s.sages:

The intertissued robe of gold and pearl.

_Henry V_, Act iv, sc. 1.

First Folio, "Histories", p. 85 (page number repeated), col. B, line 13.

Their harness studded all with gold and pearl.

_Taming of the Shrew_, Introd., sc. 2.

"Comedies", p. 209, col. B, line 33.

Fine linen, Turkey cushions boss'd with pearl.

_Ibid_., Act ii, sc. 1.

"Comedies", p. 217, col. B, line 32.

Laced with silver, set with pearls.

_Much Ado About Nothing_, Act iii, sc. 4.

"Comedies", p. 112, col. B, line 65.

Moreover, we have a simile which might almost make us suppose that Shakespeare knew something of the details of the pearl fisheries, when the oysters are piled up on sh.o.r.e and allowed to decompose, so as to render it easier to get at the pearls, for he makes one of his characters say, speaking of an honest man in a poor dwelling, that he was like a "pearl in your foul oyster". (_As You Like It_, Act v, sc. 4.)

In the strange transformation told of in Ariel's song, the bones of the drowned man have been turned to coral, and his eyes to pearls (_Tempest_, Act i, sc. 2). The strange and sometimes morbid attraction of opposites finds expression in a queer old English proverbial saying given in the _Two Gentlemen of Verona_: "Black men are pearls in beauteous ladies' eyes". The likeness to drops of dew appears where we read of the dew that it was "Decking with liquid pearl the bladed gra.s.s" (_Midsummer Night's Dream_, Act i, sc. 1), and a little later in the same play we read the 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 Oth.e.l.lo'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.

_Oth.e.l.lo_, 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 princ.i.p.al 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 Caesar 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.]