“Thou sent’st me a true-love knot, but I
Returned a ring of jimmals, to imply
Thy love hath one knot, mine a triple tye.”
The term is used by the Duke of Anjou, in “1 Henry VI.” (i. 2):
“I think, by some odd gimmors or device,
Their arms are set like clocks, still to strike on;
Else ne’er could they hold out so as they do.”
Again, in “Henry V.” (iv. 2), Grandpré tells how,
“in their pale dull mouths the gimmal bit
Lies foul with chew’d grass, still and motionless.”
Most readers of the “Merchant of Venice” remember the mirthful use which Shakespeare makes of lovers’ rings. Portia says (iii. 2), when giving her wealth and self to Bassanio:
“I give them with this ring;
Which when you part from, lose, or give away,
Let it presage the ruin of your love.”
The last act, too, gives several particulars about lovers’ rings, which, in Elizabethan England,[713] often had posies engraved on them, and were worn by men on the left hand. Gratiano, for example, says:
“About a hoop of gold, a paltry ring
That she did give me; whose posy was
For all the world like cutlers’ poetry
Upon a knife, ‘Love me and leave me not.’”
Again Bassanio exclaims: