Upon the emerald’s virgin blaze.”
The tradition that when a serpent fixes its eyes on an emerald it becomes blind is echoed from Hebrew philosophy, and Ahmed Ben Abdalaziz in his “Treatise on Jewels” has it that the lustre of emeralds makes serpents blind. As this ancient statement has occasioned some mirth and ridicule amongst those swayed by surface considerations it may be as well to consider the matter from another point of understanding. The symbolist will at once perceive the hidden parable: in astrology, serpents have been classed under the Scorpion of the zodiac, and the Venusian Taurus in the zodiac is opposite to the Scorpion. In the story of the Garden of Eden it is the Scorpion (snake) who tempts Eve, and her fall is held by occult students as a symbol to compel Man to exert his highest strength to enable his triumph over the lowest to be complete. The zodiacal Scorpio is accursed on its lower expression, and is symbolical then of the corruption which can menace virgin purity. Man on the lowest borderlands to which over-indulgence will ever draw him has been faced by serpents and reptiles whose immaterial lives exist only in those dark realms. The story of Circe and the Swine finds its parallel in the power of the pure and beautiful Venus to expel even by her symbolic emerald lust, envy, malice and grossness, to destroy the serpent’s gaze and to call the blind and suffering Man back to his peaceful Heaven again. So, as the Moon in astrological philosophy is exalted in Taurus, Diana the goddess of the Moon is the friend of chaste women. In Cutwode’s “Caltha Poetarium, or the Humble Bee,” written in 1599, Diana adorns the heroine with an emerald ring.
It can easily be seen why the emerald is the emblem of true happiness and the preserver of chastity, and why it was said to fracture if chastity were violated: to one taking vows of chastity and breaking them, the emerald could never appear the same again—before his spiritual vision it would be broken and shattered. Leonardus said that the emerald protected women in childbirth, and most old writers are impressive in warning men to wear one as a charm against spiritual and mental weakness.
The Peruvian goddess Esmeralda was said to reside in an emerald as big as an ostrich egg, and it was the custom of this little Venus in her symbolic emerald egg to receive emeralds as offerings from her devotees who also, it was said, sacrificed their daughters to her.
Stevenson (“Residence in South America”), writing of the emerald mine of Las Emeraldas, says: “I never visited it owing to the superstitious dread of the natives who assured me that it was enchanted and guarded by an enormous dragon who poured forth thunder and lightning on those who dared to ascend the river.” It is peculiar how the symbols of mankind coincide: the dragon is another of the zodiacal Scorpio varieties ever opposite Taurus, and was of old regarded as the agitator of thunders, lightnings and earth commotions. Prescott, in his “History of Peru,” tells us how the Spaniards after murdering the trusting Indians raided their dwellings and seized their ornaments and precious stones, for this was the region of the esmeraldas or emeralds. One of the jewels that fell into the hands of Pizarro was as large as a pigeon’s egg. Fra Reginaldo di Pedraza, one of the Dominican missionaries, told the Spaniards that the method of proving the genuineness or otherwise of emeralds was to try if they could be broken with a hammer; Prescott adding: “The good Father did not subject his own jewels to this wise experiment, but as the stones in consequence of it fell in value, being merely regarded as coloured glass, he carried back a considerable store of them to Panama.” The Indians held that the emerald protected against poisons and cleansed man from sin.
As an emblem of Eternal Spring, Iarchus included the emerald in the mystic necklace of Apollonius of Tyana. In Rosicrucian philosophy it is advised that if an emerald set in a ring of gold be placed on the solar finger of the left hand when the Sun entered Taurus, the wearer would attain his cherished aim and be enabled by the sweating of the stone to detect poisons. Experiment has shown that heat causes the emerald to lose water but does not affect its colour, hence the reports of the “sweating” emerald cannot be set aside as mythical. Specimens of the beryl family have been found in tombs and in old excavations, and there is little doubt that the stones “of the colour of transparent sea-water” found by the old Romans at Cyprus belonged to it. The Romans greatly esteemed the emerald as an eye stone and a natural specific for ophthalmia, holding that what healed and calmed the spiritual eye would heal and calm the natural eye. The Persians applied ashes of burnt emeralds to ulcers with curative effect. They said that the emerald brought mental tranquility, cured unnatural thirst, stomach troubles, jaundice, liver troubles, obstructions, gravel, stricture, bodily pains and epilepsy. Albertus Magnus also recommends it as a cure for epileptic attacks. Mystics have always regarded the emerald as of the highest worth. It is spoken of by Cardanus as an ideal gem for divinatory purposes—no doubt because of its pure spiritual import. Aristotle writes that an emerald hung from the neck or worn on the finger protects from the “falling sickness.”
