A recent reference in this column to the therapeutic value of the gemstone jade led a woman who lives in Greystones to stop me in the street to tell me that her grandmother once told her that her own birthstone, the amethyst, would prevent her from all sorts of evils - especially that of an addiction to alcohol. She wondered what the basis of that story is.
The old lady must have read Aristotle. He tells us that Amethyst was a nymph of great beauty whose life was being ruined by the unwanted attention of Dionysus, the god of wine. The scoundrel pestered her so much that she implored Artemis, the great goddess of wild places, forests and hills, to do something about it. This Artemis did by turning her into a stone. Artemis, daughter of Zeus, twin sister of Apollo, was a huntress and "a lion unto women", because their sudden and painless deaths are ascribed to her. Dionysus could do nothing about the goddess's rather extreme remedy, but to show her how much he loved the nymph, he gave the stone a purple or bluish violet colour and promised that its wearers would be preserved from the evils of over-indulgence in wine. Since ancient times, the stone has been admired as the standard by which the loveliness of both women and nature was measured. Listen to John Keats: Although, before the crystal heavens darken,/ I watch and dote upon the silver lakes/ Pictured in western cloudiness, that takes/ The semblance of gold rocks . . ./ And towers of amethyst, -would I so tease/ My pleasant days, because I could not mount/ Into these regions?
The word was in Middle English as amatist and ametist, from Old French ametiste, from Latin amethystus, from Greek amethystos, not intoxicating. Ultimately from Greek methy, wine.
The bright blue and beautiful sapphire is also associated with ancient myth. The name is from the Sanskrit sanipriya, which means "beloved of Saturn". However in western astrology, the stone is associated with Venus. Nobody knows why. It may have been that the stone's renowned sparkle reminded people of the planets on a clear night. At any rate, the sapphire was believed to cure many diseases, especially diseases of the eye.
It was also thought to bring delight into the lives of those who wore it. So, gentlemen, when all else has failed to end a domestic tiff, do as they did in ancient India - give her a sapphire.