MYSTICAL AND MEDICINAL PROPERTIES 307
from
the earliest dawn of Hindu civilization, when the beloved Krishna drew
it from the sea to decorate his beautiful daughter on her nuptial day.
And among the Hindus not uncommonly the presentation of a virgin pearl
and its piercing forms part of the marriage ceremony. In most of the
European royal weddings in recent years, pearls have been prominent
among the bridal gifts; nor have they been overlooked among the
presents to American brides, including one much in the public print
about 1906, for whom a necklace of them was selected by a neighboring
republic as an appropriate present.
The
dedication of the pearl to love and marriage appears to have been
recognized by the artistic Greeks. One of the choicest engravings
preserved from classic times is a magnificent sardonyx showing the
marriage of Cupid and Psyche, in which the lovers are united by what
some authorities consider a string of pearls—emblematic of conjugal
bonds—by means of which the god Hymen leads them to the nuptial couch.1
This engraved gem now forms one of the choicest objects in the Boston
Museum of Fine Arts, having been purchased at the sale of the
Marlborough gems, London, 1898, at a cost of about $10,000.
And
yet in Western countries the ill omen of pearls as bridal ornaments
has been widely recognized, these determining the tears that will be
shed in the married life. As Milton says, referring to the Marchioness
of Winchester :
And those pearls of dew she wears, Prove to be presaging tears.
It
was told that when the Empress Eugénie of France was finishing her
toilet preparatory to her wedding in Notre Dame in 1853, a personal
attendant reminded her of the omen, and begged that she refrain from
wearing her pearl necklace on that occasion. Eugénie paid no heed to
the warning and wore the beautiful jewels just the same; and, as all
the world knows, her life has been one long tragedy. Since that
necklace was a lengthy one, containing very many pearls, the bride who
wears only a few on her wedding day need not dread the adage so much,
for, unfortunately, no woman's life is wholly free from grief; and most
brides would doubtless risk a few tears rather than refuse to wear a
wedding gift of pearls.
It
was a very old idea that to dream of pearls betokens tears. A
suggestion of this occurs in John Webster's "Duchess of Main" (1623),
Act III, sc. 5:
