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140 THE CURIOUS LORE OF PRECIOUS STONES
purchase
it. The dealer, however, reduced the price and returned two denarii;
upon which Ismenias remarked, "By Hercules! he has done me but a bad
turn in this, for the merit of the stone has been greatly impaired by
this reduction in price."31
A
variant of the design directed by Damigeron to be placed on the emerald
is recommended in a thirteenth century manuscript, where we read that
to fit this stone for use as a talisman, it should be engraved with the
form of a scarab, beneath which there should appear a crested paroquet.32
According to the same manuscript, a jasper should bear the figure of
Mars fully armed, or else that of a virgin wearing a flowing robe and
bearing a laurel branch. It should then be "consecrated with perpetual
consecration." The mythical author Cethel asserts that the owner of a
jasper engraved with the sacred symbol of the cross would be preserved
from drowning.33
A
curious quid pro quo appears in a fifteenth century treatise on gems
written in French. Here, in a list of engraved gems suitable for use as
amulets, we read, "If you find a dromedary engraved on a stone with
hair flowing over its shoulders, this stone will bring peace and
concord between man and wife." The original Latin text read, "If you
find Andromeda on a stone with hair flowing over her shoulders, etc.34 The translator's art which could turn Andromeda into a dromedary almost equalled that of the enchantress Circe.
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a Plini, " Historia naturalis," lib xxxvi, cap. 3.
" Archaeologia, vol. xxx, p. 541, London, 1844; MS. Harl. No. 80, folio 105, recto.
* Pitra, '• Specilegium Solesmense," Parisiis, 1855, vol. iii, p. 336.
"De Mely, in La Grande Encyclopedie, vol. xxv, p. 885, art. Pierres precieuses.
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