A - “An Union”

Derek Jacobi, as Claudius, presents a pearl to the court before the final fencing match between Hamlet and Laertes, saying:

And in the cup an union shall he throw
Richer than that which four successive kings
In Denmark’s crown have worn (5.2.186-88). 

“Orient” pearls in Shakespeare’s day were exotic and valuable gems, but the especially large and spherical ones were “unions,” from the Latin “unus,” meaning “oneness” or “singular pearl.” The practice of swallowing a pearl (or pearl powder) was a show of great wealth, and Claudius’ comment about possessing one larger than any king before him was sure to rankle the vengeful Prince Hamlet something awful. 

Pearls in Shakespeare are often mentioned to describe beauty, and they are especially associated with eyes and tears. Othello conjures all three at once: 

…of one whose hand
Like the base Indian threw a pearl away
Richer than all his tribe; of one whose subdu’d eyes,
Albeit unused to the melting mood,
Drops tears as fast as the Arabian trees
Their medicinable gum. (Othello, 5.2.348-53)

Much debate swirls about whether or not the pearl Claudius adds to the wine is the vector for the poison meant to be the insurance for Hamlet’s death if Laertes fails to stab him with his laced foil, but many tears surround the appearance of this special gem soon enough, as Queen Gertrude is the first to quaff the deadly drink. When Hamlet forces Claudius to “drink off this potion,” he acerbically quips “Is thy union here?” meaning both the pearl and his joining with Gertrude in marriage and death. At the start of the play, Claudius foretells this contrasting concept “with mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage.” 

In As You Like It, Touchstone impresses the Duke when he points out that “rich honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a poor house; as your pearl in your foul oyster” (As You Like It, 5.4.43). In this case, the pearl is more explicitly linked to a conflict of imagery. Filmmaker and theorist Sergei Eisenstein famously insists that film is montage—not simply a series of shots, but a collision of elements that are not their sum but their product, creating “intellectual cinema” capable of representing something that cannot be graphically represented. “Conflict,” he says in an essay from Film Form, “lies at the basis of all art.” How appropriate, then, for Claudius to display a pearl before a duel. 

One of the most notable pearls in art history is that worn by the girl in Johannes Vermeer’s famous portrait Meisje met de parel painted circa 1665. Scarlett Johansson portrayed this mysterious young girl in the Peter Webber-directed film adaptation of Tracy Chavalier’s Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003), starring Colin Firth as the Dutch artist. Firth appeared in A Month In The Country (1987), alongside Branagh, in his first credited screen role. Branagh’s first uncredited film appearance was in Chariots of Fire (1981), which stars the great stage Hamlet Sir John Gielgud (Priam in Branagh’s Hamlet), and also boasts an uncredited appearance by Stephen Fry (who receives “Special thanks” in the end credits of Branagh’s Hamlet). 


Sources:

Berry, David. Shakespeare’s Gemstones. Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group, York, Pennsylvania. 2004.

Eisenstein, Sergei. “The Cinematographic Principle and the Ideogram.” Film Theory and Criticism, edited by Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 15-25

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