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Romance and Poetry: Ceylon

In Googe's translation of Palingenius (1565) a city of the moon is thus described:- "The loftie walles of diamonde strong, Were raysed high and framde, The bulwarks built of carbuncle, That all as fyer yflamd." Concerning Seilan, or Ceylon, Marco Polo tells us "of the most precious article that exists in the world. You must know that rubies are found in this island, and in no other country in the world but this. They find there also sapphires and topazes and amethysts, and many other stones of price. And the king of this island possesses a ruby which is the finest and biggest in the world. I will tell you what it is like. It is about a palm in length, and as thick as a man's arm; to look at it is the most resplendent object upon earth; it is quite free from flaw, and is as red as fire. Its value is so great that a price for it in money could hardly be named at all. You must know that the Great Kaan sent an embassy and begged the king as a favour greatly desired by him to sell him this ruby, offering to give for it the ransom of a city, or in fact what the king would. But the king replied that on no account whatever would he sell it, for it had come to him from his ancestors." Colonel Yule in "The Book of Ser Marco Polo" observes, "there seems to have been always afloat among Indian travellers, at least from the time of Cosmas (sixth century), some wonderful story about the ruby or rubies of the King of Ceylon. With Cosmas, and with the Chinese Hwen Thsang, in the following century, this precious object is fixed at the top of a pagoda, a hyacinth, they say, of great size and brilliant ruddy colour, as big as a great pine-cone; and when 'tis seen from a distance flashing, especially if the sun's rays strike upon it, it is a glorious and incomparable spectacle." Our author's contemporary, Hayton, had heard of the great ruby: "The king of the island of Celan hath the largest and finest ruby in existence. When his coronation takes place this ruby is placed in his hand, and he goes round the city on horseback holding it in his hand, and thenceforth all recognize and obey him as their king." Odoric, too, speaks of the great ruby and the Kaan's endeavours to get it, though by some bungle the circumstance is referred to Nicoveran, instead of Ceylon. Ibn Batuta saw in the possession of Arya Chakravarti, a Tamul chief ruling at Patlam, a ruby bowl as big as the palm of one's hand. Friar Jordanus speaks of two great rubies belonging to the King of Sylen, each so large that when grasped in the hand it projected a finger's breadth at either side. The fame, at least, of these survived to the sixteenth century, for Andrea Corsali (1515) says: "They tell that the king of this island possesses two rubies of colours so brilliant and vivid that they look like a flame of fire."

Sir E. Tennent, on this subject, quotes from a Chinese work a statement that early in the fourteenth century the Emperor sent an officer to Ceylon to purchase a carbuncle of unusual lustre. This was fitted as a ball to the Emperor's cap; it was upwards of an ounce in weight, and cost one hundred thousand strings of cash. Every time a grand levee was held at night the red lustre filled the palace, and hence it was designated "the Red Palace Illuminator."

Mandeville, in his "Travels," says, "the Emperor hath in his chamber a pillar of gold, in which is a ruby and carbuncle a foot long, which lighteth all his chambers by night."

Lydgate calls St. Edmund, "The precious charboncle of martir's alle." In the adventures of the "Golden Fleece" the hall of King Priam is described as illuminated at night by a prodigious carbuncle, placed among sapphires, rubies, and pearls on the crown of a golden statue of Jupiter, fifteen cubits high.

In Hawe's "Pastyme of Pleasure" (1517), "Graunde Amoure" enters a hall in the Tower of Chastity, with a golden roof, in the midst of which was a carbuncle of enormous size which lighted the room.