Shakespeare and Precious Stones | Page 6

an
emerald benefited weak sight, an idea expressed as far back as 300 B.C.
by Theophrastus, a pupil of Aristotle, and repeated by the Roman Pliny
in 75 A.D. The "Lover's Complaint" furnishes another pretty line (198)
contrasting the different beauties of rubies and pearls:
Of paled pearls and rubies red as blood.
In "Venus and Adonis", honey-tongued Shakespeare writes of a
"ruby-colored portal".
Pearls are noted six times, usually as similes for tears, and tears are
likened to "pearls in glass" ("Venus and Adonis", l. 980). A tender line
is that in the "Passionate Pilgrim" (hardly from Shakespeare's hand,
however):

Bright orient pearl, alack, too timely shaded.
More varied are the allusions to rock-crystal or crystal, as the poet calls
it. In one place ("Venus and Adonis", l. 491) there are "crystal tears",
and these form "a crystal tide" that flows down the cheeks and drops in
the bosom (Idem, l. 957). On the other hand, the eyes are likened to this
stone, as in "crystal eyne" ("Venus and Adonis", l. 633), or "crystal
eyes" (Sonnet xlvi, l. 6). There are also "crystal favours",[5] a "crystal
gate",[6] and "crystal walls",[7] the two characteristics of brilliancy and
transparency suggesting these uses of the term.
[Footnote 5: "Lover's Complaint", l. 37.]
[Footnote 6: "Idem", l. 286.]
[Footnote 7: "Lucrece", l. 1251.]
The emeralds of Shakespeare's age had been brought from Peru by the
Spaniards and had originally come from Colombian mines, such as
those at Muzo, which are still worked in our day. The location of some
of the early deposits here appears to have been lost sight of since the
Spanish Conquest. The emeralds of Greek and Roman times, and of the
Middle Ages, came from Mount Zabara (Gebel Zabara), near the Red
Sea coast, east of Assuan, where traces of the old workings were found
in 1817; these mines were reopened by order of Mehemet Ali, and were
worked for a brief period by Mons. F. Cailliaud.
There can be no doubt that Shakespeare must have seen many fine
jewels and glittering gems in pageants and processions during his
residence in London. On certain special occasions the players were
summoned to assist at royal functions, provision being made by the
royal treasury for rich materials to be used in making special doublets
and mantles for wear on these occasions. It has been suggested that the
rich jewelling of many of the court portraits by Holbein and others
must have impressed the poet by their wealth of color spread before his
eyes; but it is nowise sure that he ever had special opportunity to
closely examine such portraits, the smaller details of which may not
have interested him greatly.

While it is not unlikely that some of the royal or noble ladies who
attended the performances of Shakespeare's plays, while he was
connected with the Globe Theatre, wore brilliant jewels, it is
improbable that they were bedecked with the most valuable of their
gems. The danger of being waylaid and robbed was much greater in
those days than it is to-day, and it was probably only within palace or
castle doors, or at some great State function, that the costliest jewels
were worn. Hence nothing distantly approaching the rather excessive
splendor of a New York or London opera night could ever have dazzled
the poet-actor's eyes.
In the case of plays acted before the court, however, the royal and noble
ladies, undoubtedly, wore many of their finest jewels, as did also the
sovereign and courtiers. Still, preoccupied as Shakespeare must have
been with the presentation, or representation of the dramatic
performance, he probably had little time or inclination to devote
especial attention to these jewels.
No museum collections, properly so called, existed in Shakespeare's
day, from which he could have acquired any closer knowledge of
precious stones or gems, although the conception of a great modern
museum of art and science found expression in the "New Atlantis" of
his great contemporary, Lord Bacon. The modest beginnings of the
Royal Society of London, founded in 1662, cannot be traced back
beyond 1645. The French Academy of Sciences, founded in 1666, was
preceded by earlier informal meetings of French scientists, to which
allusion is even made by Lord Bacon, who died in 1626. The Berlin
Academy came much later, in 1700, and the St. Petersburg Academy
was first established in 1725 by Catherine I, widow of Peter the Great.
One society, the Academia Secretorum Naturæ of Naples, goes back to
1560, and the Accademia dei Lincei of Prince Federico Cesi was
founded at Rome in 1603. But of these Shakespeare could have known
little or nothing.
That the poet knew, more or less vaguely, of America as a source of
precious stones, as were the Indies, comes out in the farcical lines from
The