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SHAKESPEARE AND PRECIOUS STONES By GEORGE FREDERICK KUNZ, Ph.D., A.M., D.Sc.

THE CURIOUS LORE OF PRECIOUS STONES

Being a description of their sentiments and folklore, superstitions, symbolism, mysticism, use in protection, prevention, religion and divination, crystal gazing, birth-stones, lucky stones and talismans, astral, zodiacal, and planetary.

THE MAGIC OF JEWELS AND CHARMS

Magic jewels and electric gems; meteorites or celestial stones; stones of healing; fabulous stones, concretions and fossils; snake stones and bezoars; charms of ancient and modern times; facts and fancies about precious stones.

SHAKESPEARE AND PRECIOUS STONES

Treating of the known references to precious stones in Shakespeare's works, with comments as to the origin of his material, the knowledge of the poet concerning precious stones, and references as to where the precious stones of his time came from.

Published according to the True Originall Copies

LONDON

Printed by Isaac Laggard, and Ed. Blount. 1623.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Engraved by Martin Droeshout for the First Folio of 1623, wherein the plays were first assembled.
Reproduced from a copy of this Folio owned by the New York Public Library.
The original measures 7-1/2 x 13 in., or 20 x 33 cm.

SHAKESPEARE

and

PRECIOUS STONES

TREATING OF

The Known References of Precious Stones in Shakespeare's Works, with Comments as to the Origin of his Material, the Knowledge of the Poet Concerning Precious Stones, and References as to Where the Precious Stones of his Time came from

The Author

GEORGE FREDERICK KUNZ

PH.D., Sc.D., A.M.

Honorary President of the Shakespeare Garden Committee of New York City; Vice President of the Permanent Shakespeare Birthday Committee of the City of New York; Member of the Executive Committee of the New York City Tercentenary Celebration; Member of the Mayor's Shakespeare Celebration Committee of New York.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS

PHILADELPHIA & LONDON

IMPRINTED BY

J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
At the Washington Square Press
Upon the TERCENTENARY of Shakespeare

1916

PUBLISHED JULY, 1916

TO RUBY,
MY DAUGHTER,
WHOSE MOTHER, SOPHIA HANDFORTH ,
WAS BORN IN THE LAND OF
SHAKESPEARE,

AND

TO RUBY'S DAUGHTER,
GRETEL,
(THE PEARL),

THIS VOLUME IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED

FOREWORD

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 passages 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, assistant there; Gardner C. Teall; Frederic W. Erb, assistant 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

CONTENTS

• PAGE
  
• 
  SHAKESPEARE AND PRECIOUS STONES 15
• 
  PRECIOUS STONES MENTIONED IN THE PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE 73
• 
  PRECIOUS STONES MENTIONED IN THE POEMS OF SHAKESPEARE 93

ILLUSTRATIONS

• PAGE
  
• 
  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (ENGRAVED BY MARTIN DROESHOUT) Frontispiece
  
• 
  FIVE OF THE SIX AUTHENTIC SHAKESPEARE SIGNATURES 45
  
• 
  DIAMOND CUTTER'S SHOP, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 59
  
  
• 
  FROM A PORTRAIT OF QUEEN ELIZABETH 61
  
• 
  PRINTER'S MARK OF RICHARD FIELD 102
  

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 passages reveal in several instances a knowledge of the ancient tales of their formation and principal 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 Tränen" (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 passages:

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 shore 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 grass" (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 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.

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.

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]

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 of the Koh-i-nûr, is intrinsically worth much more, but lacks the manifold dramatic and historic associations of its Indian sister.

Strange to say, the beautiful sapphire is only twice named by Shakespeare, once as an adjunct to the pearl in embroidery (Merry Wives of Windsor, Act v, sc. 5). The single mention of chrysolite is much more impressive:

If heaven would make me such another world, Of one entire and perfect chrysolite! Othello, Act v, sc. 2.
"Tragedies", p. 337, col. A, line 5.

