Shakespeare and Precious Stones | Page 3

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