another set of Pearls

In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, 

with shamefacedness and sobriety; 

not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array;...

 neither cast ye your pearls before swine,

lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. 

(King James version of the Bible-the only readable one, and as always the delightfully contradictory)

Caravaggio's  Penitent Mary Magdalene, 1596-97

Whose adorning let it not be that outward of plaiting the hair, 

and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; KJ

(Tilda Swinton by Derek Jarman, 1986)

 "the infant was 'Pearl,' as being of great price- 

purchased with all she had- her mother's only pleasure."NH

 "& however white and clear originally, they had taken the deep stains of crimson and gold, 

the fiery lustre, the black shadow, and the untempered light of the intervening substance.

 Above all, the warfare of Hester's spirit, at that epoch, was perpetuated in Pearl." NH