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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.
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.
MR. WILLIAM
SHAKESPEARES
COMEDIES, HISTORIES, &
TRAGEDIES
Published according to the True Originall Copies
[Illustration: 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.]
LONDON
Printed by Isaac Laggard, and Ed. Blount. 1623.
* * * * *
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
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
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
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
SHAKESPEARE AND PRECIOUS STONES
PRECIOUS STONES MENTIONED IN THE PLAYS OF
SHAKESPEARE
PRECIOUS STONES MENTIONED IN THE POEMS OF
SHAKESPEARE
ILLUSTRATIONS
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (ENGRAVED BY MARTIN
DROESHOUT) _Frontispiece_
FIVE OF THE SIX AUTHENTIC SHAKESPEARE SIGNATURES
DIAMOND CUTTER'S SHOP, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
FROM A PORTRAIT OF QUEEN ELIZABETH
PRINTER'S MARK OF RICHARD FIELD
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.
[Footnote 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".]
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.
[Footnote 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]
[Footnote 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:
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".
[Footnote 4: "Venus and Adonis", l. 542; "Lucrece", l. 420; Sonnet
cxxx, l. 2.]
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.
[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 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.
[Footnote 8: Rare word, only known in this passage. Century Dictionary
gives "invisible", "unseen", "uninspected", noting that some
commentators suggest "inspected", "tried", "investigated".]
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]
[Footnote 9: See H.R.D. Anders, "Shakespeare's Books", Berlin, 1904,
pp. 238-248, and the New Shakespeare Soc. Trans., 1877-79, pp. 436
sqq.]
[Footnote 10: In the author's library is a fourteenth century MS. of
the "De Proprietatibus Rerum", which belonged to the Carthusian
Monastery of the Holy Trinity, at Dijon.]
A rarely noted source for some of Shakespeare's knowledge regarding
curious customs has been sought in the rambling treatise on heraldry
written by Gerard Legh and issued, in 1564, under the title: "Accedens
of Armorie" (approximately, Introduction to Heraldry). This is cast in
the form of a dialogue between Gerard the Herehaught (Herold) and the
Caligat Knight, the latter term designating an inferior kind of knight
with no claim to nobility; indeed, an old writer renders it "a
souldior on foot". The writer manages to weave in much material
slightly or not at all connected with his main theme. Legh was the son
of a Fleet Street draper. He seems to have studied a variety of
subjects and gathered together many scraps of curious information. He
died of the plague, October 13, 1563. His book went through several
editions during Shakespeare's lifetime. Following the first edition
of 1562 came successive ones in 1576, 1591, 1597, and one bearing the
imprint of J. Jaggard in 1616. The author is believed to have been
intentionally obscure in his treatment of heraldic questions lest he
might earn the ill-will of the College of Arms by violating certain of
their privileges.
While both Shakespeare and his great contemporary Cervantes died on
April 23 of the year 1616, it strangely happens that Cervantes had
been dead ten days when Shakespeare expired. This apparent paradox is
due to the fact that while in Spain the Gregorian calendar had already
been introduced, the "Old Style", or Julian reckoning, was still used
in England; indeed, it was not totally abandoned until 1752, in the
reign of George II, 170 years after the first use of the Gregorian
reckoning on the Continent. In the seventeenth century the error to be
corrected amounted to ten days, so that Shakespeare's death, under the
New Style, occurred on May 3, while Cervantes died on April 13 of the
Old Style.
In commemoration of the Tercentenary of Shakespeare's death, the
Shakespearean scholar, Miss H.C. Bartlett, prepared for the New York
Public Library an exhibition of Shakespearean books, including all the
early editions of the quartos; the various editions of the folios; the
works of contemporaneous authors whom Shakespeare had consulted; and
also the early works that mention Shakespeare, or cite from his plays
or poems, including Greene's "Groat's Worth of Wit", published in 1592
by Henry Chettle and containing the earliest printed allusion to
Shakespeare under the name of "Shake-scene".
One of the contemporary books containing citations from Shakespeare's
works, shown at the New York Public Library, is "The Woman Hater", by
Francis Beaumont (?1585-1615 or 1616), printed in 1607.[11] The
citation, from _Hamlet_, Act i, sc. 5,[12] is apropos of the
disappearance of a "fish head". It is put into the mouths of two of
the characters, as follows:
_Lazarello_. Speak, I am bound to hear.
_Count_. So art thou to revenge when thou shalt hear.
[Footnote 11: "The Woman Hater, as it hath beene lately acted by the
children of Paules, London, printed and to be sold by John Hodgers in
Paules Church-yard, 1607".]
[Footnote 12: First Folio, p. 257, col. B, lines 15, 16.]
In the spacious hall of the beautiful Hispanic Museum in New York City
there has recently been displayed, in commemoration of the
tercentenary of Cervantes's death, an exceptionally fine collection
of editions of his works and of rare plates illustrating episodes from
them. Notable among the books was a first edition of his earliest
published poems, four redondillas, a copla and an elegy, on the death,
October 3, 1568, of Elizabeth de Valois, third wife of Philip II, and
sister of Charles IX of France.[13] Dark rumors were afloat for some
time that she had been poisoned by order of her husband. Among the
other treasures in the Hispanic Museum exhibition was the earliest
imprint of Cervantes's masterpiece, the immortal "Don Quixote". This
was printed in Madrid, in 1605, by Juan de la Cuesta.
[Footnote 13: The compilation containing these poems is entitled:
"Hystoria y relacio verdadera de la enfermedad felicissimo transito y
sumptuosas exequias funebres de la Serenissima Reyna de España Isabel
de Valoys nuestra Señora", Madrid, 1569. The opening lines of
Cervantes are:
A quien yra mi doloroso canto
O en cuya oreja sonara su acento?
(To whom will my sad song go, and in
whose ears will its accents sound?) ]
A rather attractive bit of verse, purporting to have been written by
Shakespeare and dedicated to the woman who became his wife in 1582,
when he was but eighteen years old (she was eight years his senior),
alludes in its third stanza to "the orient list" of gems, diamond,
topaz, amethyst, emerald, and ruby. This little poem, with its play
upon the lady-love's name, can find a place here, although many
readers are already familiar with it.
TO THE IDOL OF MINE EYES AND THE DELIGHT OF MINE
HEART,
ANNE HATHAWAY
Would ye be taught, ye feathered throng,
With love's sweet notes to grace your song,
To pierce the heart with thrilling lay,
Listen to mine Anne Hathaway!
She hath a way to sing so clear,
Phoebus might wond'ring stop to hear;
To melt the sad, make blithe the gay,
And nature charm, Anne hath a way:
She hath a way,
Anne Hathaway,
To breathe delight Anne hath a way.
When envy's breath and rancorous tooth
Do soil and bite fair worth and truth,
And merit to distress betray,
To soothe the heart Anne hath a way;
She hath a way to chase despair,
To heal all grief, to cure all care,
Turn foulest night to fairest day:
Thou know'st, fond heart, Anne hath a way,
She hath a way,
Anne Hathaway,
To make grief bliss Anne hath a way.
Talk not of gems, the orient list,
The diamond, topaz, amethyst,
The emerald mild, the ruby gay;
Talk of my gem, Anne Hathaway!
She hath a way, with her bright eye,
Their various lustre to defy,
The jewel she and the foil they,
So sweet to look Anne hath a way.
She hath a way,
Anne Hathaway,
To make grief bliss Anne hath a way.
But were it to my fancy given
To rate her charms, I'd call them Heaven;
For though a mortal made of clay,
Angels must love Anne Hathaway.
She hath a way so to control
To rupture the imprisoned soul,
And sweetest Heaven on earth display,
That to be Heaven Anne hath a way!
She hath a way,
Anne Hathaway,
To be Heaven's self Anne hath a way.
