The Phoenix and the Turtle

doi:10.1017/9780511819094.010

The Phoenix and the Turtle

from The Poems

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 August 2019

William Shakespeare

Edited by

John Roe

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John Roe: Affiliation:
University of York

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Type: Chapter
Information: The Poems
Venus and Adonis, The Rape of Lucrece, The Phoenix and the Turtle, The Passionate Pilgrim, A Lover's Complaint
, pp. 239 - 244

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9780511819094.010 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2006

The Phoenix and the Turtle

Let the bird of loudest lay†,

†On the sole Arabian tree,

Herald sad and trumpet† be,

To whose sound chaste wings† obey†.

5But thou, shrieking harbinger†,

Foul precurrer† of the fiend†,

Augur† of the fever’s end†,

To this troop come thou not near.

From this session† interdict†

10Every fowl of tyrant wing†,

Save the eagle, feath’red king:

Keep the obsequy so strict†.

Let the priest in surplice white†,

That defunctive music can†,

15Be the death-divining† swan,

Lest the requiem lack his right†.

And thou treble-dated† crow,

That thy sable gender† mak’st

†With the breath thou giv’st and tak’st†,

20’Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.

Here the anthem† doth commence:

Love and constancy is† dead;

Phoenix and the turtle fled†

In a mutual flame from hence.

25So they loved, as† love in twain†

Had the essence† but in one:

†Two distincts, division none;

†Number there in love was slain.

Hearts remote†, yet not asunder;

30Distance, and no space was seen†

’Twixt this turtle and his queen†:

But† in them it were† a wonder.

So between them love did shine,

That the turtle saw his right†

35†Flaming in the phoenix’ sight;

Either was the other’s mine†.

Property† was thus appalled†

†That the self was not the same;

Single nature†’s double name†

40Neither two nor one was called.

Reason, in itself† confounded†,

Saw division grow together†,

†To themselves yet either neither,

†Simple were so well compounded:

45That it cried, How true a twain†

Seemeth this concordant one†!

†Love hath reason, reason none,

†If what parts can so remain.

†Whereupon it made this threne†

50To the phoenix and the dove,

Co-supremes† and stars† of love,

As chorus to their tragic scene†.

THRENOS†

Beauty, truth†, and rarity,

Grace in all simplicity,

55Here enclosed,† in cinders lie.

†Death is now the phoenix’ nest,

And the turtle’s loyal breast

†To eternity doth rest.

Leaving no posterity,†

60†’Twas not their infirmity,

It was married chastity†.

Truth may seem, but cannot be†;

†Beauty brag, but ’tis not she;

Truth and beauty buried be.

65To this urn let those repair

That are either true or† fair;

For these dead birds sigh a prayer.

Footnotes

1 bird… lay Opinion is divided over whether this is the phoenix or another bird, e.g. the cock or Chaucer’s ‘crane, the geaunt, with his trompes sound’ (The Parlement of Foules, 344). For the phoenix, Dronke, Orbis Litterarum 23 (1968), 208, notes that Lactantius in De Ave Phoenice commends it for its wonderful, matchless voice, though volume seems not to be one of its properties. There is no compelling reason for urging identification, since the line contents itself with the expressive alliteration dependent on periphrasis.

2 See Florio’s Italian Dictionary (1598): ‘Rasin, a tree in Arabia, whereof there is but one found, and upon it the Phenix sits’; and Shakespeare, ‘Now I will believe / That there are unicorns; that in Arabia / There is one tree, the phoenix’ throne, one phoenix / At this hour reigning there’ (The TempestTemp. 3.3.21–4).

3 trumpet trumpeter (metonymically).

4 obey The use of the verb with the preposition ‘to’ is recorded in Spenser: ‘Lo! now the hevens obey to me alone’ (FQ 3.2.35).

4 chaste wings See 3n. The use of metonymy, synecdoche, and periphrasis frees the poem from depicting the birds merely as creatures and allows it to concentrate on those qualities or essences which they represent.

