wards intellectualisation from similitude. He wishes to impress that the
string is not comprised of rubies but of excellent verses, as Buhtari says:
We are joining these pearls in a thread. Stitching an unperforated
object is a strange thing indeed.
Wawa Dimashqi says:
I see the threaders boring perforations in pearls. But, if holes have
not been bored into them, how do they become organised?
The word, ghayr muthaqqab (unperforated) attests to (the stone's)
being clear, pure, and free from the blemishes to which I have referred
above, as well as to the fact that no gold joints were bored through them,
for jointing gives rise to the suspicion that the stone has been subjected
to wear and tear. The poet, therefore, has not employed the similitude
of stitching of the stones together as it is impossible to join the stones
without perforation. Nor is it possible for the necklace of stones to be
put on without being threaded. Besides, once a heterogeneous object is
brought in, the homogeneity of the original is adversely affected in its
beauty. Thus we learn that for a necklace to be put on, it has to be
bored and perforations are counted among the defects in a necklace, as
they tell upon the noble characteristics of the jacynth. Abu Nuwas says
in praise of wine:
I gave her a measure of five pints and a third of unperforated rubies
in return for hers when I heard of her.
One of the dangers of the perforations is that they might be having
poison in them equivalent to a grain of sesame. It is a dangerous habit
upon the part of the jewellers to wet the stones with their saliva to remove the dust particles, so that they may glisten. I believe that the
stories of suicides, e.g., self-killing in the jails by sucking pearls and
stones in order to escape disgrace, belong to this category.
When Cleopatra, the daughter of Ptolemy, became apprehensive
about her life and position through Augustus Caesar, she made two asps
cling to her breast. She was found dead wearing her crown and supporting her head with her right hand. But she redeemed, nevertheless, her
honour.
The perforations are either athwart the stone or filled with an object
that would add to its burnish. Air can pass through the holes, but they
do not add to the shine of the ruby as they are basic defects not contributing to its value. If on the other hand, the stones are filled with something that would increase their redness, this would be a kind of gilding
for masking the defects of the stone. All these things are counted as defects. Sometimes this gilding is naturalistic, i.e., the colour of the stone
is unpleasing and a bright red point appears upon it and spreads throughout the stone, making it beautiful.
In the Lapidary (Kitab al-Ahjar) which is attributed to Aristotle (I
