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Page 9
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 Bartholom�us 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.]
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