later period some of these “agate-eyes” were removed from the statues
and cut with a glyptic subject on the lower side. Some of the most
interesting antique gems are of this kind. In Aleppo (and elsewhere in
the East) there is a certain type of sore known as the “Aleppo button”
or “Aleppo boil.” The boil frequently does not appear for a long
period after infection has taken place. It often appears as a swelling
surrounded by a white ring, and there is a belief among the natives
that there are “Aleppo stones,” these being the so-called “eye-agates”
frequently produced by cutting a three-layer, naturally pale yellow
or pale gray agate, with intervening white zones in such a way that
it looks like an eye or a double-eye, and such stones are used in
alleviation of the Aleppo sore. What beneficial influence they may have
is due to the fact that the agate is cold and furnishes a little relief
for the time.
This “Aleppo boil” or “Oriental sore” so prevalent in many parts of
western Asia, is produced, according to the best authorities, by a
pathogenic organism _Leishmania tropica_ (Wright) 1903. As to the means
by which this organism is introduced into the human subject nothing
very definite is known, but mosquitoes or _Phlebotomus_ have been
suggested as possible transmitting agencies.[216]
The eye of some invisible monster, the eye of the dragon, the eye of
the serpent, were all regarded as possessed of malign power. It is well
known that in the East Indies a peacock’s feather is thought to bring
ill-luck, the eye in the feather being the baleful point. Even in our
own time, and among those for whom this primitive superstition has no
terrors, the humorous use of the idea—as shown, for instance, in the
“Dick Dead-Eye” of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Pinafore”—proves that the
Evil Eye is familiar to our thoughts. For this reason, stones such as
those which have been named the cat’s-eye, the tiger’s-eye, or the
oculus Beli, always possess a certain strange interest.
One of the earliest descriptions of the opal in English is that written
in the reign of Queen Elizabeth by Dr. Stephen Batman (d. 1584). While
the passage is essentially a translation from the “De proprietatibus
rerum,” of Bartolomæus Anglicus, the English version is interesting
in itself as showing what was accepted by English readers of the time
regarding the virtues of the opal. There is, of course, no trace of
the foolish modern superstition touching the ominous quality of this
beautiful gem. Batman writes:[217]
Optallio is called Oppalus also, and is a stone distinguished with
colors of divers precious stones, as _Isid._ saith.... This stone
breedeth onely in _Inde_ and is deemed to have as many virtues, as
hiewes and colours. Of this _Optallius_ it is said in Lapidario, that
this _Optallius_ keepeth and saveth his eyen that beareth it, cleere
and sharp and without griefe, and dimmeth other men’s eyen that be
about, with a maner clowde, and smiteth them with a maner blindnesse,
that is called _Amentia_, so that they may not see neither take heede
what is done before their eyen. Therefore it is said that it is the
most sure patron of theeves.
The opal seems to have appealed to Shakespeare as a fit emblem of
inconstancy, for in “Twelfth Night” he makes the clown say to the
Duke:[218]
Now the melancholy God protect thee, and the Tailor make thy garment
of changeable taffeta, for thy mind is very opal.
That the beauty of the opal was fully appreciated in the sixteenth
century is shown by the words of Cardano, who states that he once
bought one of these stones for fifteen gold crowns and found as much
pleasure in its possession as he did in that of a diamond that had
cost him five hundred crowns.[219] Although superstitious beliefs
were rather the rule than the exception in Cardano’s time, none of
the silly fancies regarding the ominous quality of the opal were then
current. It was reserved for the nineteenth century to develop these
altogether unreasonable—and indeed almost inexplicable—superstitions.
The ownership of so fair an object as a fine opal must certainly be a
source of pleasure, and hence add to the good fortune of the owner.
Although opal has been considered by some a stone of misfortune, black
opal is regarded as an exceptionally lucky stone. Formerly black opals
were artificially made by dipping the light-colored stone into ink, or
by allowing burnt oil to enter cracks in the stone produced by heating.
