The Phoenix and the Turtle
Synopsis
One of Shakespeare's strangest and most abstract poems, 'The Phoenix and the Turtle' is a 67-line funeral elegy for two ideal lovers: the Phoenix, the unique self-renewing bird that stands for matchless beauty, and the Turtledove (the 'turtle'), the emblem of perfect faithfulness. It falls into three movements. First a herald summons the right mourners and bars the wrong birds. Then an anthem celebrates a love so complete that the two lovers became one without ceasing to be two — a union that defeats arithmetic ('Number there in love was slain') and confounds Reason itself. Finally Reason, overwhelmed, sings a 'Threnos' (a formal lament) over their ashes, declaring that with them Beauty, Truth, and Rarity are all buried. The poem first appeared, untitled, in Robert Chester's 1601 collection 'Love's Martyr.'
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The Phoenix and the Turtle
A funeral assembly for the Phoenix and the Turtledove: the mourners are summoned and sorted, an anthem celebrates the lovers' paradoxical two-in-one union, and Reason sings a closing lament over their ashes.
- Scene 1
The bird of 'loudest lay' is called to herald the rite, and the company of mourners is sorted: tyrant birds and the ill-omened 'shrieking harbinger' are barred, while the eagle, the 'death-defying swan,' and the long-lived crow are admitted. The anthem then mourns the Phoenix and Turtledove, who 'loved as love in twain / Had the essence but in one' — two distinct beings with a single essence, so perfectly joined that distance, number, and even Reason cannot account for them. Reason, 'in itself confounded,' yields and composes the closing Threnos, which lays Beauty, Truth, and Rarity in the lovers' urn and calls the truly faithful to sigh a prayer.
- Scene 1
Characters
- The Phoenix major
The unique, self-renewing Arabian bird, emblem of matchless beauty and rarity. In the poem the Phoenix is the female of the two ideal lovers; she dies with the Turtledove in a 'mutual flame.' Not a speaker — the poem is spoken by an unnamed narrator and, in the close, by Reason.
- The Turtledove major
The 'turtle' (turtledove), traditional emblem of constant, lifelong married love. The male of the two lovers; his perfect fidelity complements the Phoenix's beauty. Not a speaker.
- Reason minor
Personified Reason, who watches the lovers' union defeat logic ('Number there in love was slain'), is 'in itself confounded,' and composes the closing Threnos. Not a dramatic speaker but the voice of the final lament.