To
thee I gave that longing in thy shell, Which guided thee and caused
thee to escape, Ο Pearl, from the bewitching sirens' song.
In luster they so closely resemble the limpid, sparkling-
dewdrop as it first receives the sun's rays, that the ancients very
naturally conceived that pearls are formed from drops of dew or rain.
The usual legend is, that at certain seasons of the year, the
pearl-oysters rise to the surface of the water in the morning, and
there open their shells and imbibe the dewdrops ; these, aided by the
breath of the air and the warmth of the sunlight, are, in the course of
time, transformed into lustrous pearls; but if the air and the sunlight
are not received in sufficient quantities, the pearls do not attain
perfection and are faulty in form, color, and luster. However
remarkable and even absurd this may seem at present, it appears to have
been universally accepted for centuries by the most learned men of
Europe as well as by primitive people who delight in the mystical and
fantastic. This opinion was recorded in the Sanskrit books of the
Brahmans and in other oriental literature. The classical and medieval
writings of Europe contain numerous references to it; and it is found
even yet in the traditions and folk-lore of some peoples.
In the first century a.D., Pliny wrote in his "Historia naturalis," according to Dr. Philemon Holland's quaint translation :
The
fruit of these shell fishes are the Pearles, better or worse, great or
small, according to the qualitie and quantitie of the dew which they
received. For if the dew were pure and cleare which went into them,
then are the Pearles white, faire, and Orient; but if grosse and
troubled, the Pearles likewise are dimme, foule, and duskish; pale they
are, if the weather were close, darke and threatening raine in the time
of their conception. Whereby (no doubt) it is apparent and plaine, that
they participate more of the aire and sky, than of the water and the
sea; for according as the morning is faire, so are they cleere: but
otherwise, if it were misty and cloudy, they also will be thicke and
muddy in colour. If they may have their full time and season to feed,
the Pearles likewise will thrive and grow bigge; but if in the time it
chance to lighten, then they close their shells together, and for want
of nourishment are kept hungrie and fasting, and so the pearles keepe
at a stay and prosper not accordingly. But if it thunder withall, then
suddenly they shut hard at once, and breed only those excrescences
which be called Physemata, like unto bladders puft up and
hooved with wind, no corporal substance at all : and these are the
abortive & untimely fruits of these shell fishes.1
Pliny's
views were probably derived from the ancient authorities of his time,
particularly from Megasthenes, Chares of Mytilene, and Isi-
1"The Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus," London, 1601, Book IX, ch. 35.