This little poem is by Charles Dibdin (1748-1814), the writer of about
1200 sea-songs, at one time great favorites with sailors. It appeared,
in 1792, in his long-forgotten novel, "Hannah Hewit, or the Female
Crusoe", and Sir Sidney Lee conjectures that it may have been composed
on the occasion of the Stratford jubilee of 1769, in the organization
of which Dibdin aided the great actor, David Garrick. In the "Poems
of Places", New York, 1877, edited by Henry W. Longfellow, this poem
is assigned to Shakespeare on the strength of a persistent popular
error.[14] In his "Life" Dibdin says: "My songs have been the solace
of sailors in their long voyages, in storms, in battle; and they have
been quoted in mutinies to the restoration of order and discipline".
It has been asserted that they brought more men into the navy than all
the press gangs could do.
[Footnote 14: Sir Sidney Lee, "A Life of Shakespeare", new edition,
London, 1915, p. 26, note.]
The poem has sometimes been attributed to Edmund Falconer (1814-1879),
an actor and dramatist, born in Dublin, and whose real name was Edmund
O'Rourke. However, his poem entitled "Anne Hathaway, A Traditionary
Ballad sung to a Day Dreamer by the Mummers of Shottery Brook",[15]
falls far below the lines we have quoted in poetic quality, as may be
seen from the opening stanza (the best), which runs as follows:
No beard on thy chin, but a fire in thine eye,
With lustiest Manhood's in passion to vie,
A stripling in form, with a tongue that can make
The oldest folks listen, maids sweethearts forsake,
Hie over the fields at the first blush of May,
And give thy boy's heart unto Anne Hathaway.
[Footnote 15: Edmund Falconer, "Memories, the Bequest of my Boyhood",
London, 1863, pp. 14-22.]
In none of the allusions to precious stones made by Shakespeare is
there any indication that he had in mind any of the Biblical passages
treating of gems. The most notable of these are the enumeration of the
twelve stones in Aaron's breast-plate (Exodus xxviii, 17-20; xxxix,
10-13), the list of the foundation stones and gates of the New
Jerusalem given by John in Revelation (xxi, 19-21), and the
description of the Tyrian king's "covering" in Ezekiel (xxviii, 130).
Had the poet given any particular attention to these texts we could
scarcely fail to note the fact. Other Bible mentions, such as those
elsewhere made by Ezekiel (xxvii, 16, 22), regarding the trade of
Tyre, the agates (and coral) from Syria, and the precious stones
brought by the Arabian or Syrian merchants of Sheba and Raamah, are
too much generalized to invite any special notice. The same may be
said of most of the remaining brief allusions. We might rather expect
that where the color or brilliancy of a precious stone is used as a
simile this might strike a poet's fancy and perhaps find direct
expression in his own words. The light of the New Jerusalem is likened
to "a jasper stone, clear as crystal" (Rev. xxi, 11), and in Exodus
(xxiv, 10) the sapphire stone is said to be "as it were the body of
heaven in its clearness". However, that Shakespeare wrote of "the
heaven-hued sapphire" ("Lover's Complaint", l. 215) has no necessary
connection with this, as the celestial hue of the beautiful sapphire
is spoken of time and again by many of the older writers.
FIVE OF THE SIX AUTHENTIC SHAKESPEARE SIGNATURES
[Illustration: Signature on the purchase deed of Shakespeare's house in
Blackfriars dated March 10, 1613. In the Guildhall, London]
[Illustration: Signatures on the three pages of
Shakespeare's will executed March 25, 1616. Original in Somerset
House, London]
[Illustration: Signature attached to the deed mortgaging the house
in Blackfriars, dated March 11, 1613. In the British Museum]
It should be borne in mind that the great English translation of the
Bible, popularly called "King James' Bible", was published only after
Shakespeare had completed his last play in 1611. Before that time,
dating from Tyndale's version of 1525, and in great measure based on
it, a number of English translations had appeared, the most
authoritative in Shakspeare's time being perhaps the "Bishops' Bible",
printed under the patronage of Queen Elizabeth in 1568, and edited by
the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The Geneva Bible of 1560, the first entire Bible in English in which
the division into chapters and verses was carried out, had, however,
the widest dissemination in Shakespeare's time, and a careful study of
passages in his works referable to Biblical texts appears to prove
that this version was the one with which he was most familiar. His
plays testify to his close knowledge of the Scriptures, although no
writer is less fettered by purely doctrinal considerations. The
Geneva Bible went through no less than sixty editions in Queen
Elizabeth's reign, and even after the issue of the "Authorized
Version" in 1611 it competed successfully with this for a time.
