94 THE CURIOUS LORE OF PRECIOUS STONES
course, there was no real foundation for such tales, as the thing is altogether impracticable.
The Roman poet Claudian (fifth century a.d.) relates
that the priests of a certain temple, in order to offer a dramatic
spectacle to the eyes of the worshippers, caused two statues to be
executed,—one of Mars in iron, and another of Venus in loadstone. At a
special festival these statues were placed near to each other, and the
loadstone drew the iron to itself. Claudian vividly describes this:
The priests prepare a marriage feast.
Behold a marvel! Instant to her arms
Her eager husband Cythereia charms;
And ever mindful of her ancient fires,
With amorous breath his martial breast inspires;
Lifts the loved weight, close round his helmet twines
Her loving arms, and close embraces joins,
Drawn by the mystic influence from afar.
Flies to the wedded gem the God of War.
The Magnet weds the Steel: the sacred rites
Nature attends, and th' heavenly pair unites.*8
There
was current as early as the fourth century a curious belief that a
piece of loadstone, if placed beneath the pillow of a sleeping wife,
would act as a touchstone of her virtue. This first appears in the
Alexandrian poem "Lithica," and it has been thus quaintly Englished by
a fourteenth century translator:
Also
magnes is in lyke wyse as adamas; yf it be sett under the heed of a
chaste wyfe, it makyth her sodenly to beclyppe [embrace] her husbonde;
& yf she be a spowse breker, she shall meve her oute of the bed
sodenly by drede of fantasy.8*
88King's metrical version in his "Natural History of Gems," London, 1865, p. 226.
"John
of Travisa's version (made in 1396) of Bartholomaeus Anglicus' "De
proprietatibus rerum," London, Wynkyn de Worde, 1495, lib. xvi, cap.
43, De Magnete.
