BETROTHAL AND WEDDING RINGS 213
ancient
custom of giving to the purchaser of a dozen articles, an extra one,
ostensably as a testimonial of good will, but really to induce further
purchases. This old usage is said to have been observed at the marriage
of King Alfonso XIII of Spain in 1906.
The
Hebrew betrothal rings were elaborate and somewhat clumsy productions,
frequently of massive gold. The broad hoop was surmounted by the
representation of a temple, sometimes with a Moorish dome, but usually
with a slanting roof. This is a curiously conventionalized figuration
of Solomon's Temple, similar to that found upon certain spurious Hebrew
coins. Upon the temple or else around the ring, are generally the
Hebrew words FIO ERG, equivalent to " Good Fortune." 3e
Several such rings are described in the privately printed catalogue of
the Londesborough Collection (London, 1853, p. 4). A more artistic
specimen, also in the Londesborough Collection, bears the figures of
Adam and Eve in Paradise, accompanied by representations of animals,
all in high relief.37 The specimens described belong to the
sixteenth century. The learned Jesuit, Athanasius Kircher, cites a
statement to the effect that the inscription mazzel tob, engraved upon many Hebrew betrothal rings, referred to the planet Jupiter as the " good star." 38 This planet was, indeed, called by the Hebrews cocab zedeq, " star of righteousness " or " justice," but there is little doubt that mazzel tob should be rendered " good fortune " or " propitious fate."
3e'Shown in Fairholt's "Rambles of an Artist," p. 127, figs. l-*2, 153.
37 Ibid., p. 128, fig. 154.
88 Kircheri, " Œdipus ^Egyptiacus," Romae, 1652, vol. i, p. 283.