That Shakespeare may have seen Philemon Holland's (1552-1637)
excellent translation of Pliny is nowise unlikely. A notable passage
in his _Othello_ seems in any case to indicate that it was suggested
by Pliny's words (Bk. II, chap. 97, in Holland's version):
And the sea Pontus evermore floweth and runneth out into
Propontic, but the sea never retireth backe againe within
Pontus.
Othello replies thus to Iago's conjecture that he may change his mind
(Act iii, sc. 3):
Never, Iago. Like to the Pontic sea,
Whose icy current and compulsive course
Ne'er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on
To the Propontic and the Hellespont,
Even so my bloody thoughts, with violent pace,
Shall ne'er look back, ne'er ebb to humble love.
First Folio, "Tragedies", p. 326, col. B, lines 34-39.
There is, however, no trace of any familiarity on Shakespeare's part
with the precious stone lore of the Roman encyclopædist, either from
the Latin text of his great "Historia Naturalis", or from the
translation published by Holland in 1601. This translator, who
Englished many of the chief Latin and Greek authors, Suetonius, Livy,
Ammianus Marcellinus, Plutarch's "Morals" and other works, was
pronounced by Fuller, in his "Worthies", to be "translator general in
his age", adding that "these books alone of his turning into English
will make a country gentleman a competent library". For his Ammianus
Marcellinus the Council of Coventry, his place of residence, paid him
£4, and £5 for a translation of Camden's "Britannia"--small sums,
indeed, for so much labor, but not so unreasonable when we think that
a half-century later the immortal Milton got but £5 for his "Paradise
Lost". He was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he had
studied and graduated; later he studied medicine, receiving a degree
of M.D., not from Oxford or Cambridge, however, but either from a
Scottish or foreign university.
Although Solinus, writing in the third century A.D., relies mainly
upon Pliny for his information on precious stones, still he here and
there gives evidence of a more critical spirit, as when he says of the
rock-crystal that the theory according to which it was frozen and
hardened water was necessarily incorrect, for it was to be found in
such mild climates as "Alabanda in Asia and the island of
Cyprus".[16] This is the more notable that the wholly incorrect view
persisted into the sixteenth century, so learned a writer as Lord
Bacon (d. 1626) restating it in his last work, "Sylva Sylvarum".
[Footnote 16: Collectanea rerum memorabilium, Cap. 15.]
One of the most curious gem-treatises, especially as a source of early
sixteenth-century beliefs in the magic properties of precious stones,
the "Speculum Lapidum" of Camillo Leonardo, published in Venice, 1502,
probably never came under Shakespeare's eye. Indeed, even in Italy it
seems to have been so neglected that Ludovico Dolci ventured to
publish a literal Italian version of the Latin original as his own
work in 1565. The English "Mirror of Stones", issued in 1750, is
frankly stated to be a translation of the Latin original bearing the
same name.[17]
[Footnote 17: Noted in the present writer's "The Curious Lore of
Precious Stones", Philadelphia and London, 1913, p. 18.]
In Marlowe's (1564-1593) "Hero and Leander", almost certainly written
before Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis" (1593), although not published
until 1598, five years after Marlowe's death, "pearl tears" and the
"sparkling diamond" are used much in the same way as by Shakespeare,
as appears in the following verses:
Forth from those two translucent cisterns brake
A stream of liquid pearl, which down her face
Made milk-white paths.
Lines 296-298.
Why should you worship her! her you surpass
As much as sparkling diamonds flaring glass.
Lines 213,214.
There is a curious parallelism between a passage in _Troilus and
Cressida_, 1609, and one in Marlowe's _Dr. Faustus_, 1588. Marlowe
wrote (sc. 14, l. 83):
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships
And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
This is followed very closely by Shakespeare, with the substitution of
"pearl" for "face".