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BE author of "Lithica" celebrates the merits of the agate in the following lines :2
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Adorned
with this, thou woman's heart shall gain, And by persuasion thy desire
obtain; And if of men thou aught demand, shalt come With all thy wish
fulfilled rejoicing home.
This
idea is elaborated by Marbodus, Bishop of Rennes, in the eleventh
century, who declares that agates make the wearers agreeable and
persuasive and also give them the favor of God.3 Still other
virtues are recounted by Camillo Leonardo, who claims that these stones
give victory and strength to their owners and avert tempests and
lightning.4
The
agate possessed some wonderful virtues, for its wearer was guarded from
all dangers, was enabled to vanquish all terrestrial obstacles and was
endowed with a bold heart ; this latter prerogative was presumably the
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1
See also the writer's pamphlet : " The Folk-Lore of Precious Stones,"
Chicago, 1894; a paper read before the Folk-Lore Congress held at the
World's Columbian Exhibition, and describing the Kunz Collection
exhibited in the Anthropological Building there. This colÂlection is
now in the Field Museum, Chicago.
"King's version in his "Natural History of Precious Stones," London, 1865, p. 392.
3 Marbodei, " De lapidibus," Friburgi, 1531, fol. 10.
* Camilli Leonardi, " Speculum lapidum," Venetia, 1502, fol. 22.
51
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