About the year 1900, however, a number of deposits of natural black
opals were found in the White Cliff region of New South Wales, whence
exceedingly beautiful gems have been secured, with wonderful flames
of green, red, and blue in a black field. Some of these have sold for
$1000 and even for a higher price, the smaller ones bringing from a few
dollars upward each. It has been claimed that $2,000,000 worth have
been sold from New South Wales. A remarkable example is figured on the
frontispiece of this volume. The late F. Marion Crawford was a great
admirer of this strangely beautiful variety of opal.
That ill-luck and good-luck are relative terms is shown us published
of an opal by Paris newspapers. A shopgirl, plainly clad, in crossing
the Place de l’Opéra, when the street traffic was at its greatest,
stopped at one of the “refuges” halfway across the street. To the
girl’s great surprise, an elegantly attired lady standing there slipped
an opal ring from her finger and gave it to the girl, who took it
to a jeweller’s shop to sell it. Here she was arrested on suspicion
of having stolen it. The magistrate before whom she appeared was
inclined to believe her story and ordered a “personal” in a widely read
journal asking the lady to clear the girl of the charge. A titled lady
presented herself, substantiating the girl’s statement. She feared
ill-luck would befall her if she wore or kept the ring, which was
returned to the shopgirl.
A possible explanation of the superstitious dread the opal used to
excite some time ago may be found in the fact that lapidaries and
gem-setters to whom opals were entrusted were sometimes so unfortunate
as to fracture them in the process of cutting or setting. This was
frequently due to no fault on the part of the cutters or setters, but
was owing to the natural brittleness of the opal. As such workmen are
responsible to the owners for any injury to the gems, they would soon
acquire a prejudice against opals, and would come to regard them as
unlucky stones. Very widespread superstitions have no better foundation
than this, for the original cause, sometimes a quite rational one, is
soon lost sight of and popular fantasy suggests something entirely
different and better calculated to appeal to the imagination.
The belief that the diamond fractured the teeth if it were put in
the mouth, and ruptured the intestines if it were swallowed, already
appears in pseudo-Aristotle,[220] and can therefore be dated back to
the ninth and perhaps to the seventh century. This fancy evidently owes
its origin to the fact that the diamond, because of its hardness, was
used to cut all other stones, and the idea of its destructive quality
was strengthened by the old legends regarding the venomous serpents
which guarded the place where it was found. Hence the firm conviction
that it would bring death to any one who swallowed it.
According to Garcias ab Orta (1563), the diamond was not used for
medicinal purposes in the India of his time, except when injected
into the bladder to break up vesical calculi. He notes, however, the
prevalent belief that diamonds, or diamond dust, when taken internally,
worked as a poison. As a proof of the falsity of this belief, Garcias
adduces the fact that the slaves who worked in the diamond mines
often swallowed diamonds to conceal them, and never experienced any
ill effects, the stones being recovered in a natural way. The same
author notes the case of a man who suffered from chronic dysentery and
whose wife had for a long time administered to him doses of diamond
dust. If this did not help him, neither did it injure him; finally, by
the advice of the doctors, this strange treatment was abandoned. The
man eventually died of his disease, but many days after the doses of
diamond dust had been discontinued.[221]
The Hindus believed that a flawed diamond, or one containing specks or
spots, was so unlucky that it could even deprive Indra of his highest
heaven. The original shape of the stone was also considered of great
importance, more especially in early times, when but few, if any,
diamonds, were cut. A triangular stone was said to cause quarrels, a
square diamond inspired the wearer with vague terrors; a five-cornered
stone had the worst effect of all, for it brought death; only the
six-cornered diamond was productive of good.[222]
The Turkish sultan Bejazet II (1447-1512) is said to have been done
to death by a dose of pulverized diamond administered to him by his
son Selim, who mixed the diamond dust with the sultan’s food.[223] It
is also related that the disciples of Paracelsus (1493-1541) spread
the report that he died from the effects of a dose of diamond dust.
Ambrosius[224] conjectures that this was only an excuse to explain the
demise of the master in the prime of life—he was but forty-eight years
old at the time of his death—although he had promised long life to all
who made use of his medicaments.
While Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571), the unrivalled goldsmith, was
imprisoned in Rome, in 1538, he strongly suspected that his enemies
were seeking to poison him by tampering with his food. Cellini shared
the belief of his contemporaries that there was no more deadly poison
than diamond dust. One day, while eating his noonday meal, he felt
something grate between his teeth. He paid no particular attention
to this, but when he had finished eating his eye was caught by some
bright particles on the plate. Picking up one of these and examining it
carefully, he was terrified to find what he supposed to be a diamond
splinter, and he straightway gave himself up for lost, thinking that he
had swallowed a quantity of diamond dust. He prayed to God for an hour
and finally became reconciled to the thought of dying, but suddenly it
occurred to him that he had not tested the hardness of the fragment he
had found in his food. He immediately took the splinter and tried to
crush it between his knife and the stone window-sill; to his joy the
attempt succeeded, and he became convinced that what he had swallowed
was not diamond dust. Later, after his release, Cellini learned that
an enemy had given a diamond to a certain Lione Aretino, a gem-cutter,
instructing him to grind it up so that the dust could be placed in
Cellini’s food. The gem-cutter was very poor and the diamond was worth
a hundred scudi, so the man yielded to temptation and substituted
a citrine for the diamond. To this circumstance alone did Cellini
attribute his escape from death.[225]
In England, more than seventy years after Cellini’s experience, diamond
dust was selected as a poison to do away with a luckless prisoner. Sir
Thomas Overbury had incurred the bitter animosity of the Countess of
Essex, because he opposed her marriage with the favorite of James I,
Robert Carr, Viscount Somerset, whom he had befriended and whose career
he had furthered. The marriage took place, however, and, in 1613,
Overbury was imprisoned in the Tower, through the machinations of the
countess. She then sought the aid of one James Franklin, an apothecary,
directing him to concoct a slow and deadly poison, which should be
mixed with Overbury’s food. In the minutes of Franklin’s confession, he
is said to have stated that the countess asked him what he thought of
white arsenic. His reply was that this poison would prove too violent.
“What say you (quoth she) to powder of diamonds?” He answered, “I
know not the nature of that.” She said that he was a fool, and gave
him pieces of gold, and bade him buy some of that powder for her. It
appears, however, from the testimony, that a number of ingredients were
employed, quite probably small doses of mercury, cantharides, etc., as
well as the baleful diamond dust. Poor Overbury lingered on for more
than three months, but was finally put out of his misery by a clyster
of corrosive sublimate.[226]
As a proof of the deadly effects caused by the diamond, the Portuguese
Zacutus relates the case of a merchant’s servant who surreptitiously
swallowed three rough diamonds belonging to his master. On the
following day this man was seized with violent abdominal pains, all the
remedies administered to him were without effect, and he soon died from
the extensive internal ulceration produced by the sharp edges of the
diamonds.[227]
This old fancy that diamonds or diamond dust had deadly effects
when swallowed is pretty well exploded by this time, little or no
confirmation being afforded by the instances cited in the matter.
However, quite recently it has been shown that swallowing a diamond
can prove fatal to a fowl. While a prize-winning cockerel was being
fondled by his proud owner, it spied a flashing diamond set in a ring
on his hand, and immediately pecked out the stone and swallowed it. Not
long after, the fowl died—not, however, because it was poisoned by the
diamond, but because it was chloroformed to insure the speedy recovery
of the stone.
An old English ballad, treating of the loves of Hind Horn and Maid
Rimnild, recounts that when Hind Horn, who loved and was beloved by
the king’s daughter, went to sea to escape the wrath of the king, the
princess gave him a ring set with seven diamonds. We are told that when
far from home:
One day he looked his ring upon
He saw the diamond pale and wan.
Hereupon, he hastened back, for the paleness of the stone was a sign
the loved one was unfaithful to him. On his return, he succeeded in
preventing her marriage to another, and everything ended happily.[228]
In a fourteenth century MS. of the Old English romance upon which the
ballad is founded, the stone in the ring is not named; in giving it
Rimnild says:[229]
Loke thou forsake it for no thing;
The ston it is well trewe.
When the ston wexeth wan
Than chaungeth the thought of thi leman,
Take than a newe.
