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

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Owing to the chaste and subdued beauty of pearls, it is not strange that poets of many countries have founded their origin in tears—tears of angels, of water-nymphs, of the lovely and devoted. Sir Walter Scott in “The Bridal of Triermain” refers to—

The pearls that long have slept,

These were tears by Naiads wept.

In one of his most lovely and consoling thoughts, Shakspere says:

The liquid drops of tears that you have shed,

Shall come again, transform’d to orient pearl,

Advantaging their loan with interest

Of ten times double gain of happiness.

And we quote from Rückert’s “Edelstein und Perlen”:

I was the Angel, who of old bowed down

From Heaven to earth and shed that tear, O Pearl,

From which thou wert first-fashioned in thy shell.

To thee I gave that longing in thy shell,

Which guided thee and caused thee to escape,

O Pearl, from the bewitching sirens’ song.

In luster they so closely resemble the limpid, sparkling dewdrop as it first receives the sun’s rays, that the ancients very naturally conceived that pearls are formed from drops of dew or rain. The usual legend is, that at certain seasons of the year, the pearl-oysters rise to the surface of the water in the morning, and there open their shells and imbibe the dewdrops; these, aided by the breath of the air and the warmth of the sunlight, are, in the course of time, transformed into lustrous pearls; but if the air and the sunlight are not received in sufficient quantities, the pearls do not attain perfection and are faulty in form, color, and luster. However remarkable and even absurd this may seem at present, it appears to have been universally accepted for centuries by the most learned men of Europe as well as by primitive people who delight in the mystical and fantastic. This opinion was recorded in the Sanskrit books of the Brahmans and in other oriental literature. The classical and medieval writings of Europe contain numerous references to it; and it is found even yet in the traditions and folk-lore of some peoples.