Chrysolite (peridot, or olivine) was regarded in Shakespeare's time and earlier as of exceptional rarity. The fine peridots of the Chapel of the Three Kings in Cologne Cathedral were believed to be emeralds of extraordinary size and were once valued at $15,000,000, although they are really worth barely $100,000; some of them are more than an inch in diameter. Whence they came is uncertain, but it is probable that they were brought from the East at some time during the Crusades. Indeed the origin of the fine peridots of the Middle Ages is shrouded in mystery; they are, however, believed to have been found in one or more of the islands in the Red Sea. In our day a number of specimens have been discovered on the small island of St. John in that sea; the deposit here is a jealously-guarded monopoly of the Egyptian Government. Peridots have also been found at Spyrget Island, in the Arabian Gulf. The most remarkable source of gem-material of this stone is meteoric, a few gems weighing as much as a carat each having been cut out of some yellowish-green peridot obtained by the writer from the meteoric iron of Glorieta Mountain, New Mexico.

That a turquoise, presumably set in a ring, was given to Shylock by Leah before their marriage, perhaps at their betrothal, is all that Shakespeare has found occasion to write of this pretty stone, one of the earliest used for adornment in the world's history, as the great mines of Nishapur, in Persia, and those of the Sinai Peninsula were worked at a very early time, the latter by the Egyptians as far back as 4000 B.C. With the opal, the poet has seized upon its most characteristic quality, its changeableness of hue, where he says in Twelfth Night (Act ii, sc. 4): "Thy mind is a very opal".

A luminous ring is poetically described in one of Shakespeare's earliest plays, Titus Andronicus, written in or about 1590. The lines referring to the ring are highly expressive. After the murder of Bassianus, Martius searches in the depths of a dark pit for the dead body, and suddenly cries out to his companion Quintus that he has discovered the bloody corpse. As the interior of the pit is pitch dark, Quintus can scarcely believe what he hears, and he asks Martius how the latter could possibly see what he has described. The answer is given in the following lines:

Upon his bloody 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. Titus Andronicus, Act ii, sc. 3.
First Folio, "Tragedies", p. 38, col. B, lines 53-57.

This certainly was suggested by the common belief in naturally luminous stones, a belief partly due to a superstitious explanation of the ruddy brilliancy of rubies and garnets as resulting from a hidden fire in the stone, and partly, perhaps, to the occasional observation of the phenomena of phosphorescence or fluorescence in certain precious stones.

It will have been seen that the text of Shakespeare's plays gives no evidence tending to show any greater familiarity with precious stones than could be gathered from the poetry of his day, and from his intercourse with classical scholars, such as Francis Bacon, Ben Jonson, and others of those who formed the unique assemblage wont to meet together at the old Mermaid Tavern in London. That a diamond could cost 2000 ducats ($5000), a very large sum in Shakespeare's time, is noted in one of his earliest plays, the Merchant of Venice (Act iii, sc. 1), and the following injunction emphasizes the great value of a fine diamond:

Set this diamond safe In golden palaces, as it becomes. I Henry VI, Act v, sc. 3.
"Histories", p. 116, col. B, line 54.

In Pericles we read (Act iii, sc. 2):

The diamonds of a most praisèd water Do appear, to make the world twice rich. Third Folio, 1664, p. 7, col. B, line 38;
separate pagination.