When the ston wexeth rede,
Than have Y lorn mi maidenhed,
Oghaines[230] the untrewe.
In this older form of the tale, the stone either grows pale or red as a
sign of misfortune. It is interesting to note that Epiphanius, writing
a thousand years earlier, states that the _adamas_ of the high-priest
grew red as a presage of bloodshed and defeat for the Jews.
Regarding the old fancy that a serpent could not look upon an emerald
without losing its sight, the Arabian gem dealer, Ahmed Teifashi, in
1242 writes as follows:[231]
After having read in learned books of this peculiarity of the emerald,
I tested it by my own experiment and found the statements exact. It
chanced that I had in my possession a fine emerald of the zabâbi
variety, and with this I decided to make the experiment on the eyes
of a viper. Therefore, having made a bargain with a snake-charmer to
procure me some vipers, as soon as I received them I selected one
and placed it in a vessel. This being done, I took a stick of wood,
attached to the end a piece of wax, and embedded my emerald in this.
I then brought the emerald near to the viper’s eyes. The reptile was
strong and vigorous, and even raised its head out of the vessel, but
as soon as I approached the emerald to its eyes, I heard a slight
crepitation and saw that the eyes were protruding and dissolving into
a humor. After this the viper was dazed and confused; I had expected
that it would spring from the vessel, but it moved uneasily hither and
thither, without knowing which way to turn; all its agility was lost,
and its restless movements soon ceased.
Wolfgang Gabelchover, in his commentary on the sixth book of the
treatise “De Gemmis,” by Andrea Baccio, gives the following account of
a strange and tragic experience in regard to a ruby:[232]
It is worthy of note that the true Oriental ruby, by frequent changes
of color and by growing obscurity, announces to the wearer some
impending misfortune or calamity; and the obscurity and opacity is
greater or less according to the extent of the coming ill-fortune.
Alas! that what I had often heard proclaimed by learned men, I should
myself experience; for as, on the fifth of December, 1600, I was
travelling from Stuttgart to Calw with my beloved wife Catherine
Adelmann of pious memory, I plainly observed in the course of the
journey that a very beautiful ruby which she had given me, and which I
wore on my hand, set in a gold ring, once and again lost its splendid
coloring and became obscure, changing its brightness for a dark hue.
This dark hue continued not for one or two days only, but so long
that I was greatly terrified, and, removing the ring from my finger,
concealed it in a case. Wherefore, I repeatedly warned my wife that
some great calamity was impending either for her or for myself, the
which I inferred from the change and variation of the ruby. Nor was
I deceived, for within a few days she was seized with a dangerous
illness, which resulted in her death.
A story explaining one at least of these supposedly ominous changes of
color in precious stones, is given by Johann Jacob Spener, who states
that it was told him by a trustworthy informant:[233]
There was a jeweller, expert, prudent, and rich, three essential
qualities in a jeweller. One day, after having washed his hands, this
man sat at a table, when, glancing at a ruby ring he wore on his
finger, he remarked that the stone, which usually delighted the eye
with its splendor, had lost its brilliancy and become dull. Since he
believed what others had related to him, he was firmly persuaded that
some misfortune threatened him, and, having removed the ring from
his finger, he placed it in its case. A fortnight later, one of this
man’s sons died of varioloid. Reminded by this event of the phenomenon
observed in the ruby, the jeweller took it from the case and found,
on examination, that it had regained its pristine brilliancy. This
fact confirmed him in his belief in the ominous quality of the stone.
Once more, shortly after washing his hands, he remarked anew that
the splendor of the ruby was dimmed, and he again fell a prey to
anxiety, lest some fresh misfortune was impending. Since, however,
his apprehensions proved vain and no untoward event happened, he
investigated the matter carefully, and discovered that the obscuration
of the color was due to a drop of water which had penetrated between
the ruby and the foil, as the jewellers call it, and that the former
brilliancy returned when the water had evaporated.