5 shrieking harbinger Often identified as the screech-owl; but see 1n and 4 below n.

6 precurrer precursor (Oxford English DictionaryOED gives only this example of its usage; under ‘precurrent’ it cites John Hume’s The Jewes deliverance out of Babylon (1628): ‘The precurrent signes of the day of Iudgment’).

6 fiend devil.

7 Augur Soothsayer, Prophet (in ancient Rome). The augur predicted the course of events from the flights of birds or by studying their entrails (details which may have prompted the pattern of association). The poem chooses to stress the negative character of the office.

7 fever’s end The course the fever will take, for good or ill.

9 session sitting (usually of a court or parliament – perhaps echoing Chaucer’s poem).

9 interdict keep away by decree.

10 tyrant wing It is not enough to gloss this merely as ‘bird of prey’ since ‘tyrant’ carries further emblematic resonance (compare ‘chaste wings’, 4n).

12 strict exclusive.

13 surplice white i.e. referring to the swan’s down.

14 can i.e. to be skilled or versed in. ‘Defunctive music’ is funereal music. The swan is also the bird of Apollo, the god of music. See 15n.

15 death-divining The swan is supposed to sing melodiously as it senses its imminent death (see The Rape of LucreceLuc. 1611–12) and for this reason is preferred to the ‘shrieking harbinger’ of line 5.

16 his right Either (1) its (the requiem’s) right (see Abbot §228), or (2) its (the swan’s) right. (1). is more likely. Also, ‘right’ most probably plays on the sense of ‘rite’ (see The Rape of LucreceLuc. 1838n).

17 treble-dated long-lived. The expression is formulaic: ‘date’ means extent or limit of (see The Rape of LucreceLuc. 26, 935, and 1729), giving the meaning here of three times the ordinary span.

18 sable gender black offspring (‘sable’ is a carefully chosen poeticism); ‘gender’ = thing engendered.

19 Shakespeare may be voicing a popular belief: ‘They (ravens) are said to conceive and to lay their eggs at the bill. The young become black on the seventh day’ (from the Hortus Sanitatis, in Seager, Natural History (Rollins, p. 326)).

19 giv’st… tak’st The phrase suggests an exchange of lovers’ vows.

21 anthem song of praise.

22 is The singular may signify the theme of resolved dualism (two hearts in one); but Abbott (§336) notes the frequency of sing. usage when two or more nouns precede the verb.

23 fled are fled, having fled. The compact verb forms contribute to the gnomic, lapidary character of the poem.

25 as that, as a result that; ‘love’ is a noun.

25 in twain in two.

26 essence irreducible. or indivisible nature (see ‘single nature’ in 39). Critics have discussed the scholastic character of 25–48: Cunningham defines ‘essence’ as the intellectual soul and interprets the indivisible love of the phoenix and turtle as analogous to relationships within the Trinity (see Cunningham, pp. 266, 273–6).

27 Ridley further observes the scholastic terms: “distinction” implies a verbal, “division” a real difference’.

28 ‘Number’ may be ‘slain’ as an enemy because it poses a threat to indivisible love.

29 remote apart.

30 Distance… seen Distance was seen and yet not seen.

31 his queen This expression has given rise to speculation that the ‘queen’ is Elizabeth and the turtle Essex (see pp. 42–3).

32 But Except.

32 were would be, would have been.

34 right due, possession.

35 (1) Glowing in his vision of the phoenix, and (2) Glowing for the phoenix to see. The word ‘sight’ means both appearance (see Venus and AdonisVen. 183n) and eyesight.

36 mine (1) possession (the possessive pronoun used as a noun), (2) ‘rich source of wealth’ (Schmidt). Despite the reluctance of some editors, the latitude of wit in the stanza makes (2) possible. John Constable further detects wordplay on ‘mine’ as a variant of ‘mien’ (appearance). See Notes and QueriesN&Q ns, 36 no. 3 (1989), 327.

37 Property Selfhood, Self-ownership. Cunningham (p. 275) adduces further scholastic terms such as proprium and alienum: ‘what is proper to the one, but not to the other’.

