safe In golden palaces, as it becomes. I Henry VI, Act v, sc. 3.
"Histories", p. 116, col. B, line 54.

In Pericles we read (Act iii, sc. 2):

The diamonds of a most praisèd water Do appear, to make the world twice rich. Third Folio, 1664, p. 7, col. B, line 38;
separate pagination.

In Shakespeare's time but few of the world's great diamonds were in Europe, though two, at least, were in his native country. All of them must have been of East Indian origin, as this was before the discovery of the Brazilian mines (1728). In 1547, Henry VIII of England bought of the Fuggers of Augsburg—the great money-lending bankers and jewel setters, or royal pawnbrokers, who generally sold or forced some jewels upon those who obtained a loan—the jewel of Charles the Bold, called the "Three Brethren", from three large balas-rubies with which it was set; the central ornament was a "great pointed diamond"; of its weight nothing is known. This jewel was lost by Duke Charles on the field of Granson, March 2, 1476, where it was secured by the Swiss victors; it was eventually bought by the Fuggers. The other fine English diamond was that known as the Sancy, weighing 53-3/4 carats (55.23 metric carats), acquired by James I from Nicholas Harley de Sancy, in 1604, for 500,000 crowns. This is also stated to have belonged to Charles the Bold. In 1657 it was redeemed by Cardinal Mazarin, after having been pledged for a loan by Queen Henrietta Maria, and at Mazarin's death, in 1661, was bequeathed, with his other diamonds, to the French Crown. After passing through many vicissitudes, it has recently come into the possession of Baron Astor of Hever (William Waldorf Astor).

There is a possibility that the Florentine diamond of 133-22/32 carats (137.27 metric carats) was already owned by the grand-ducal house of Tuscany before Shakespeare's death, but the earliest notice of it appears to be that given by Fermental, a French traveller, who saw it in Florence in 1630. The other great diamonds of former days are of more recent date. The Regent of 136-7/8 carats (140.64 metric carats), found in India about 1700, was acquired by the Duke of Orleans in 1717; the Orloff (194-3/4 old carats = 199.73 metric carats) was bought by Prince Orloff for Catherine II, in 1775, for 1,400,000 Dutch florins, or about $560,000. The famous Koh-i-nûr, weighing 186-1/16 carats (191.1 metric carats) in its old cutting, came to Europe, as a gift to Queen Victoria from the East India Company, only in 1850; although, if it be the same as the great diamond taken by Humayun, son of Baber, at the battle of Paniput, April 21, 1526, its history dates back at least to 1304, when Sultan Ala-ed-Din took it from the Sultan of Malva, whose family had already owned it for generations.

As fresh-colored lips are likened to rubies, so it is said of a bright eye, that it "would emulate the diamond" (Merry Wives of Windsor, Act iii, sc. 3).

Bright eyes are also compared to rock-crystal, and the setting of other gems within a bordering of crystals is evidently alluded to in the following lines from Love's Labour's Lost (Act ii, sc. 1):

Methought all his senses were lock'd in his eyes As jewels in crystal. First Folio, "Comedies", p. 128, col. A, line 7.

We have in Richard II (Act i, sc. 2) the terms "fair and crystal" applied to a clear sky, and in Romeo and Juliet (Act i, sc. 2) the word is used to denote superlative excellence, where a lady's love is to be weighed against her rival on "crystal scales".

Rock-crystal was much more highly valued in the England of Elizabeth and of James I than it is to-day, and was freely used as an adjunct to more precious material, and still was employed to some extent in the adornment of book-covers, although this usage, so common in mediæval times, was fast passing away.

In Shakespeare's poems, "Venus and Adonis" (1593) and "Lucrece" (1594), as well as in his "Sonnets" (1609), in the "Lover's Complaint" and in the almost certainly spurious "Passionate Pilgrim", containing two sonnets and three poems from Love's Labour's Lost, and which has been included in most collections of his works, there are perhaps relatively more frequent mentions of precious stones than in the plays, a few of them being of special interest. Where we have twice "ruby lips" (and once "coral lips") in the plays, the poems speak thrice of "coral lips" or a "coral mouth"; [4] a belt has "coral clasps" ("Passionate Pilgrim", l. 366). This belt bears also "amber studs", and in the "Lover's Complaint", l. 37, are "favours of amber", and also of "crystal, and of beaded jet".

Coming to the really precious stones, sapphire finds a single mention, also in the "Lover's Complaint", l. 215, where it is termed "heaven-hued". The same poem says of the diamond that it was "beautiful and hard" (l. 211), thus symbolizing a heartless beauty. More interesting are the following lines regarding the emerald (213, 214):

The deep-green emerald, in whose fresh regard Weak sights their sickly radiance do amend.

This proves the poet's familiarity with the idea that gazing on an emerald benefited weak sight, an idea expressed as far back as 300 B.C. by Theophrastus, a pupil of Aristotle, and repeated by the Roman Pliny in 75 A.D. The "Lover's Complaint" furnishes another pretty line (198) contrasting the different beauties of rubies and pearls:

Of paled pearls and rubies red as blood.

In "Venus and Adonis", honey-tongued Shakespeare writes of a "ruby-colored portal".

Pearls are noted six times, usually as similes for tears, and tears are likened to "pearls in glass" ("Venus and Adonis", l. 980). A tender line is that in the "Passionate Pilgrim" (hardly from Shakespeare's hand, however):

Bright orient pearl, alack, too timely shaded.

More varied are the allusions to rock-crystal or crystal, as the poet calls it. In one place ("Venus and Adonis", l. 491) there are "crystal tears", and these form "a crystal tide" that flows down the cheeks and drops in the bosom (Idem, l. 957). On the other hand, the eyes are likened to this stone, as in "crystal eyne" ("Venus and Adonis", l. 633), or "crystal eyes" (Sonnet xlvi, l. 6). There are also "crystal favours", [5] a "crystal gate", [6] and "crystal walls", [7] the two characteristics of brilliancy and transparency suggesting these