I. Of the Hebrew ornaments for the throat, some were true necklaces,
in the modern sense, of several rows, the outermost of which descended
to the breast, and had little pendulous cylinders of gold, (in the
poorer classes, of copper,) so contrived as to make a jingling sound
on the least motion of the person; others were more properly golden
stocks, or throat-bands, fitted so close as to produce in the spectator
an unpleasant imagination (and in the wearer, as we learn from the
Thalmud, VI. 43, until reconciled by use, an actual feeling) of
constriction approaching to suffocation. Necklaces were, from the
earliest times, a favorite ornament of the male sex in the East; and
expressed the dignity of the wearer, as we see in the instances of
Joseph, of Daniel, &c.; indeed the gold chain of office, still the
badge of civic (and until lately, of military) dignities, is no more
than the outermost row of the Oriental necklace. Philo of Alexandria,
and the other Arabian poets, give us some idea of the importance
attached by the women of Asia to this beautiful ornament, and of the
extraordinary money value which it sometimes bore: and from the case
of the necklace of gold and amber, in the 15th Odyssey, (v. 458,)
combined with many other instances of the same kind, there can be no
doubt that it was the neighboring land of Phoenicia from which the
Hebrew women obtained their necklaces, and the practice of wearing
them.
II. The fashion, however, of adorning the necklace with golden _Suns_
and _Moons_, so agreeable to the Hebrew ladies of Isaiah's time, (chap.
iii. 18,) was not derived from Phoenicia, but from Arabia. At an earlier
period, (Judges, viii. 21,) the camels of the Midianites were adorned
with golden moons, which also decorated the necks of the emirs of that
nomadic tribe. These appendages were not used merely by way of ornament,
but originally as talismans, or amulets, against sickness, danger, and
every species of calamity to which the desert was liable. The particular
form of the amulet is to be explained out of the primitive religion,
which prevailed in Arabia up to the rise of Mahometanism, in the seventh
century of Christianity, viz. the _Sabean_ religion, or worship of the
heavenly host--sun, moon, and stars, the most natural of all modes of
idolatry, and especially to a nomadic people in flat and pathless
deserts, without a single way-mark or guidance for their wanderings,
except what they drew from the silent heavens above them. It is certain,
therefore, that, long before their emigration into Palestine, the
Israelites had received the practice of wearing suns and moons from
the Midianites; even after their settlement in Palestine, it is certain
that the worship of the starry host struck root pretty deeply at
different periods; and that, to the sun and moon, in particular, were
offered incense and libations.
From Arabia, this fashion diffused itself over many countries; [Footnote
6] and it was not without great displeasure that, in a remote age,
Jerome and Tertullian discovered this idolatrous ornament upon the
bosoms of their countrywomen.
The crescents, or _half_-moons of silver, in connection with the golden
suns, [Footnote 6] were sometimes set in a brilliant frame that
represented a halo, and still keep their ground on the Persian and
Turkish toilette, as a favorite ornament.
III. The GOLDEN SNAKES, worn as one of the Hebrew appendages to the
necklace, had the same idolatrous derivation, and originally were
applied to the same superstitious use--as an amulet, or prophylactic
ornament. To minds predisposed to this sort of superstition, the serpent
came specially recommended under the circumstances of the Hebrews,
from the conspicuous part which this reptile sustains in the mythologies
of the East. From the earliest periods to which tradition ascends,
serpents of various species were consecrated to the religious feelings
of Egypt, by temples, sacrifices, and formal rites of worship. This
mode of idolatry had at various periods infected Palestine. According
to 2 Kings, xviii. 4, at the accession of King Hezekiah, the Israelites
had raised peculiar altars to a great brazen serpent, and burned incense
upon them. Even at this day the Abyssinians have an unlimited reverence
for serpents; and the blacks in general regard them as fit subjects
for divine honors. Sonnini (II. 388) tells us, that a serpent's skin
is still looked upon in Egypt as a prophylactic against complaints of
the head, and also as a certain cure for them. And of the same origin,
no doubt, was the general belief of antiquity, (according to Pliny,
30, 12,) that the serpent's skin was a remedy for spasms. That the
golden serpent kept its place as an ornament of the throat and bosom
after the Christian era, we learn from Clement of Alexandria. That
zealous father, so intolerant of superstitious mummery under every
shape, directs his efforts against this fashion as against a--device
of the devil.
