Seventeenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

Pearl is a favorite with Shakespeare, whose Cleopatra, unlike the traditional image, does not dissolve her Oriental pearl in her desert cup, but cherishes a pearl given by Antony as a token of true love. It was King Claudius, uncle to Hamlet, who wasted a treasure pearl by dissolving it in wine, which eventually cost him his life. Rascals in his plays tend to waste pearls, and get punished for it. Pure and white, round and small, pearl was the symbol of divine grace the mediaeval Pearl Poet sang of, and a favourite of Queen Elizabeth. However, diamond cutting gradually improved and began to be appreciated not only for its Mohs hardness but also for translucency and brilliancy, which subsequently set the standard for Western gemstones. Thus Wilde’s European Happy Prince gives away ruby and sapphires, rather than jades and ambers much appreciated by the Egyptian king the little swallow tells him of. Yeats also makes a sharp contrast between the East and the West in ‘Lapis Lazuli’ and ‘Meditations in Time of Civil War’, by setting lapis lazuli (East) against aquamarine (West). Buddhist Sutra highly prizes vaiḍūrya (aquamarine or lapis lazuli) as one of the seven treasures, but whilst aquamarine is delicate, lapis lazuli can survive the ‘accidental crack and dent’, thus for Yeats symbolizing the tragic joy of graceful beauty being replaced by the brazen opacity of the approaching new age. Retrospectively, Shakespeare’s era was also filled with uncertainty, though it had more brightness and radiance, like pearls.