In Shakespeare's time but few of the world's great diamonds were in Europe, though two, at least, were in his native country. All of them must have been of East Indian origin, as this was before the discovery of the Brazilian mines (1728). In 1547, Henry VIII of England bought of the Fuggers of Augsburg—the great money-lending bankers and jewel setters, or royal pawnbrokers, who generally sold or forced some jewels upon those who obtained a loan—the jewel of Charles the Bold, called the "Three Brethren", from three large balas-rubies with which it was set; the central ornament was a "great pointed diamond"; of its weight nothing is known. This jewel was lost by Duke Charles on the field of Granson, March 2, 1476, where it was secured by the Swiss victors; it was eventually bought by the Fuggers. The other fine English diamond was that known as the Sancy, weighing 53-3/4 carats (55.23 metric carats), acquired by James I from Nicholas Harley de Sancy, in 1604, for 500,000 crowns. This is also stated to have belonged to Charles the Bold. In 1657 it was redeemed by Cardinal Mazarin, after having been pledged for a loan by Queen Henrietta Maria, and at Mazarin's death, in 1661, was bequeathed, with his other diamonds, to the French Crown. After passing through many vicissitudes, it has recently come into the possession of Baron Astor of Hever (William Waldorf Astor).

There is a possibility that the Florentine diamond of 133-22/32 carats (137.27 metric carats) was already owned by the grand-ducal house of Tuscany before Shakespeare's death, but the earliest notice of it appears to be that given by Fermental, a French traveller, who saw it in Florence in 1630. The other great diamonds of former days are of more recent date. The Regent of 136-7/8 carats (140.64 metric carats), found in India about 1700, was acquired by the Duke of Orleans in 1717; the Orloff (194-3/4 old carats = 199.73 metric carats) was bought by Prince Orloff for Catherine II, in 1775, for 1,400,000 Dutch florins, or about $560,000. The famous Koh-i-nûr, weighing 186-1/16 carats (191.1 metric carats) in its old cutting, came to Europe, as a gift to Queen Victoria from the East India Company, only in 1850; although, if it be the same as the great diamond taken by Humayun, son of Baber, at the battle of Paniput, April 21, 1526, its history dates back at least to 1304, when Sultan Ala-ed-Din took it from the Sultan of Malva, whose family had already owned it for generations.

As fresh-colored lips are likened to rubies, so it is said of a bright eye, that it "would emulate the diamond" (Merry Wives of Windsor, Act iii, sc. 3).

Bright eyes are also compared to rock-crystal, and the setting of other gems within a bordering of crystals is evidently alluded to in the following lines from Love's Labour's Lost (Act ii, sc. 1):

Methought all his senses were lock'd in his eyes As jewels in crystal. First Folio, "Comedies", p. 128, col. A, line 7.

We have in Richard II (Act i, sc. 2) the terms "fair and crystal" applied to a clear sky, and in Romeo and Juliet (Act i, sc. 2) the word is used to denote superlative excellence, where a lady's love is to be weighed against her rival on "crystal scales".

Rock-crystal was much more highly valued in the England of Elizabeth and of James I than it is to-day, and was freely used as an adjunct to more precious material, and still was employed to some extent in the adornment of book-covers, although this usage, so common in mediæval times, was fast passing away.

In Shakespeare's poems, "Venus and Adonis" (1593) and "Lucrece" (1594), as well as in his "Sonnets" (1609), in the "Lover's Complaint" and in the almost certainly spurious "Passionate Pilgrim", containing two sonnets and three poems from Love's Labour's Lost, and which has been included in most collections of his works, there are perhaps relatively more frequent mentions of precious stones than in the plays, a few of them being of special interest. Where we have twice "ruby lips" (and once "coral lips") in the plays, the poems speak thrice of "coral lips" or a "coral mouth"; [4] a belt has "coral clasps" ("Passionate Pilgrim", l. 366). This belt bears also "amber studs", and in the "Lover's Complaint", l. 37, are "favours of amber", and also of "crystal, and of beaded jet".

Coming to the really precious stones, sapphire finds a single mention, also in the "Lover's Complaint", l. 215, where it is termed "heaven-hued". The same poem says of the diamond that it was "beautiful and hard" (l. 211), thus symbolizing a heartless beauty. More interesting are the following lines regarding the emerald (213, 214):

The deep-green emerald, in whose fresh regard Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend.

This proves the poet's familiarity with the idea that gazing on 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.

