Lothest from thee ferto deparrt.
In seventeenth century rings the religious sentiment predominates: “I have obtaind whom God ordaind”; “God unites our hearts aright”; “Knitt in one by Christ alone”; “Wee join our love in God above.” A little more human, if less devotional, are the mottoes: “United hearts death only parts”; “A faithfull wife preserveth life,” and “Love and live happily.”
There have been many types of betrothal rings from the simplest up to the most elaborate and ornate. One having a graceful symbolism was found near Wassy, dept. Haute Marne, France, in June, 1868. The hoop is of yellow gold, alloyed sufficiently to give it consistence. Instead of one chaton, it has two placed close to one another and each set with a small, cabochon-cut emerald. The choice of this stone is a good indication that we have to do here with a betrothal rather than a wedding ring, for the emerald was emblematic of hope, of unfulfilled desire and of virginity. Around the setting runs the following inscription in Old French, beginning with the sign of the cross: CE QUE DESIR HOM DONE UN BIEN. This may be rendered: “What one desires brings happiness,” the idea being perhaps that so beautifully expressed by St. Thomas Aquinas: “The soul dwells with the loved one rather than in the body it animates.”[366] While the letters of the French inscription are so much worn as to make the decipherment of two words a little uncertain, the general sense is clear enough, and constitutes a very fine motto for such a ring.[367]
The ring which had been used by Louis IX (St. Louis) at his betrothal to Marguerite de Provence, in 1231, was so greatly prized by him that on his death-bed he expressed the wish that it should be interred with his body. On its gold hoop he had caused to be engraved the lilies of France and certain military emblems.[368]
A graceful thought is expressed in the following Old French inscription on a ring found near Poitiers:
Mon cuer se est resioui aussi doit il si maist Dieux.
A mon gre ne puis mieux aueir choisi.
“My heart is rejoiced, and so should it be, if God aid me. For I feel I could not have chosen better.”
A shorter motto, but one full of significance, appears on a ring in the museum of Poitiers; it consists merely of the two words: “Sans Partir.” This could mean either “we shall never separate,” or else that the donor would never abandon his love. Another brief motto, found on a ring in the Louvre dating from the reign of Francis I, runs “Riens sans amour,” or “Love is all in all.”[369]
