Pearl: Medieval and Modern History of Pearls Page 39



	20	THE BOOK OF THE PEARL

	The word pearl seems to have come into general use in the English language about the fourteenth century. In Wyclif's translation of the Scriptures (about 1360), he commonly used the word margarite or margaritis, whereas Tyndale's translation (1526) in similar places used the word perle. Tyndale translated Matt. xiii. 46: "When he had founde one precious pearle"; Wyclif used "00 preciouse margarite." Also in Matt. vii. 6, Tyndale wrote, "Nether caste ye youre pearles before swyne" ; yet Wyclif used "margaritis," although twenty years later he expressed it "putten precious pedis to hoggis." Lang-land's Piers Plowman (1362), XI, 9, wrote this: "Noli mitt ere Margen perles Among hogges." The oldest English version of Mande-ville's Travels, written about 1400, contained the expression : "The fyn Perl congelés and wexes gret of the dew of hevene"; but in 1447, Bokenham's "Seyntys" stated: "A margerye perle aftyr the phylo-sophyr Growyth on a shelle of lytyl pryhs" ; and Knight de la Tour (about 1450) stated: "The sowie is the precious marguarite unto God." The word is given "perle" in the earliest manuscripts of those old epic poems of the fourteenth century, "Pearl" and "Cleanness," which have caused so much learned theological discussion and which testify to the great love and esteem in which the gem was held. The first stanza of "Pearl" we quote from Gollancz's rendition : Pearl! fair enow for princes' pleasance, so deftly set in gold so pure,— from orient lands I durst avouch, ne'er saw I a gem its peer,— so round, so comely-shaped withal, so small, with sides so smooth,— where'er I judged of radiant gems, I placed my pearl supreme.¹ The fourteenth-century manuscript in the British Museum gives this as follows : Perle plesaunte to prynces paye, To clanly clos in gold so clere, Oute of oryent I hardyly saye, Ne proved I never her precios pere,— So rounde, so reken in uche a raye, So smal, so smothe her sydez were,— Queresoever I jugged gemmez gaye, I sette hyr sengeley in synglere.