37 appalled weakened, enfeebled (Old FrenchO. Fr. appalir = ‘grow pale’).

38 That the self was not itself (but involved another).

39 Single nature indivisible essence (see 26n).

39 double name Perhaps referring to the ‘Two distincts’ (27), or to the two-in-one phoenix and turtle.

41 in itself in essence, thoroughly.

41 confounded overthrown, destroyed (see Venus and AdonisVen. 1048, The Rape of LucreceLuc. 250).

42 division… together things separate become one.

43 Each in himself was nothing without the other. Paraphrase does little justice to the gnomic wittiness of the line.

44 ‘Simples’ (see The Rape of LucreceLuc. 530n) normally form a compound; but this compound is so well unified as to appear a simple.

45 true a twain Maxwell notes wordplay on ‘true’: (1) how faithful a pair they are, (2) how truly one seems to be two.

46 concordant one i.e. agreeing with itself (a further resolved paradox since concord requires the agreement of two parties).

47 Since love has taken over reason, reason is dispossessed of itself (‘has none’ = has no reason). This exercise in logic is one familiar in Socratic dialogues (and was taken up earnestly by contemporary Neoplatonists).

48 In defiance of reason, what ‘parts’ (divides) none the less continues to form a unity. Also implied is togetherness in spite of separation and distance (as in 30). The line demonstrates the fulfilment of logic through paradox – consistent with the ideal of Neoplatonic love poetry (compare Donne’s ‘A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning’).

49 Apart from the need for fluency of narrative transition, there seems little significance in the fact that it is Reason who sings the threne. The unidentified imperative narrator of 1–20 modulates into the quieter anthem-speaking voice of 21–44; Reason then declares its surprised admiration for the love of the pair, and it is appropriately this tone which continues to the end. However, Lewis (p. 509) and Middleton Murry both ascribe importance to ‘Reason’s deliberate homage to a higher power’ (John Middleton Murry, Discoveries, 1930Murry, p. 25).

49 threne (1) threnody, lament, (2) epitaph.

51 Co-supremes Joint rulers (‘supremes’ is accented on the first syllable).

51 stars presiding deities. Fate is also evoked by ‘stars’, in keeping with astrological notions of fortune (compare Romeo and JulietRom. line 7: ‘star-crossed’). As supreme examples of love, they must also submit to its ‘tragic’ laws.

52 scene drama, performance (Oxford English DictionaryOED sv sb 3; King Henry the FifthH5, Prologue 4: ‘And monarchs to behold the swelling scene’).

THRENOS Threnody (see 49n).

53 truth fidelity.

55 enclosed, Prince seems right to retain q’s comma: the qualities named are enclosed in each other and only incidentally in the cinders.

56 One version of the phoenix legend is that it will renew itself from its ashes; but this does not account for the turtle. The tenor of the poem is rather that the two birds will find themselves mutually renewed in ‘eternity’ (58).

58 (1) finds repose in eternity, (2) endures eternally.

59 posterity, q’s comma is preferable to later emendations to a colon; the three lines of the tercet stand in equal relationship.

60 i.e. their childlessness was not the result of physical incapacity.

61 married chastity A married couple may enjoy conjugal relations without blame; but the point of these words is to deny even that. Donne’s Neoplatonism (see 48n) is again relevant:

But we by a love, so much refin’d,

That our selves know not what it is,

Inter-assured of the mind,

Care lesse, eyes, lips, and hands to misse.

(‘A Valediction’, 17–20)

62 seem… be i.e. only a semblance of truth remains.

63 Whoever boasts she is beauty is an impostor. This and the line above strike a further Platonic note by arguing that what is now perceived on earth as truth or beauty merely reflects the ideal.

66 either… or Expressed as alternatives, perhaps because the two qualities can no longer be combined in a single person.

Book contents

The Phoenix and the Turtle

Summary

The Phoenix and the Turtle

THRENOS†

Footnotes

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