References to Pearls in Literature

Moore alludes to this pretty fiction in one of his sweetest melodies:-

"And precious the tear as that rain from the sky

Which turns into pearls as it falls in the sea."

Sir Walter Scott, in the "Bridal of Triermain," says:-

"See these pearls that long have slept;

These were tears by Naiads wept."

Lilly, in "Gallathea":-

"Is any cozen'd of a teare

Which (as a pearle) disdaine does weare?"

Shakspeare ("Richard III."):-

"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."

In Lee's "Mithridates" we have:-

"'Twould raise your pity, but to see the tears

Force through her snowy lids their melting course,

To lodge themselves on her red murmuring lips

That talk such mournful things; when straight a gale

Of startling sighs carry those pearls away,

As dews by winds are wafted from the flowers."

Elena Piscopia (1684), of the Corraro family of Venice, had a medal struck in her honour, on the reverse of which is an open shell, receiving the drops of dew from heaven, which form into pearls: the motto was Rore divino-by the divine dew.

Crashaw, in the "Tear," says:-

"Such a pearl as this is

(Slipt from Aurora's dewy breast)

The rose-bud sweet lip kisses."

Chamberlayne in "Love's Victory":-

"The morning pearls

Dropt in the lillie's spotlesse bosome, are

Less chastely cool, ere the meridian sun

Hath kist them into heat."

Milton, in "Paradise Lost," has several allusions to the "orient pearl":-

"Now morn her rosy steps in the Eastern clime

Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl."

The same simile is beautifully expressed:-

"Though from off the bough each morn

We brush mellifluous dews, and find the ground

Cover'd with pearly grain."

Shakspeare has a similar metaphor, when alluding to-

"The bladed grass as decked with liquid pearl."

Herrick has some fanciful allusions on the same subject:-

"Like to the summer's rain,

Or, as the pearls of morning dew,

Ne'er to be found again!"

In "Oberon's Feast":-

"And now we must imagine first

The elves present to quench his thirst,

A pure seed-pearl of infant dew,

Brought and besweeten'd in a blue

And pregnant violet."

On "Corinna's going a-Maying":-

"Take no care

For jewels for your gown or hair;

Fear not, the leaves will strew

Gems in abundance upon you:

Besides the childhood of the day has kept,

Against you come, some orient pearls unwept.

Come and receive them, while the light

Hangs on the dew-locks of the night."

In one of William Drummond's sonnets, we find:-

"The clouds for joy, in pearls weep down their showers."

Pearls have for ages been significant for tears. It is related that Queen Margaret Tudor, consort of James IV. of Scotland, previous to the battle of Flodden Field, had strong presentiments of the disastrous issue of that conflict. One night she had fearful dreams, in which she thought she saw her husband hurled down a great precipice and crushed and mangled at the bottom. In another vision she thought, as she was looking at her jewels, chains, and sparkling coronets of diamonds, they suddenly turned to pearls, "which are the emblems of widowhood and tears."

A few nights before the assassination of Henry IV. of France, his queen dreamed that all the jewels in her crown were changed into pearls, and she was told that they were significant of tears.

Milton, in his "Epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester," says:-

"And those pearls of dew she wears

Prove to be presaging tears."

Similes of pearls and tears are frequent in our old writers; thus Shakspeare in "Midsummer Night's Dream":-

"And that same dew which sometimes on the buds

Was wont to swell like round and orient pearls,

Stood now within the pretty floweret's eyes,

Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail."

In "King John":-

"Draw those heaven-moving pearls from his poor eyes

Which heaven shall take in nature of a fee;

Ay, with those crystal beads heaven shall be bribed

To do him justice and revenge on you."

The metaphor is a favourite one with Lovelace:-

"Lucasta wept, and still the bright

Enamour'd god of day,

With his soft handkerchief of light,

Kiss'd the wet pearls away."

And-

"If tears could wash the ill away,

A pearl for each wet bead I'd pay."

In Chalkhill's "Thealma and Clearchus," we find of the former-

"Anon she drops a tear,

That stole along her cheeks, and falling down,

Into a pearl it freezeth with her frown."

Robert Southwell, in "St. Mary Magdalen's Tears," says:- "The angels must bathe themselves in the pure stream of thine eyes, and thy face shall be set with this pearly liquid, that, as out of thy tears were stroken the first sparks of thy Lord's love, so thy tears may be the oil to feed his flames."

Pearls from Glapthorne's "Hollander," (1640):-

"Virgins and innocent lovers spotless tears

Hardened to pearl by the strong heat of sighs,

Shall be your monument."

The old poets, describing the charms of their fair mistresses, are prodigal in the metaphor of pearls. Thus we have Sir Philip Sidney addressing Stella:-

"Thinke of that most gratefull time

When thy leaping heart will climbe

In my lips to have his biding:

There two roses for to kisse

Which do breathe a sugred blisse,

Opening rubies, pearls dividing."

So Spenser, in his "Sonnets" describes his mistress:-

"But fairest she, when so she doth display

The gate with pearls and rubies richly dight,

Through which her words so wise do make their way,

To bear the message of her gentle spright."

In another of his poems we have:-

"And twixt the pearls and rubies softly brake

A silver sound that heavenly musicke seemed to make."

And here, by the way, we know that the ancient Arabs, among the many accomplishments they valued, placed eloquence in the foremost rank. Their orations were of two sorts, metrical or prosaic, the one being compared to pearls strung, and the other to loose ones.

Herrick sings:-

"Some ask'd how pearls did growe, and where,

Then spake I to my girle,

To part her lips, and show me there

The quarelets of pearl."

And Lovelace, in his "Lucasta:"-

"Her lips, like coral gates, kept in

The perfume and the pearl within."

Shakspeare, in "King Lear," says:-

"Those happy smilets

That play'd on her ripe lip, seemed not to know

What guests were in her eyes, which parted thence

As pearls from diamonds dropp'd."

The author of the "Honeymoon" writes:-

"No deeper rubies than compose thy lips,

Nor pearls more precious than inhabit them."

In Lawrence's "Arnalte and Lucenda" we have:-

"Her lips like rubies, which by art are join'd,

Doe sweetly close and friendly are combin'd;

And for their colour they by far exceede

The rosiate blood which purple grapes do bleed;

Who, when they move, they presently doe shew

Of orient pearles, a well-ranged row."

Herrick's "Hymn to Venus":-

"Goddess, I do love a girl,

Ruby-lip'd, and tooth'd with pearl."

Thomas Carew, in the "Compliment," alludes to-

"Teeth of pearl, the double guard

To speech, whence music still is heard."

William Cartwright (1650):-

"Whether those orders of thy teeth now sown