38 Pearls.
stately
wise, nor of purpose for some great solem-nitie, but only when she was
to goe unto a wedding supper, or rather to a feast when the assurance
was made, and great persons they were not that made the said feast ; I
have seen her, I say, so beset and bedeckt all over with Emeraulds and
Pearles, disposed in rowes, rankes, and courses one by another, round
about the attire of her head, her cawle, her borders, her perruke of
hair, her bon-grace and chaplet ; at her ears pendant, about her neck
in a carcanet, upon her wrest in bracelets, and on her fingers in rings
; that she glittered and shone againe like the sun as she went. The
value of these ornaments she esteemed and rated at 400 hundred thousand
sestertij (about £400,000 sterling of our money) ; and offered openly
to prove it out of hand by her books of accounts and reckonings."
Pliny
states that in his day, the love of Pearls was so widely spread in
Rome, that even women of the poorer classes strove to secure the
coveted ornaments.
"Now
adaies also it is growne to this passe, that meane women and poore
men's wives affect to weare them, because' they would be thought rich ;
and a by-word it is among them, that a faire Pearle at a woman's eare
is as good in the street where she goeth, as an huisher to make way, for
Flickr
Stumbleupon
Scribd
