Pearls are noted six times, usually as similes for tears, and tears
are likened to "pearls in glass" ("Venus and Adonis", l. 980). A
tender line is that in the "Passionate Pilgrim" (hardly from
Shakespeare's hand, however):
Bright orient pearl, alack, too timely shaded.
More varied are the allusions to rock-crystal or crystal, as the poet
calls it. In one place ("Venus and Adonis", l. 491) there are
"crystal tears", and these form "a crystal tide" that flows down the
cheeks and drops in the bosom (_Idem_, l. 957). On the other
hand, the eyes are likened to this stone, as in "crystal eyne"
("Venus and Adonis", l. 633), or "crystal eyes" (Sonnet xlvi, l. 6).
There are also "crystal favours",[5] a "crystal gate",[6] and "crystal
walls",[7] the two characteristics of brilliancy and transparency
suggesting these uses of the term.
[Footnote 5: "Lover's Complaint", l. 37.]
[Footnote 6: "Idem", l. 286.]
[Footnote 7: "Lucrece", l. 1251.]
The emeralds of Shakespeare's age had been brought from Peru by the
Spaniards and had originally come from Colombian mines, such as those
at Muzo, which are still worked in our day. The location of some of
the early deposits here appears to have been lost sight of since the
Spanish Conquest. The emeralds of Greek and Roman times, and of the
Middle Ages, came from Mount Zabara (Gebel Zabara), near the Red Sea
coast, east of Assuan, where traces of the old workings were found in
1817; these mines were reopened by order of Mehemet Ali, and were
worked for a brief period by Mons.
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