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Opalus, Opal

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OPALUS.
245
influence to induce the possessor of so precious a medium to convert it into an amulet, of virtue doubtless commen­surate with its price. Another magnificent Opal, though corroded by time, is set in a cabalistic ring of the 13th century, now in the Braybrooke Collection.
A stone apparently so instinct with life, naturally bore an abundant crop of superstitions to the vivid imagi­nations of the multitude in the Dark Ages. Some slight traces of these are already apparent in Orpheus (279), who declares that the Opal, " displaying the complexion of a lovely boy" (alluding to its epithet Pœderos), gives delight to the Immortals, and is also a protection to the sight. Marbodus, converting the word into Ophthalmitis, improves largely upon the simple dictum of his predecessor, adding that it also confers the gift of invisibility upon the wearer, so that the thief protected by it could carry off his plunder in open day.* Still lower down in the Middle Ages the Opal was believed to possess united the special virtue of every gem with whose distinctive colour it was emblazoned. Even De Boot evidently believes " that the wearing of it preserves the sight and the brightness of the eyes." But the climax is attained in the extravagant laudations de­livered by Petrus Arlensis, a visionary of Henri IV.'s reign. " The various colours in the Opal tend greatly to
* Opalus was supposed to be only another form of Ophthalmitis, ' Eye-stone," whence sprung these notions of its virtue. This deri­vation gave birth to the old spelling " Ophal : " take, for example, in the list of Queen Elizabeth's jewels (Hail. MSS.), " A Flower of gold gar­nished with sparkes of Diamonds, Rubies, and Ophals, with an Agate of her Majestie's viznomy ; with a pearle pendant ; and devices painted upon it. Given by eight Masks in the Christmas week anno regni 24m0." Some conjecture the Opal to be the gem called by the rabbins the " Calf's-eye," which, however, was much more probably a three-coloured Onyx, like that known to the Greeks as the Lyeophthalmus.
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