In Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, where the diamond is so often mentioned in connection with a ring given as a sign of faithfulness, a passage occurs denoting that this stone was sometimes set in a betrothal ring in Shakespeare’s time. The line runs (Act I, sc. 4):
This diamond was my mother’s: take it, heart;
But keep it till you woo another wife.
The preciousness and dazzling lustre of diamonds are also alluded to in this play. It is worthy of note that while in all of Shakespeare’s plays the diamond is only mentioned twenty-one times, seven of these mentions are in his Cymbeline.
An emblematic wedding-ring with a deep, and perhaps somewhat ambiguous significance, was bestowed upon his spouse by Bishop Cokes. Upon it was engraved a hand, a heart, a mitre, and a death’s head, the inscription reading:
These three I give to thee
Till the fourth set me free.[384]
A frankly humorous inscription was that placed upon the wedding-ring of Lady Cathcard when, in 1713, she wedded her fourth husband, Hugh Maguire. This was as follows:
If I survive
I will have five