Another of the Borgias, Pope Alexander VI, would ask the man he destined to death to open a cabinet for him. He gave the man a key ring, and as the bar twisted in the massive lock, a prick injected the poison into the pressing hand.
More frequent than these pressing devices, however, were rings with a secret compartment or concealed receptacle that could be opened, to pour out the poison, so that it might be mixed unnoticed when one was filling a glass of wine for an unwanted guest.
This type of ring was also most useful for emergency suicides. When the great Carthaginian commander Hannibal was captured by the Romans in 183 B.C., he ended his life by biting into the soft metal cap of his ring which was filled with poison. In 1794 the French philosopher Condorcet, arrested in the Revolution, made his exodus from a world in turmoil through the aid of a poison ring. Numerous accounts of international espionage in recent wars make it seem that, as a release from torture and psychological brainwashing, the suicidal use of the poison ring is not outworn. But many a ring, originally constructed to conceal a poison, before it found rest in a museum was used as a conveyor of perfume.
A more humdrum use of the ring has been not to end but to mark the passing hours. The first time-keeping ring was a miniature sundial. As soon as escapements were compact enough, watches were set as the crowns of rings; I have mentioned that two hundred years ago Mme. de Pompadour wore a watch in a gold ring encircled with diamonds.
Honorary Rings
A ring has often been used as a mark, token, or reward of distinction or great service. Originally for valor in battle, these rings are now used to mark distinction in many fields. In Germany for generations, the greatest actor has worn the Ifflandring, which he takes from his hand to bestow upon the performer of the next generation whom he deems his most worthy successor. Another noted ring is the Mozart Ring, awarded to those who meritoriously continue the composer’s tradition. There are today but three wearers of the Mozart Ring: Bruno Walter, Herbert von Karajan, and Carl Boehm.
Posies and Lovers’ Rings
The prettiest rings are those that have been used in courtship. Before the brilliant solitaire, the large diamond that marks the formal engagement, all sorts of posy rings, as they were called, were popular gifts for centuries. An English book of 1624 bears the title “Love’s Garland, or Posies for rings, handkerchiefs, and gloves, and such pretty tokens as lovers send their loves.” This was in the main a collection of little rhyming remarks or pithy sayings, to be engraved on rings, or on the inside of ring bands when the ring itself was decorated with stones in the form of flowers or lovers’ knots. A favorite was the Latin motto Amor vincit omnia, (Love conquers all), which Chaucer in The Canterbury Tales put on a bracelet of the Prioress. But simple English phrases abounded on these rings. “I am yours” is blunt enough to serve. “My love is true To none but you” might make a suspicious maiden (but what shy maid in love would question so?) wonder to how many the donor had already shown love that was false. More to be trusted, perhaps, is the pious soul that sent the motto: “In God and thee My joy shall be.” A wit (or a gambler) might complacently have inscribed “I cannot show The love I O.” A less wary but more learned fellow might proclaim, inside the ring: “Let reason rule affection.” The practice of having rings engraved with such posies was so common that in Shakespeare’s As You Like It the melancholy Jacques taunts Orlando:
“You are full of pretty answers. Have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths’ wives, and conned them out of rings?”
I quote Shakespeare not because he is the most given to such references, but because he is the best known of the many writers in whose works they abound: jewels in jeweled phrases.