The ominous character of the onyx is especially noted in Arabic
tradition, as is shown by the Arabic name for the stone, _el jaza_,
“sadness.” The following passage from pseudo-Aristotle offers an
illustration of the strength of this prejudice against the onyx, which
was said to come from China and the Magreb:[234]
Those who are in the land of China fear this stone so much that they
dread to go into the mines where it occurs; hence none but slaves and
menials, who have no other means of gaining a livelihood, take the
stone from the mines. When it has been extracted, it is carried out of
the country and sold in other lands. Those men of the Magreb also who
are gifted with any wisdom will not wear an onyx or place it in their
treasuries. Indeed, no one is willing to wear it, unless he be bereft
of his senses; for whosoever wears it, either set in a ring or in any
other way, will have fearful dreams and be tormented by a multitude
of doubts and apprehensions; he will also have many disputes and
lawsuits. Lastly, whoever keeps an onyx in his house, or places it in
a vessel, or puts it in food or drink, will suffer loss of energy and
capacity.
An ominous character was attributed to the red coral, especially the
more highly colored varieties. If worn so that the substance came in
direct contact with the skin, it was asserted that the color would
pale, the coral also losing its brightness if the wearer became ill, or
even if he were only threatened with severe illness. The same effect
was said to be induced if some deadly poison had been taken. Cardano
writes that he more than once observed this phenomenon, and he thinks
that in these cases, where the wearer was not yet attacked by disease,
its threatening “vapor,” though not strong enough to provoke decided
symptoms in the human body, was sufficiently powerful to offset the
more delicate and subtle essence of the mineral substance. Of course,
for us the mineral would be much less sensitive than flesh and blood,
but the sixteenth century writers, and to a still greater degree those
of an earlier time, attributed to stones not only life in a general
way, but old age, disease, and death, in a very positive sense.[235]
Rabbinical tradition tells of a wonderful luminous stone placed by Noah
in the Ark. This stone shone more brilliantly by day than by night, and
served to distinguish the day from the night when, during the flood,
neither sun nor moon could be seen.[236] According to another Jewish
legend, Abraham is said to have built a city for the six sons Hagar
bore to him. The wall with which this city was surrounded was so lofty
that the light of the sun was cut off, and to offset this Abraham gave
to his sons enormous precious stones and pearls. These exceeded the sun
in brightness, and will be used in the time of the Messiah.[237]
Ælian relates the following tale of a luminous stone. A woman of
Tarentum, named Heracleis, who was a pattern of the domestic virtues,
lost her husband and mourned sincerely for him. Her grief made her
compassionate, for when a young stork just learning to fly lost its
strength and fell to the ground before her, Heracleis picked up the
helpless bird and tended it carefully until its strength returned and
it was able to fly away. A year later, when the woman was outside the
house enjoying the bright warm sunshine, she saw a stork flying toward
her. As the bird passed over her head, it let fall a precious stone
into her lap. Heracleis took the stone with her into the house,
feeling by an infallible instinct that the stork which had dropped it
was the one she had cared for in the previous year. During the night
she woke up, and was astonished to see that the room was lighted up as
though by many torches, the radiance proceeding from the stone bestowed
by the stork as a proof of its gratitude.[238]
In German, the stone called _Donnerkeil_ (thunderbolt) has several
synonyms; among these is _Storchstein_ (“stork-stone”). It is evident
that the stone of Heracleis was identical with the precious and
brilliant variety of _cerauniæ_ mentioned by Pliny, “which drew to
themselves the radiance of the stars.” The flashing and ruddy light
of the ruby suggested an igneous origin, and induced the belief that
rubies were generated by a fire from heaven,—in other words, by the
lightning flash.[239]
The analogy between the flame of a lamp or the glow of a burning coal
and the radiance of a ruby, suggested some of the names given to this
stone, or those resembling it in color, as, for instance, the Greek
_anthrax_ and the Latin _carbunculus_ and _lychnis_. Probably the
fancy that such stones were luminous in the dark was nothing more than
the logical result of the quasi-identification of them with fire in
some of its manifestations. Still, it is a well-known fact that some
stones possess a high degree of phosphorescence. This circumstance
must have been observed by chance, and may have had something to do
with the legends of luminous stones, although this peculiarity is not
characteristic of the ruby.