The answer is
given in the following lines:
Upon his bloody finger he doth wear
A precious ring, that lightens all the hole,
Which, like a taper in some monument,
Doth shine upon the dead man's earthy cheeks,
And shows the ragged entrails of the pit.
_Titus Andronicus_, Act ii, sc. 3.
First Folio, "Tragedies", p. 38, col. B, lines 53-57.
This certainly was suggested by the common belief in naturally
luminous stones, a belief partly due to a superstitious explanation of
the ruddy brilliancy of rubies and garnets as resulting from a hidden
fire in the stone, and partly, perhaps, to the occasional observation
of the phenomena of phosphorescence or fluorescence in certain
precious stones.
It will have been seen that the text of Shakespeare's plays gives no
evidence tending to show any greater familiarity with precious stones
than could be gathered from the poetry of his day, and from his
intercourse with classical scholars, such as Francis Bacon, Ben
Jonson, and others of those who formed the unique assemblage wont to
meet together at the old Mermaid Tavern in London. That a diamond
could cost 2000 ducats ($5000), a very large sum in Shakespeare's
time, is noted in one of his earliest plays, the _Merchant of Venice_
(Act iii, sc. 1), and the following injunction emphasizes the great
value of a fine diamond:
Set this diamond safe
In golden palaces, as it becomes.
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