Unto his Queen and mistress.”
Horoscope of Elizabeth of England
Pearls would be considered unfortunate for these rival Queens.
Neither pearls nor diamonds were fortunate for Mary Queen of Scots, yet she wore both in profusion. Her wedding dress at her marriage with Philip of Spain is described as being “richly bordered with great pearls and diamonds,” whilst she wore the great diamond which Philip had sent to her by the Marquis de las Traves. Mary’s nativity favours few jewels but none less than diamonds, pearls and rubies. History relates that, when in the days of her sorrows the Scottish Queen was held captive by the rapacious Earl of Moray, this man who owed her so much sent her exquisite parure of pearls with other costly jewels by his agent, Sir Nicholas Elphinstone to Queen Elizabeth at London.
Madame de Barrera gives the following extract, copy from a letter of Bodutel la Forrest, French ambassador at the English court, describing the pearl parure: “There are six cordons of large pearls strung as pater nosters: but there are five and twenty separate from the rest, much finer and larger than those which are strung: these are for the most part like black muscades.” Elizabeth, after obtaining various expert opinions as to the value of this ornament, eventually purchased it at her own price. But if pearls, fortunate for Scotland, were unfortunate for Mary (for whom Scotland itself was unfortunate), they were doubly so for Elizabeth who had the dark planet Saturn and the subtle Uranus in the sign Cancer at her birth. The two famous diamond rings of Mary and Elizabeth and Elizabeth and Essex are stated to have been the indirect cause of the death of both Mary and Elizabeth.
Old Hebraic legend tells that the manna fell from Heaven, accompanied by showers of pearls and precious stones, and in ancient Judaea it was believed that a pearl wrapped in a bag of leather and tied round the neck of oxen would benefit them and increase their fruitfulness. The Arabs sang that “Nisan’s Ram (Sun in Aries) brings pearls to the sea and wheat to the land.” In China the pearl was regarded as the true symbol of ability and so the Chinese character for Pearl (Tchm) was placed on the vases used by artists, poets, scientists and writers, and the term TCHM ONAN is translated as indicating a rare pearl object. Great virtues were ascribed to the pearl by the Chinese and it was, and still is, used medicinally by them chiefly as a remedy for blood disorders, swooning, heart troubles, digestive irregularities and stomach complaints. The ancients used pearls, we are told, as absorbents or antacids and they were given to the weak-minded Charles VI of France in distilled water to cure his insanity. Dissolved in acids they were taken as an absorbent medicine and, as one writer puts it, “for the purpose of displaying the careless opulence and luxury of their possessors.”
The Pearl was sacred to the angel Gabriel in the East, and amongst the Mohammedans a great white pearl—the pearl of Paradise—reached from East to West, from Heaven to Earth. This is the Eternal Table of the Koran on which Allah has written all that has been, all that is, and all that is to come. The Arabian Heavenly Home of Glory and the Everlasting Eden of Wonder is, it is related, rich with red pearls.
CHAPTER XXVI
PEARL
THE BISHOP OF CHIAPA CHAMPIONS THE INDIAN PEARL DIVERS: SIZE OF THE OLD PEARL FIELDS: VALUE OF EXPORTS TO EUROPE IN 16TH CENTURY: THE PERSIAN GULF: THE CEYLON FISHERIES: THE “BINDER OF SHARKS”: THE PEARL CHARM OF THE DIVERS: CLASSIFICATION OF PEARLS IN CEYLON: THE RED SEA FISHERIES, THE SOURCE OF KLEOPATRA’S PEARLS: THE AUSTRALIAN FISHERIES: NEED FOR THEIR PROTECTION: OTHER FISHERIES: STORY OF THE DISCOVERY OF NEW GUINEA PEARLS: TOWN OF THE NYMPHS: RIVER FISHERIES: A RIVER PEARL IN THE BRITISH CROWN: “SHELLS OF THE FLOOD”: DIVERS BENEATH THE SEA: THE FOLK LORE OF THE PEARL: VISHNU’S NECKLACE OF 5 PRECIOUS STONES: EMBLEMS OF PEARLS: PEARLS AND PERSONS: PEARLS AND LUNAR NUMBERS: A MADAGASCAR BIRTH CUSTOM: THE ANGEL, DAY, SIGN AND PLANET OF THE PEARL: AS A DREAM SYMBOL: PREJUDICE AND ITS VALUE: THE PEARLS OF LINNAEUS: CHINESE AND JAPANESE CULTURE PEARLS: PEARL “FAKING”: COCOANUT PEARLS.
“Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand