Was this the face that launched a thousand ships And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?
This is followed very closely by Shakespeare, with the substitution of "pearl" for "face".
She [Helen] is a pearl, Whose price hath launch'd above a thousand ships. Troilus and Cressida, Act ii, sc. 2, l. 82.
First Folio, at end of "Histories", unnumbered page
(596 of facsimile), col. A, line 19.
The greatest of the world's poets lived in a period midway between the highest development of Renaissance civilization and the foundation of our modern civilization, and he was thus at once heir to the rich treasures of a glorious past, and endowed with a poetic, or we might say a prophetic insight that makes his works appeal as closely to the readers of to-day as to those of his own time.
In the four leading European nations of the age—Italy, despite her high rank in art, still lacked national unity—four sovereigns of marked though widely diverse character and attainments reigned for a considerable part of Shakespeare's life. Of the "Virgin Queen" we scarcely need to write. The England of her day, and of later days, would not have been what it was and what it became, without the aid of her mingled shrewdness and prudence. Faults she had and shortcomings, but, granted the almost overpowering difficulties she had to face, both at home and abroad, it is doubtful whether a more decided, a more straight-forward policy would have been as successful as the somewhat devious one she pursued. Her chief rival, Philip II (1556-1598), as much averse as Elizabeth herself to energetic action, even more fond of procrastination, lacked her relative religious and political tolerance, and left Spain weaker than he had found it. And still his tenacity, his devotion to the cause he believed to be that of heaven, his consistency, and even the gloomy seriousness of his life, testify to a strong soul, though a thoroughly unlovable one.
The reign of the eccentric Rudolph II, Emperor of Germany (1576-1612), whose imperial residence was at Prague, covers the greater part of Shakespeare's life. In spite of many failings and mistakes, this monarch did much to foster the study of the arts and sciences of his age, so far as he was able to understand them. That he was for a time the dupe of adventurers and alchemists, such as the half-visionary John Dee and the altogether unscrupulous Edward Kelley, was no unusual experience in those days, when the dividing line between true science and charlatanism was too indistinctly marked to be easily discernible.
The greatest of all the sovereigns of Shakespeare's time was Henry IV of France, unquestionably the greatest of French kings, despite the fact that the primacy has often been accorded to the Roi Soleil, Louis XIV. The powerful and ductile personality that was able to put an end to the destructive religious wars of France and to lay a firm foundation for the strongly-centralized power of a later time, a foundation which the great statesman Richelieu broadened and deepened, deserves all the credit that should be given to those who conquer the first apparently insurmountable difficulties in the realization of a great aim.
How brief was the reign of most of the popes of this time is shown by the fact that no less than ten of them were at one time or other Shakespeare's contemporaries, although the duration of his life was but fifty-two years. Of these probably the most noteworthy was Gregory XIII (1572-1585), in whose reign occurred the fearful Massacre of St. Bartholomew, August 24, 1572, and the reform of the calendar from that known as the Julian to the new style named the Gregorian Calendar in honor of this pope.
In the East, just coming into closer commercial intercourse with Europe, the long reign of the greatest of the Mogul emperors, Jelal-ed-din Akbar (1556-1605), began two years before the accession of Elizabeth and lasted two years after her death. Probably no Oriental sovereign, certainly no Indian sovereign, ranks higher than Akbar, who was at once a great statesman, an able organizer, and singularly tolerant in religion. In Persia, one of the most marked rulers of this land, Abbas the Great, began to reign in 1584 and died in 1628.
In no period was jewelry worn more ornately, or with greater display, we might almost say ostentation, than in the age of Shakespeare. As a rule, in this period the precious stones were less considered than the elaborate goldsmith work in which they were placed. They were the adjuncts, rather than the principal glory of the jewel.