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.

EACH: Profusely illustrated in color, doubletone and line. Octavo. Handsome cloth binding, gilt top, in a box. $6.00 net. Carriage charges extra.

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.

Four illustrations. Square Octavo. Decorated cloth. $1.25 net.

[4]

MR. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARES COMEDIES, HISTORIES, & TRAGEDIES.

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.

[5]

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

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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

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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 [8] 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

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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. [16]

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. [17]

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. [18]

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.

[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".

[19]

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.

[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]

[20]

[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:

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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: [22]

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.

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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: [24]

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: [25]

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 [26] (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 [27] 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.