1601

THE PHOENIX AND THE TURTLE

by William Shakespeare

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, feath'red 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. - -