The purple of Scripture—Various Mollusks from which it is obtained—The common Dog-Whelk of Eugland.—The sac containing the purple dye-Curious change of color—Mode of obtaining the dye—The Tyrian purple—The king of the Ethiopians and the purple robe—The professional purple dyers—Various words expressive of different shades of purple-Care taken to keep the preparation of the dye secret, LEAVING the higher forms of animal life, we now pass to the Invertebrated Animals which are mentioned in Scripture.
As may be inferred from the extreme looseness of nomenclature which prevails among the higher animals, the species which can be identified are comparatively few, and of them but a very few details are given in the Scriptures.
Taking them in their zoological order, we will begin with the MOLLUSKS.
WE are all familiar with the value which was set by the ancients upon the peculiar dye which may be called by the name of Imperial Purple. In the first place, it was exceedingly costly, not only for its richness of hue, but from the great difficulty with which a sufficient quantity could be procured for staining a dress. Purple was exclusively a royal color, which might not be worn by a subject. Among the ancient Romans, during the times of the Cæsars, anyone who ventured to appear in a dress of purple would do so at the peril of his life. In the consular days of Rome, the dress of the consuls was white, striped with purple; but the Cæsars advanced another step in luxury, and dyed the whole toga of this costly hue.
The color of the dye is scarcely what we understand by the term "purple," i. e. a mixture of blue and red. It has but very little blue in it, and has been compared by the ancients to the color of newly-clotted blood. It is obtained from several Mollusks belonging to the great Whelk family, the chief of which is the Murex brandaris. Another species is Murex trunculus, another is Purpura hœmastoma, and we have a fourth on our own coast, the common Dog-Whelk, or Dog-Periwinkle (Purpura lapillus).
The shell is shaped something like that of a whelk, but is very smooth and porcelain-like, and is generally white, ornamented with several colored bands. It is, however, one of the most variable of shells, differing not only in color but in form. It always inhabits the belt of the shore between tide-marks, and preys upon other Mollusks, such as the mussel and periwinkle, literally licking them to pieces with its long riband tongue.
This tongue is beset with rows of hooked teeth, exactly like the shark-tooth weapons of the Samoan and Mangaian Islanders, and with it the creature is enabled to bore through the shells of mussels and similar Mollusks, and to eat the enclosed animal. It is very destructive to periwinkles, thrusting its tongue through the mouth of the shell, piercing easily the operculum by which the entrance is closed, and gradually scooping out the unfortunate inmate.
Even the bivalves, which can shut themselves up between two shells, fare no better, the tongue of the Dog-Whelk rasping a hole in the hard shell in eight-and-forty hours.
Any of my readers who desire to obtain a very fair specimen of the old imperial purple can do so without difficulty.
Let him go down to the sea-shore, and collect a number of Dog-Whelks—a task of no difficulty, as a bushel may be obtained in a very short time. Let him provide himself with a piece of perfectly clean linen, or pure white woolen fabric, and a pair of fine scissors or a sharp knife.
In order to procure the animal, the shell must be brokers with a sharp blow of a small hammer, and the receptacle of the coloring matter can then be seen behind the head, and recognized by its lighter hue.
When it is opened, a creamy sort of matter exudes. It is yellowish, and gives no promise of its future richness of hue. There is only one drop of this matter in each animal, and it is about sufficient in quantity to stain a piece of linen the size of a sixpence.
The test mode of seeing the full beauty of the purple is to take a number of the Mollusks, and to stain as large a surface as possible. The piece of linen should then be exposed to the rays of the sun, when it will go through a most curious series of colors. The yellow begins to turn green, and, after a while, the stained portions of the linen will be entirely green, the yellow having been vanquished by the blue. By degrees the blue predominates more and more over the yellow, until the Hilen is no more green, but blue. Then, just as the yellow yielded to the blue, the blue yields to red, and becomes first violet, then purple, and lastly assumes the blood-red hue of royalty.
The color is very permanent, and, instead of fading by time, seems rather to brighten. Some two hundred years ago there was an established trade in this dye in Ireland; but it has long ago been crushed by the cheaper, though less permanent, dyes which have since been invented.
