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.