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 Comedy of Errors (Act iii, sc. 2), when one of the Dromios, in locating the various lands of the world on parts of his mistress's body, to the query of Antipholus: "Where America, the Indies?" replies: "Oh, sir, upon her nose, all o'er embellished with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires". This is the only mention of America in the plays.

A coincidence having its own significance is that April 23, the day of Shakespeare's death and also his birthday, was the day dedicated to St. George, the patron saint of Merry England. The war-cry of England is given several times by Shakespeare, as, for example:

Cry, God for Harry, England and Saint George! Henry V, Act iii, sc. 1.
First Folio, "Histories", p. 77, col. B, line 51.

God and Saint George! Richmond and Victory! Richard III, Act v, sc. 3.
First Folio, "Histories", p. 203, col. A, line 31.

And in I Henry VI (Act i, sc. 1) we read:

Bonfires in France forthwith I am to make, To keep our great Saint George's feast withal. First Folio, "Histories", p. 97, col. B, line 97.

We find no trace in Shakespeare's works of any belief in the many quaint and curious superstitions current in his day regarding the talismanic or curative virtues of precious stones. This is quite in keeping with the thoroughly sane outlook upon life that constituted the strong foundation of his incomparable mind. Not but that, like every true poet, the sense of mystery, and even the vague impression of the existence of occult powers, of the "Unknowable" in Nature, was strongly developed, but this is always in a broad and earnest spirit, far removed from all petty superstition.

Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI, sacrificed her heart and diamond jewel, as a symbol of her sorrow and her love, when a tempest beat back the ship that was bearing her from the continent to the English coast. Her act, as described in the following verses, seems almost an attempt to propitiate the storm (II Henry VI, Act iii, sc. 2):

When from thy shore the tempest beat us back, I stood upon the hatches in the storm, And when the dusky sky began to rob My earnest-gaping sight of thy land's view, I took a costly jewel from my neck, A heart it was, bound in with diamonds, And threw it towards thy land: the sea received it, And so I wish'd thy body might my heart. First Folio, "Histories", p. 134, col. A, lines 41-48.

The idea of the sacredness of a ring as a love-token is voiced by Portia in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice where she says (Act v, sc. 1):

I gave my love a ring and made him swear Never to part with it; and here he stands; I dare be sworn for him he would not leave it Nor pluck it from his finger, for the wealth That the world masters. First Folio, "Comedies", p. 183, col. B, lines 12-16.

The nearest approach to a sentimental characterization of precious stones is to be found in "A Lover's Complaint", lines 204-217. Although we have already noted most of them separately, it may be well to give the entire passage here consecutively:

And, lo, behold these talents of their hair, With twisted metal amorously impleach'd, I have received from many a several fair, Their kind acceptance weepingly beseech'd With the annexions of fair gems enrich'd, And deep-brain'd sonnets that did amplify Each stone's dear nature, worth and quality. The diamond,—why, 'twas beautiful and hard, Whereto his invised [8] properties did tend;
The deep-green emerald, in whose fresh regard Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend; The heaven-hued sapphire and the opal blend With objects manifold: each several stone, With wit well blazon'd, smiled or made some moan.

Had Shakespeare felt much interest in the lore of gems, he had before him most of the then available material in a book of which he seems to have made some use. [9] This was an English rendering of the "De Proprietatibus Rerum" of Bartholomæus Anglicus (fl. ca. 1350), by Stephan Batman, or Bateman (d. 1587), an English divine and poet, who in the later years of his life was chaplain and librarian to the famous Archbishop Parker, and thus had free access to the latter's fine library. His rendering, published in 1582, bears the following quaint title: "Batman uppon Bartholome his Book De Proprietatibus Rerum"; it was published in 1582, and appears to have been widely read in England among those still interested in the learning of the scholastic period. A much earlier English version, made by John of Trevisa in 1396, was published by Wynkyn de Worde in 1495, and is considered to be the finest production of his press. [10]