Shakespeare's THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE appeared in 1601 as part of a larger book of poetry called LOVES MARTYR written by Robert Chester (95% of the book is Chester's poetry). The book also contained short poems written by John Marston, Ben Jonson and George Chapman. The topic of all the poems is the love between a phoenix and a turtle(dove). Chester (a bad, bad poet) was chaplain to Sir John Salusbury who was about to be honored and promoted by the Queen. Salusbury probably financed this book as a small part of the celebration accompanying the Queen's favor. Shakespeare, Marston, Jonson and Chapman were the brightest lights of the London stage (in fact, at this time, Jonson was battling Marston in the War Of The Theaters). To entice the writers, I conjecture that Lord Salisbury offered a prize for the best poem on the topic of the phoenix and the turtledove.
But we have no interest in LOVES MARTYR. We are only interested in what Shakespeare's poem says. I might as well, right at the beginning, break the bad news to all those erudite scholars who have struggled with the deep meanings of this "metaphysical" poem and all those militant "Queer" theorists who have called THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE a glorification of the bisexual soul and all those other varied and vacant members of the campus carnival with lofty degrees and lacking commonsense----the poem is just one big joke. That is all it is. A BIG JOKE.
THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE
Let the bird of lowdest lay,
On the sole Arabian tree,
Herauld sad and trumpet be:
To whose sound chaste wings obay
The poet who writes the best poem will climb to the top of the tree and collect the prize.
But thou shriking harbinger,
Foule precurrer of the fiend,
Augour of the fevers end,
To this troupe come thou not neere.
Here Shakespeare takes a swipe at John Marston. Marston was a lawyer and resident of the Middle Temple, one of London's four Inns of Court. (He seems also, from contemporary descriptions, to have been something of a loudmouth.) The owl was the bird that shrieked and was a symbol of the law. In common usage, a harbinger was someone who went out ahead of a traveling party of men and made arrangements for their accommodations. In Shakespeare's time men about to die were visited by their lawyer to write or finalize their will. Where the lawyer went Death followed. (It is also interesting to note that harbinger had a another meaning--an "innkeeper" which was what Marston was since he keep an apartment at the Middle Temple.) Shakespeare, siding with Jonson in the War Of The Theaters, is casting Marston out of this troupe of playwrights.
From this session interdict,
Every fowle of tyrant wing,
Save the Eagle feath'red King,
Keepe the obsequie so strict.
Here Shakespeare welcomes in Ben Jonson. "King" is short for "Kingfisher" a common bird (Jonson was the son of a brick layer). But this kingfisher has added an eagle's feather's to his plumage. The eagle was the symbol of Jove. Jonson, self taught, became one of the best Latin scholars of his age. He was a commonner who earned an "eagle's" feathers.
Let the Priest in Surples white,
That defunctive Musicke can,
Be the death-devining Swan,
Lest the Requiem lacke his right.
The Priest who becomes a swan is George Chapman--who dedicated his life to Philosophy never marrying. A swan was mute until the moment of its death when it then burst into song. Much of chapman's poetry was written for public occasions--especially funerals. Chapman earlier took a crack at Shakespeare in his play ALL FOOLS when he wrote:
And what is beauty? a meer Quintesence,
Whose life is not in being , but in seeming:
And therefore is not to all eyes the same
But like a cousoning picture which one way
shows like a Crow, another like a Swan.
And thou treble dated Crow
That thy sable gender mak'st
With the breath thou giv'st and tak'st
Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.
And, of course, the "Crow" is Shakespeare himself. "Treble dated" meant old. (His big manly voice turning again toward childish treble--AS YOU LIKE IT) Shakespeare was an "old" player which I suspect was the type of supporting role he favored (he would have played Boyet in LLL.) Shakespeare also calls himself old in one of his sonnets. The great gift we get in the above lines is that we read Shakespeare critiquing himself. As an author he created a whole universe of new characters never before seen on the stage. (Sable means black. The bar sinister marked the birth of a child with no acknowledged father. Shakespeares characters had no stage lineage.) And he knew it. (These lines are of the same kind that he gave himself in the TEMPEST when he castigates Caliban.) And of course, in the last line Shakespeare sends himself on stage to do his poem.
Here the Antheme doth commence,
Love and Constancie is dead,
Phoenix and the Turtle fled,
In a mutual flame from hence.
The rest of what follows is an "intellectual" joke. The ultimate source for what follows is a book by Johannes Scotus Erigena (810-877) called ON THE DIVISION OF NATURE. Shakespeare probably did not read Erigena directly but studied general philosophy which used Erigena as a main source. Here is what Erigena (in part) had to say:
Nature (meaning all that exists, material and immaterial including God) is divided into four kinds: 1)that which creates but is not created (God), 2)that which creates and is created (the Logos--the Ideas of God), 3)that which is created but does not create (all that is in heaven and on the earth--man, the phoenix, the turtledove, angels, devils, etc.) 4)that which neither creates nor is created (god as final End to which all things return).
Each species has a unique nature (essence) understood in two ways: 1)by its generation in effects (behavior and appearance), and 2) through its creation in intellectual causes (ideas). Accordingly one and the same thing is called "double" because of the double observation of it.
Ultimately the ideas by which man knows the world must be considered the world's true nature (essence). Ideas are more real than their physical representation because ideas can exist without physical substance and ideas (the Logos) originally created the world.
All ideas (essences) originally came from (and still reside in) the mind of God, Who by such ideas (the Logos) created and maintains the world for unknowable reasons. (Erigena was writing a thousand years before Wallace discovered evolution.)
So they loved as love in twaine
Had the essence but in one
Two distincts Division none,
Number there in love was slaine.
Division is the process (or result) of distinguishing between the species (phoenix, turtledove) within a genus (birds). This is done by observing the generation of effects (behavior and appearance) caused by each species differing essence. The lines say:
So they loved as if love in two separate species
Had the essence of just one species
Two distincts (in appearance two different species) Division (now judging by their amorous behavior)none
Number (proper natural order) there by love was slain
The conceit of the stanza is that a Phoenix and a Turtledove share love. That old poetic chestnut, two lovers sharing one soul, is invoked but birds lack souls---but are defined by their essences. Essences being ideas are indestructible. It is important to note that the Phoenix and the Turtle love "as if" they had a single essence. In reality they still maintain two separate essences.
What is an essence? The Logos are ideas from the mind of God that can create one thing (a phoenix) or a million of one thing (turtledoves) as God wills. A million turtledoves share an essence because their species was created by God with one idea. A turtledove and a phoenix do not share an essence because their two species were created by two different ideas.
Hearts remote, yet not asunder;
Distance and no space was seeene,
Twixt this Turtle and his Queene,
But in them it were a wonder.
Having the hearts of two different types of creatures yet sharing love
Distance (unsimilarity) yet they are together physically
The last line should be read as---in any others but them this behavior would be a wonder. The Phoenix was a unique creature that inspired awe and reverance and the turtledove's unique capacities were love and loyalty. Their different but meshing qualities made then perfect for one another.
So Between them Love did shine,
That the Turtle saw his right,
Flaming in the Phoenix sight;
Either was the others mine.
The Phoenix periodically builds a nest of rare woods, sits in it, and burst into flames. Out of the ashes a new Phoenix arises. Here the Phoenix builds her nest and bursts into flames. The turtledove feels compelled, out of love and loyalty, to fly into her flames and die with her. They then burn up into one common pile of ash. (No new Phoenix arises).
Sight=cite, a summons, to call, arouse or excite
Mine=mien, appearance. The Phoenix and the turtledove burn up to become ashes. They are now identical in appearance. (See Shakespeare's sonnet 113 for the same spelling and usage of mine=mien.)
Propertie was thus appalled,
That the selfe was not the same,
Single natures double name,
Neither two nor one was called.
Propertie here means "the proper use of or sense of words". It appears personified, appalled at what it sees, dumfounded, lacking words to describe the new condition of the Phoenix and the turtle. What Propertie sees is two different essences generating the exact same effects (the Phoenix and the turtledove are now one pile of identical ash.) This situation is not accounted for in Erigena's careful philosophical definitions.
The Phoenix and the turtle each possess a single nature (a different essence). Their single natures were called "double" because they could be understood by two means-- 1) observation of their different physical appearances and behavior and-- 2) by intellectual inquiry, by understanding their differing creations by God through the Logos. Before the fire they were two separate creatures of different appearances and after the fire THOUGH THEY NOW HAVE EXACTLY THE SAME APPEARANCE they still must have two separate essences. (Essences which are ideas cannot be destroyed by fire.) The ash has two separate essences in it. Neither before the fire when they were two separate creatures or after the fire when they became one pile of ash, do the Phoenix and the Turtle share a single essence.
Reason in it selfe confounded
Saw Division grow together,
To themselves yet either neither,
Simple were so well compounded.
All the logic of Erigena is refuted. Division (exampled by the different appearances of the phoenix and the turtle) begins to disappear as they burn up. Neither one becomes like the other nor does either one remain like itself. They both slowly convert to something new--ashes. They remain "simples" (each retaining its essence) but now are compounded (mixed together) as ash.
"Simples" were indivisible elements like iron or gold. Compounds were mixtures of two or more Simples.
That it cried, how true a twaine,
Seemeth this concordant one,
Love hath Reason, Reason none,
If what parts can so remaine.
Reason now admits that this ash containing two essences cannot be explained by logic but can only be explained by Love (Love exists as a creation of God (an idea of God's) therefore this is the equivalent of saying that only God can explain this.) The Phoenix and the turtle are a true twaine (pair) of disparate lovers reduced to one homogeneous pile of ash.
"If what parts can so remaine" is very humorous. It literally means--If what parts (shares, to part with someone was to share with them) can after death long reside as one pile of ash. ("Remaines" are what the body is called after death)
Where upon it made this Threne,
To the Phoenix and the Dove,
Co-supremes and starres of Love,
As Chorus to their tragique scene.
Threnos.
Beautie, Truth and Raritie,
Grace in all simplicitie,
Here enclosde, in cinders lie.
Death is now the Phoenix nest,
And the Turtles loyall brest,
To eternitie doth rest.
Leaving no postertie,
Twas not their infirmitie,
It was married Chastitie.
Here Shakespeare explains why no new Phoenix arose from the ashes. In an age of arranged marriages "married Chasitie" was sure to bring a smile to his readers.
Truth may seeme, but cannot be,
Beautie bragge, but tis not she,
Truth and Beautie buried be.
To this urne let those repaire,
That are either true or faire,
For these dead birds sigh a prayer.
William Shake-speare
This poem was well understood in its time. John Donne mentions it in his poem, "The Canonization".
<FONT ><FONT >
The phoenix riddle hath more wit
By us, we two being one, are it
so, to one neutral thing both sexes fit.
We die and rise the same and prove
Mysterious by this love</FONT s></FONT f></pre>
ewrgall
[This message has been edited by ewrgall (edited February 10, 2002).]
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