In some cases the ancients appear not to have troubled themselves with the complicated operation of taking the animal out of the shell, opening the receptacle, and squeezing the contents on the fabric to be dyed, but simply crushed the whole of the Mollusk, so as to set the coloring matter free, and steeped the cloth in the pulp. Tire was one of the most celebrated spots for this manufacture, the “Tyrian dye “being celebrated for its richness. Heaps of broken shells remain to the present day as memorials of the long-perished manufacture.
The value which the ancients set upon this dye is shown by many passages in various books. Among others we may refer to Herodotus.
Cambyses, it appears, had a design to make war upon three nations, the Ammonians, the Carthaginians, and the Ethiopians. He determined to invade the first by land, and the second by sea; but, being ignorant of the best method of reaching the Ethiopians, he dispatched messengers to them, nominally as ambassadors, but practically as spies. He sent to the King of Ethiopia valuable presents—namely, a purple mantle, a golden necklace and bracelet, an elaborate box of perfumed ointment, and a cask of palm-wine, these evidently being considered a proof of imperial magnificence.
The Ethiopian king ridiculed the jewels, praised the wine, and asked curiously concerning the dye with which the purple mantle was stained. On being told the mode of preparation, he refused to believe the visitors, and, referring to the changing hues of the mantle and to the perfume of the ointment, he showed his appreciation of their real character by saying that the goods were deceptive, and so were the bearers.
This curious narrative occurs in the third book, chaps. 19-22.
The same historian has in another place a passing allusion to the trade of catching the purple-producing whelks. In his fourth book, chap. 151, he mentions a man who was a purple-dyer by trade, the word signifying equally one who procures the Mollusks as one who dyes the threads of which the purple fabrics are woven.
The dye-producing Power is not restricted to the whelks, but is shared by other Mollusks. For example, the Diadem Staircase Shell (Scalaria diadema) secretes a substance which produces a purple hue, and the Cerithium telescopium, produces a dye which retains its green hue, instead of passing into blue and red.
The Hebrew word argaman, which signifies the regal purple, occurs several times in Scripture, and takes a slightly different form according to the Chaldaic or Hebraic idiom.
For example, we find it in Ex. 25:44And blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats' hair, (Exodus 25:4): "This is the offering which ye shall take of them: gold, and silver, and brass," And blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen," &c. &c.
It occurs again in 2 Chron. 2:77Send me now therefore a man cunning to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass, and in iron, and in purple, and crimson, and blue, and that can skill to grave with the cunning men that are with me in Judah and in Jerusalem, whom David my father did provide. (2 Chronicles 2:7): "Send me now therefore a man cunning to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass and in iron, and in purple, and crimson, and blue." These words are repeated in ver. 14.
A very important use of this word is found in Dan. 5:77The king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers. And the king spake, and said to the wise men of Babylon, Whosoever shall read this writing, and show me the interpretation thereof, shall be clothed with scarlet, and have a chain of gold about his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom. (Daniel 5:7): "And the king spake, and said to the wise men of Babylon, Whosoever shall read this writing, and show me the interpretation thereof, shall be clothed with scarlet" ("purple" in margin), "and have a chain of gold about his neck, and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom." Here we find that the dye in question was a regal one, that the wearing it was a matter of sumptuary law, and that the fact of being allowed to wear it was a sign that the wearer was of the very highest rank.
The Jewish Bible invariably translates the word as "red-purple.”
That the preparers of the precious purple color took care to preserve their art a secret, is evident from the writings of the Talmudists, who had the very vaguest ideas respecting the dye. They knew that it was obtained from a marine Mollusk, but thought that the creature only made its appearance once in seventy years, and that this scarcity was the cause of its costliness. They said that the dye obtained from one sea was blackish, evidently referring to the ink of the cuttle; that when it was obtained from another it was violet, and that the Phœnician waters alone produced the true red-purple hue.
They accounted for its color by saying that the animal took the color of the sea which it inhabited: the sea was like the sky which it reflected, the sky was like the throne of God, and the throne of God was like the sapphire. Therefore, the dye was like the sapphire. It is not impossible even that the dyers exhibited specimens of the Violet Snail, or Janthina, which is of a rich blue color, and which would readily be accepted as the source of the Tyrian dye.