IV. To the lowest of the several concentric circles which composed the
necklace, was attached a little box, exquisitely wrought in silver or
gold, sometimes an onyx phial of dazzling whiteness, depending to the
bosom or even to the cincture, and filled with the rarest aromas and
odorous spices of the East. What were the favorite essences preserved
in this beautiful appendage to the female costume of Palestine, it is
not possible at this distance of time to determine with
certainty--Isaiah having altogether neglected the case, and Hosea (who
appears to allude to it, ii. 14) having only once distinctly mentioned
it, (ii. 20.) However, the Thalmud particularizes musk, and the
delightful oil distilled from the leaf of the aromatic _malabathrum_
of Hindostan. To these we may venture to add, oil of spikenard, myrrh,
balsams, attar of roses, and rose-water, as the perfumes usually
contained in the Hebrew scent-pendants. Rose-water, which I am the
first to mention as a Hebrew perfume, had, as I presume, a foremost
place on the toilette of a Hebrew _belle_. Express scriptural authority
for it undoubtedly there is none; but it is notorious that Palestine
availed itself of _all_ the advantages of Egypt, amongst which the
rose in every variety was one. _Fium_, a province of central Egypt,
which the ancients called the Garden of Egypt, was distinguished for
innumerable species of the rose, and especially for those of the most
balsamic order, and for the most costly preparations from it. The
Thalmud not only speaks generally of the mixtures made by tempering
it with oil, (i. 135,) but expressly cites (ii. 41) a peculiar
rose-water as so costly an essence, that from its high price alone it
became impossible to introduce the use of it into the ordinary medical
practice. Indeed this last consideration, and the fact that the
highly-prized _quintessence_ cannot be obtained except from an
extraordinary multitude of the rarest roses, forbid us to suppose that
women of the first rank in Jerusalem could have made a very liberal
use of rose-water. In our times, Savary found a single phial of it in
the place of its manufacture, valued at four francs. As to the _oil
of roses_, properly so called, which floats in a very inconsiderable
quantity upon the surface of distilled rose-water, it is certain that
the Hebrew ladies were _not_ acquainted with it. This preparation can
be obtained only from the balsamic roses of Fium, of Shiras, of Kerman,
and of Kashmire, which surpass all the roses of the earth in power and
delicacy of odor; and it is matter of absolute certainty, and
incontrovertibly established by the celebrated Langles, that this oil,
which even in the four Asiatic countries just mentioned, ranks with
the greatest rarities, and in Shiras itself is valued at its weight
in gold, was discovered by mere accident, on occasion of some festival
solemnity in the year 1612.
V. To what I said, in the first scene of my exhibition, about the
Hebrew ear-ornaments, I may add,
1. That sometimes, as Best remarked of the Hindoo dancing-girls, their
ears were swollen from the innumerable perforations drilled into them
to support their loads of trinketry.
2. That in the large pendants of coral which the Hebrew ladies were
accustomed to attach to their ears, either in preference to jewels,
or in alternation with jewels, they particularly delighted in that
configuration which imitated a cluster of grapes.
3. That, in ear-rings made of gold, they preferred the form of drops,
or of globes and bulbs.
4. That of all varieties, however, of this appendage, pearls maintained
the preference amongst the ladies of Palestine, and were either strung
upon a thread, or attached by little hooks--singly or in groups,
according to their size. This taste was very early established amongst
the Jews, and chiefly, perhaps, through their intercourse with the
Midianites, amongst whom we find the great Emirs wearing pearl ornaments
of this class.
_Mutatis mutandis_, these four remarks apply to the case of the nose
ornaments.