The ancient writers held that all kinds of divination were helped by the emerald, and when worn during the transaction of honest business it gave favour to the wearer. In Brazil, medical students on becoming doctors of medicine wore on their fingers rings of emeralds as an indication that they had received their diploma. The lighter emerald, or beryl, bound man and wife together in mutual love, and raised the wearer to success and honour.
Among the Hindoo philosophers the emerald held its place as a gem of the zodiacal Taurus, and in the First Heaven of the Muslims the tents of the faithful are represented as studded with emeralds, pearls and jacinths.
Mr. E. W. Lane (“Modern Egyptians”) writes that the inhabitants of Paradise are said to be clothed “in the richest silk, chiefly of green, and all superfluities from their bodies will be carried off by perspiration which will diffuse an odour like that of musk”—a plant recognized by old astrologers as belonging to the sign Taurus. Paracelsus wrote that the emerald was in sympathy with the metal copper—also recognized as the chief metal of Venus. Mr. King notes a fine emerald, a quarter inch square, belonging to the earliest Christian periods, on which is cut a fish, which besides being an early Christian emblem is symbolical of Venus and later of the Virgin. Venus is exalted in the Zodiacal sign of the Fishes which enters largely into the Christian mysteries. The beryl was used in magical rites as an instrument for foretelling future happenings. For special magical purposes the stone was held in the mouth when—says Freeman, writing in the early part of the 18th century—a person may call an elemental and receive satisfaction for any question he might ask. In this connection one is tempted to think of the delightful Venusian spirit Ariel in Shakespeare’s “Tempest.” Again the beryl is recommended by Leonardus as a charm against diseases of the throat and jaws. In the “water divination” of the Middle Ages a beryl stone was suspended just to touch the surface of the water in the bowl, and it answered questions by automatically striking the edges of the vessel. It was also thrown into a shallow dish of water, information being gathered from the reflections seen in sunlight in the water.
Herodotus tells the story of the Thalassokrat (Sea-king) Polycrates of Samos whose never-failing fortune so alarmed his friend and ally, the Pharaoh Amasis of Egypt, that he wrote to him begging him to sacrifice something he valued most highly to propitiate the fateful Nemesis, goddess of retribution. In obedience to this request Polycrates, with many regrets, threw from a boat his precious emerald ring into the sea far from the shore. Some few days afterwards a fisherman caught a fish so large and shapely that, thinking it a prize for the King, he took it to the palace of Polycrates. When the cook was preparing the fish for the King’s table he found within it his master’s emerald ring. Amasis, when informed of the incident by Polycrates, was greatly concerned as it foretold to him a fatal end for the Thalassokrat, with whom he broke off negotiations and alliances. Polycrates, being induced by his crafty enemy the Persian satrap Oroetes to visit him, was seized and crucified. The story is discredited by some historians—notably Grote—but this is not the only story of a fish swallowing a ring or some other article of value. The legend of Solomon’s ring has been already alluded to. Mr. King collecting evidence from Herodotus, Pausanius, and other old writers finds that the ring of Polycrates was a “signet of emerald set in gold, the work of Theodorus of Samos.” That famous father of the church, Titus Flavius Clemens, better known as Clemens Alexandrinus, says that on the emerald ring of Polycrates was engraved “a musical lyre.” A fine quality emerald bearing a similar device was found about fifty years ago in a vineyard at Aricia, and that this may have been the famous ring is not impossible.