“The gorgeous East, with liberal hand,
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold.”
Again, to swallow a pearl in a draught seems to have been common to royal and mercantile prodigality. In “Hamlet” (v. 2) the King says:
“The king shall drink to Hamlet’s better breath;
And in the cup an union[760] shall he throw.”
Further on Hamlet himself asks, tauntingly:
“Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,
Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?”
Malone, as an illustration of this custom, quotes from the second part of Heywood’s “If You Know Not Me You Know Nobody:”
“Here sixteen thousand pound at one clap goes
Instead of sugar. Gresham drinks this pearl
Unto the queen, his mistress.”
In former times powdered pearls were considered invaluable for stomach complaints; and Rondeletius tells us that they were supposed to possess an exhilarating quality: “Uniones quæ a conchis, et valde cordiales sunt.”
Much mystery was, in bygone days, thought to hang over the origin of pearls, and, according to the poetic Orientals,[761] “Every year, on the sixteenth day of the month Nisan, the pearl oysters rise to the sea and open their shells, in order to receive the rain which falls at that time, and the drops thus caught become pearls.” Thus, in “Richard III.” (iv. 4) the king says:
“The liquid drops of tears that you have shed
Shall come again, transform’d to orient pearl,
Advantaging their loan with interest
Of ten times double gain of happiness.”