The Phoenix and the Turtle (poem) – “Truth may seem, but cannot be: Beauty brag, but 'tis not she; Truth and beauty buried be.”

The Phoenix and the Turtle (poem) – “Truth may seem, but cannot be: Beauty brag, but 'tis not she;
 Truth and beauty buried be.”

Things must have going pretty well for Shakespeare in 1600, even if it was a pretty slim year for his writing. The Globe seemed to be becoming very lucrative and revivals of many of Shakespeare’s plays in the 1600 season seemed to keep the crowds coming from June through until September (even despite heavy snowfalls outside London even as late as April). He even had a 1600 production of his ‘Julius Caesar’ mentioned in the diary of the Swiss ‘tourist’ Thomas Platter when Platter wrote that he saw "… in the straw-thatched house the tragedy of the first emperor, Julius Caesar, quite excellently acted by about fifteen persons.”

Shakespeare was even able to sell a few copies of his plays with the publication of ‘The Merchant of Venice’ and ‘A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream’. He and the Chamberlain’s Men were able to clamp down a bit on stealing and copying of popular plays like ‘As You Like It’ which they registered with the Stationer’s Company to prevent unauthorized copying of this play.

As the calm of 1600 came to a close, the turbulence of 1601 came to the fore. The year started in January/February with a rebellion started by the Earl of Essex. After having being deprived of public office at the end of 1600, in January, Essex started to gather an army of his followers and began to fortify his house on the Strand. On February 4^th, some of Essex’ followers including Charles and Joscelyn Percy, approached members of the  Chamberlain’s men to commission a special performance of Shakespeare’s ‘Richard II’ (a play which involves the usurping of a king) at the Globe Theatre and offered the handsome sum of forty shillings for the performance (at least ten shillings above the going rate). The players consented and to a small audience on the early afternoon of February 8^th, they performed ‘Richard II’. In the late afternoon, Essex moved with a band of others nobles and gentlemen into the confines of the City of London to force an audience with Queen Elizabeth I. Essex was driven back and retreated to Essex House and surrendered after the Queen’s Guard stormed Essex House. Essex and his followers were tried and executed before the start of March 1601. One interpretation of the poem is that it is about the death of the relationship between Essex and Queen Elizabeth I.

‘The Phoenix and the Turtle’ is Shakespeare’s only truly metaphysical poem, an allegorical poem which explores the death of truth and beauty of symbolized by the Turtledove and the Phoenix. The poem was first published in a collection of poems supplementing the title poem by Robert Chester published in 1601 called “Love’s Martyr’.

The poem could be seen as being about the death of truth and beauty as abstract concepts. Alternatively, the poem can be seen as a lament for the inevitable end of the Tudor monarchy and the choice of the mythical phoenix can be seen as a symbol for the Virgin Queen Elizabeth I. Some also suggest that the poem is also about the relationships of real people in Shakespeare’s time. Some contenders are: Elizabeth I and the Duke of Essex, Elizabeth I and John Salusbury; and John Salusbury and Ursula Salusbury. Whatever the basis or inspiration for this poem, it is truly a rich diversion for Shakespeare which stands on its own as perhaps the first metaphysical poem ever written.

The poem starts like a funeral or death march. The trumphet sounds in the second line. In the first five stanzas we encounter the other birds at the funeral who perform their solemn tunes and rites. This could be considered a comment or a parody of those at court “the bird of loudest lay”. The eagle which appears in Line 11 could be the Catholic Church of Rome. The crow could represent constancy and understanding of the logic of the forces of nature. The death march moves on until the voice and song of Reason rises above the dirge. Truth (in the Elizabethan meaning it is linked to constancy) and Beauty are united in death. Some see the last part of the poem as showing Shakespeare’s exasperation with the religious and the faithful or neglected the birth of the Age of Reason.

‘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.

But 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

Every fowl of tyrant wing,

Save the eagle, feathered king:

Keep the obsequy so strict.

Let the priest in surplice white,

That defunctive music can,

Be 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,

'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.

So 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;

Distance, 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

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

Neither two nor one was called.

Reason, in itself confounded,

Saw division grow together,

To themselves yet either neither;

Simple were so well compounded;

That 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

To 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,

Here enclosed in cinders lie.

Death is now the phoenix' nest;

And the turtle's loyal breast

To eternity doth rest,

Leaving no posterity

'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.

To this urn let those repair

That are either true or fair;

For these dead birds sigh a prayer.