Читать книгу The Book of the Pearl. The history, art, science, and industry of the queen of gems онлайн

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The word is given “perle” in the earliest manuscripts of those old epic poems of the fourteenth century, “Pearl” and “Cleanness,” which have caused so much learned theological discussion and which testify to the great love and esteem in which the gem was held. The first stanza of “Pearl” we quote from Gollancz’s rendition:

Pearl! fair enow for princes’ pleasance,

so deftly set in gold so pure,—

from orient lands I durst avouch,

ne’er saw I a gem its peer,—

so round, so comely-shaped withal,

so small, with sides so smooth,—

where’er I judged of radiant gems,

I placed my pearl supreme.^[27]

The fourteenth-century manuscript in the British Museum gives this as follows:

Perle plesaunte to prynces paye,

To clanly clos in gold so clere,

Oute of oryent I hardyly saye,

Ne proved I never her precios pere,—

So rounde, so reken in uche a raye,

So smal, so smothe her sydez were,—

Queresoever I jugged gemmez gaye,

I sette hyr sengeley in synglere.

And from a modern rendering of “Cleanness” we quote: