The Phoenix and the Turtle
Roger Peters Copyright © 2005
Nature template (Sonnet numbers)
The evidence for a consistent and comprehensive philosophy based on
natural logic in the Sonnets, free of traditional philosophical dogma, suggests
Shakespeare arrived at his understanding after profound reflection on his
experiences. It seems that in the period before he began writing his plays
he formulated a view of the world contrary to the received view. He
constructed instead a comprehensive understanding built on what he refers
to in Love’s Labour’s Lost as ‘common sense’. Because the Sonnet philosophy
is based on natural logic and provides a critique of previous philosophy, it
has to be imagined that Shakespeare’s exceptional intellect allowed him to
supercede the traditional dogmas employed against natural logic.
To demonstrate the gradual development of Shakespeare’s appreciation
of natural logic, this volume has considered the role of the two long poems
Venus and Adonis and Lucrece as early essays specifically intended to express
his understanding. Then, because Love’s Labour’s Lost was a play of his own
invention, its role in further articulating the philosophy was considered. In
each case, the elements basic to the Sonnet philosophy have been found to
be the principal structural features of the works. And in each case the work
exhibits a progressive exploration of the Sonnet elements.
Venus and Adonis argued that sexual division in nature is logically
dependant on increase and the priority of the female over the male. It
considered the illogicality of idealistic expectations contrary to natural logic.
Lucrece examined the male dynamic in terms of idealistic pride and possessiveness,
and the consequences for the female when the logical role of
increase is subverted by the female’s ignorant servitude and the male’s selfish
pleasure. The extensive monologues and dialogues by male and female that
address the consciousness of guilt and violation bring into greater focus the
logic of truth and beauty.
In Love’s Labour’s Lost the primacy of nature, the priority of the female
over the male, the logical requirement to increase, the dynamic of truth and
beauty and the logic of the eyes for the process of understanding are all
considered. The status of the Poet, the illogicality of idealised conceits, and
the need for the male to undergo a period of reassessment and adjustment
to become mature enough to entertain the female, are further considerations
that later find their definitive formulation in the Sonnets. The barely
cryptic critique of biblical and Christian dogma also has its counterpart in
the imagery of some of the sonnets.
In the introduction to this volume it was suggested that, after Love’s
Labour’s Lost, Shakespeare decided to use the format of a set of sonnets specifically
to present his philosophy. While every play written after Love’s Labour’s
Lost is based on the Sonnet philosophy, no play again attempts to emulate
the experiment of Love’s Labour’s Lost. The only other work prior to the
publication of the Sonnets that articulates the Sonnet logic and aspects of its
structure is The Phoenix and the Turtle. Published in 1601, it provides a
measure of the progress toward the definitive achievement of the Sonnets.
As marriage is understood by Shakespeare to be a conventional rite that
of itself cannot guarantee the logic of increase, it is significant that The
Phoenix and the Turtle was written as a contribution to a volume published
to celebrate a wedding. It is not surprising that the content of Shakespeare’s
poem advises the loving couple that idealised love is void if it does not
acknowledge the logic of increase and posterity.
This commentary will consider the presence in the poem of other
elements from the Sonnets such as nature, truth and beauty, and numerological
relationships. And, as in the plays and Sonnets, it will consider the
logical challenge to such traditional practices as ‘chastity’ and ‘prayer’.
Analysis of The Phoenix and the Turtle
The first five stanzas of The Phoenix and the Turtle introduce the birds who
attend the funeral for the two idealistically deluded love-birds, the Phoenix
and the Turtle-dove. The first bird mentioned is the ‘bird of loudest lay’.
To understand the role of the ‘bird of loudest lay’ it is only necessary
to recall the logic of the Sonnet philosophy presented in Volume 1. The
division of the sexes and the increase dynamic in nature form the logical
basis for the dynamic of understanding as truth and beauty in Shakespeare’s
philosophy. Consequently, the logical relationship between the sexual dynamic
of the body and the erotic dynamic of the mind provides the basis for
mythic expression.
It should not surprise, then, that the first line of The Phoenix and the Turtle
brings all these concerns together in a single word. The bird of loudest ‘lay’
is equally the bird of loudest lyrics or strongest argument, the bird of greatest
rejoicing when its lays its eggs, and the bird that most enjoys a good lay or
sexual encounter.
Let the bird of loudest lay,
On the sole Arabian tree,
Herald sad and trumpet be:
To whose sound chaste wings obey. (1-4)
The ‘bird of loudest lay’ takes its place on the ‘sole Arabian tree’ that was
inhabited by the Phoenix until its pointless death. The ‘bird of loudest lay’
gives ‘sad herald’ and final ‘trumpet’ to the two birds and any like them who
‘obey’ the ‘sound’ or call of ‘chaste wings’.
The first stanza establishes the logical relation between birds that ‘lay’
and those who are tricked into pointless chastity. Shakespeare begins his
wedding poem by stating the pivotal theme of the increase sonnets, the
priority of increase over selfish ‘niggarding’. ‘Chaste wings’ are opposed by
the ‘bird of loudest lay’ or the bird that embodies natural logic.
Birds of chaste wing, according to the Sonnet logic, are ‘fiends’ that are
‘augurs’ of the world’s end because they breach the logic of increase. The
‘shrieking harbinger’ or ‘foul precursor’ is the bird or entity that harbours
and sanctions the regime of ‘chastity’. Shakespeare’s consistent critique of
Judeo/Christian dogma as contrary to natural logic identifies the precursor
as ‘God’ or his agents in the church. God, at least, is the precursor of the
Devil or fiend.
But thou shrieking harbinger,
Foul precursor of the fiend,
Augur of the fever’s end,
To this troop come thou not near. (5-8)
Whoever they are, the harbingers are forbidden by ‘interdict’ or decree
to come near ‘this troop’ or those gathering to celebrate the passing of
illogical chastity. Only one representative of such ‘tyrants’ is allowed near.
The Eagle, as the highest-flying bird who is the King of such tyrants, is
permitted under the strict conditions of the obsequy or funeral rite.
From this Session interdict
Every foul of tyrant wing,
Save the Eagle feathered King,
Keep the obsequy so strict. (9-12)
If the ‘Eagle’ represents the Church of God, (and specifically the Church
of Rome as the Eagle was the emblem of ancient Rome), the Church is
specifically represented by the ‘priest in Surplice white’. The ‘defunctive’
or now extinct ‘music’ of the Church is represented by the priest in the form
of the swan noted for its capacity to sense the immanence of death. The
Requiem would be lacking ‘strictness’ if God, in the form of his priest, were
not present to witness the last rites for their illogical practices.
Let the Priest in Surplice white,
That defunctive Music can,
Be the death-divining Swan,
Lest the Requiem lack his right. (13-16)
To complement the ‘bird of loudest lay’, in the company of the representatives
of ‘foul’ chastity, the logical potential for increase is symbolised
by the ‘treble-dated crow’ or bird of longevity who legendarily engenders
its young with its ‘breath’. Shakespeare uses a bird that exhibits the quality
of understanding argued for in the poem and in his other works. He does
not argue against chastity as a personal choice or for increase as a universal
requirement. Rather his attack is against dogma that prioritises chastity over
increase. The crow’s breath represents the need for consistent understanding
of the natural logic. The crow is welcome amongst the ‘mourners’.
And thou treble dated Crow,
That thy sable gender mak’st,
With the breath thou giv’st and tak’st,
’Mongst our mourners shall thou go. (17-20)
With the introductions over, the Poet begins the ‘anthem’ or the funerary
oration. If the ‘obsequy’ of the first five stanzas has been interpreted correctly,
the anthem should read as a dirge on excessive idealistic expectations.
The Anthem begins with the stark statement that ‘love and constancy’ are
dead. They are dead firstly, because the idealistic expectations of the Phoenix
and the Turtle have died with them. They are dead in a more significant sense
because by dying to themselves the Phoenix and the Turtle have killed the
possibility of true ‘love and constancy’ through ‘posterity’ or increase. They
have ‘fled’ like thieves in a ‘mutual flame’ from the logic of the world.
Here the Anthem doth commence,
Love and Constancy is dead,
Phoenix and the Turtle fled,
In a mutual flame from hence. (21-24)
The Phoenix and the Turtle are (or were) two birds that were ‘one’ only
in ‘essence’ or ideally. But they remained ‘two distincts’ because they never
considered the potential of ‘division’ or the production of a child. The possibility
of ‘number’or the progression from one to two to three has been ‘slain’
because the possibility of continuing to count is lost if logically there is no
posterity through increase. Sonnet 14 states that increase is prior to truth
and beauty or understanding. The logic of ‘love’ is ‘slain’ by the birds
niggardly self-conceit.
So they loved as love in twain,
Had the essence but in one,
Two distincts, Division none,
Number there in love was slain. (25-28)
Because the love of the Phoenix and the Turtle is contrary to natural
logic, their ‘hearts’ are ‘remote’ even though they stood physically close with
no ‘distance or space’ between them. Their delusion is that they thought
their relationship was ‘a wonder’.
Hearts remote, yet not asunder;
Distance and no space was seen,
Twixt the Turtle and his Queen;
But in them it were a wonder. (29-32)
‘Love’ shone between them so that the Turtle ‘saw his right’ or justification
‘flaming in the Phoenix’ sight’ or eyes. Compared with the ‘eyes’ in
the Sonnets, or Berowne’s references to ‘eyes’ in Love’s Labour’s Lost, in
which the mind and heart of the others are seen, the eyes of the Phoenix
merely reflect back the image of the Turtle, just as the idealistic King in
Love’s Labour’s Lost wanted the Princess to see herself reflected in his tears.
The selfishness is summarised by the birds’ inability to see each other as
logically separate female and male individuals so that, ‘either was the
other’s mine’.
So between them Love did shine,
That the Turtle saw his right
Flaming in the Phoenix’ sight;
Either was the other’s mine. (33-36)
‘Property’, or the type of possessive ownership (exemplified by Collatine
and Tarquin and investigated so intensely in Lucrece) was ‘appalled’ that the
‘self was not the same’ or that male and female were patently distinct. The
logical status of Nature (with a capital N in the original), in which ‘one’ is
simultaneously ‘two’, is captured in the numerology of the Sonnets where
nature is assigned both the numbers 1 and 2. But the state of nature was
never ‘called two or one’. The two birds, being one female and one male,
could not presume to emulate the unity of nature without also accepting
their uniqueness and the logical requirement to achieve nature’s unity
through sexual increase.
Property was thus appalled,
That the self was not the same:
Single Nature’s double name
Neither two nor one was called. (37-40)
‘Reason’, or the thinking process called ‘truth’ or the dynamic of ‘saying’
in the Sonnets, is ‘in itself confounded’. The Sonnets make the logical
distinction between ‘beauty’ or sensations as singular effects, and ‘truth’ as
the logical relation in language between ‘true and false’. The sexual dynamic
in nature is the logical basis of the beauty and truth dynamic. So, when
‘reason’ sees two birds, one female the other male, each believing they are
‘one’, when logically they are two, the potential for ‘division’ or increase is
‘confounded’ in the ‘simple’ idealistic belief of unity without increase.
Reason in it self confounded,
Saw Division grow together,
To themselves yet either neither,
Simple were so well compounded. (41-44)
Reason, in disbelief, ‘cried’ that what ‘seemeth’ concordant is ‘truly
twain’ or two. In the Sonnets, ‘Love’ is the precondition for reason. In
the increase sonnets, sonnet 9 locates the logical condition for love in the
increase dynamic, before ‘truth’ in introduced in sonnet 14. Truth with
beauty is then the logical focus of the remaining sonnets. Reason does
not exist without ‘love’ or the logic of increase. So ‘Reason’ does not have
‘love’ (‘none’) because truth cannot exist alone. Reason cannot be reconciled
to love if ‘what parts’, whether female and male, or true and false,
‘remain’ apart.
That it cried, how true a twain,
Seemeth this concordant one,
Love hath Reason, Reason none,
If what parts, can so remain. (45-48)
Anticipating the third part of the poem, ‘Reason’ states the logical implications
of the birds’ expectations. Reason ‘whereupon’ makes a ‘Threne’ to
the illogicality of the two birds. They had attempted to be simultaneously
‘Co-supremes’, or selfishly themselves, and ‘stars of love’ or united in a
heavenly based delusion of unity. Reason, itself aware of its basis in natural
logic, provides the ‘Chorus’ to the ‘Tragic Scene’. The Tragedy, as in all
Shakespeare’s tragedies, is the consequence of the abrogation of the natural
logic articulated precisely in the Sonnets.
Whereupon it made this Threne,
To the Phoenix and the Dove,
Co-supremes and stars of love,
As Chorus to their Tragic Scene. (49-52)
Threnos
Reason takes charge in the ‘Threnos’ because it is through words that the
Poet conveys his ideas. (The logical function of poetry and argument or
beauty and truth was examined in Volume 1 where sonnets 15 to 19 particularly
present the role of the mythic Poet.)
‘Beauty’ and ‘Truth’ are mentioned first. Because, in 1601, Shakespeare
had already begun to formulate the definitive version of his philosophy, it
is not surprising that he identifies ‘Beauty and Truth’ as the logical components
about which the two idealistic birds are so deceived. The third
component, ‘Rarity’, criticises their preoccupation with individuality for its
own sake rather than seeing individuality as a component of the logic of
the sexual dynamic or increase.
So in the first line of the Threnos, Shakespeare identifies the logical components
of understanding that were echoed later in the line ‘here lives
wisdom, beauty, and increase’ from sonnet 11. The second line identifies the
basis of the problem for the two birds. Their delusion is due to ‘Grace’ or the
belief in a simplistic rational unity of opposites, typical of the biblical faith.
The consequence for the birds, who have immolated themselves in the belief
of a higher unity, is that they are reduced ignominiously to ‘cinders’.
Beauty,Truth, and Rarity,
Grace in all simplicity,
Here enclosed, in cinders lie. (53-55)
The ‘Phoenix’ nest’, instead of containing an egg that would herald new
life, has nothing but the emptiness of death. And, ironically, the ‘Turtle’s
loyal breast’ rests in unrelieved ‘eternity’.
Death is now the Phoenix nest,
And the Turtle’s loyal breast,
To eternity doth rest. (56-58)
The Sonnet logic does not state that every sexual being should increase.
It says rather, for reason to be consistent, every sexual being should
acknowledge the priority of increase over truth and beauty or the faculty
of understanding. So ‘leaving no posterity ’twas not (the birds’) infirmity’.
Instead ‘it was married Chastity’ or the belief that they could be united
in marriage but deny the sexual dynamic by maintaining ‘Chastity’.
Shakespeare’s target is not the logicalities of existence but the illogicalities
of a faith that misrepresents the logic of existence.
Leaving no posterity,
’Twas not their infirmity,
It was married Chastity. (59-61)
For a believer, the word ‘Truth’ is ascribed to a transcendent God. Such
an idealised entity can be called ‘truth’, but it will only ‘seem’ to be so.
Similarly, the birds can ‘brag’ that a transcendent being epitomises ‘Beauty’,
but despite their fervent hope, ‘it is not she’. When the Phoenix and the
Turtle committed fruitless suicide they ‘buried’ their ‘Truth and Beauty’with
themselves.
Truth may seem, but cannot be,
Beauty brag, but ’tis not she;
Truth and Beauty buried be. (62-64)
So the Poet, using his faculty of ‘Reason’, advises all those who are ‘true
or fair’ or who have a grasp of natural logic, to ‘repair’ to the ‘urn’ containing
the birds’ cinders, and for these poor birds, who are now so ‘dead’, ‘sigh’ an
ironical ‘prayer’.
To this urn let those repair,
That are either true or fair,
For these dead Birds, sigh a prayer. (65-68)
The idea that those who are ‘true or fair’ should ‘sigh a prayer’ conveys
the exasperation Shakespeare must have felt toward the illogicality of
religious behaviour.
The inability of modern editors to comprehend the content of the poem
suggests attitudes have still not caught up with Shakespeare’s breakthrough
beyond the psychological entrapment of faith. Editors alter the punctuation
of the original to lessen the effect of Shakespeare’s critique of excessive
idealism, and to foster the prejudice that the poem is a Platonic allegory. Such
interference is opposed to the evident content, with its basis in natural logic.
Two significant changes still appear in most modern editions. Some alter
the punctuation after ‘posterity’ indicating a discomfort with its intended
meaning and nearly all remove the comma in the last line after ‘Birds’, again
in an attempt to blunt the intended irony. And the removal of capitals from
the original lessens the impact of words such as Nature, Truth and Beauty,
Division that are basic to Shakespeare’s philosophy.
The relation of The Phoenix and the Turtle to the Sonnet template
The Phoenix and the Turtle was published eight years after Venus and
Adonis/Lucrece, and eight years before the publication of the Sonnets and A
Lover’s Complaint. By 1601 Shakespeare had written about half his 38 plays
and was still to write the major tragedies. So The Phoenix and the Turtle
provides an opportunity to assess the half-way point between the philosophy
presented in the two long poems and the philosophy of the Sonnets. Its 67
lines act like a prism, focusing the light from the early work in preparation
for the more complex prismatic structure of the Sonnets.
While The Phoenix and the Turtle has been generally admired for its
intensity and suggestiveness, it has also been called incomprehensible, deliberately
enigmatic, or at best an obscure Platonic allegory with irrecoverable
content. This commentary demonstrates there is no mystery when the poem
is read from the vantage of the Sonnet philosophy. Rather the poem is a deliberate
statement by Shakespeare of the basic logic of life and its implications
for traditional understanding and beliefs.
The poem resembles the earlier long poems where Shakespeare bases his
logic in readily identifiable figures from literature. He expressed his ideas
first in the mythology of Venus and Adonis, then in the historical legend
of Tarquin and Lucrece, and now in the mythical tale of two legendary birds,
the Phoenix and the Turtledove. The significant change is from the
discursive style of the long poems, with their narrative structure and visual
settings, to an intensely cryptic perfunctory funeral rite for the two
irredeemably dead birds.
The poem signals not just the death of overwrought idealistic expectations
but an intensification of the poetic language to better convey the logic
loaded into every word in the vocabulary and the meaning available in every
line of grammar. The demise of the legendary Phoenix and Turtle prepares
the way for the Sonnets with its purely logical characterisations of Nature,
the Poet, the Mistress, the Master Mistress, the Rose, the Muse, and the rival
poets.
In The Phoenix and the Turtle, the illogicalities of traditional belief are
sharply contrasted with Shakespeare’s natural logic. Shakespeare not only
addresses the inconsistencies in traditional beliefs, he institutes in their place
a logical attitude to life that avoids the inconsistencies. By the time he wrote
the Sonnets, the critique of inconsistent beliefs, addressed persistently
throughout the funeral rite of the short poem, is only peripheral to its precise
philosophy. In the Sonnets, natural logic is given its definitive expression. The
whole set is structured according to the dynamic of human nature and its
logical relation to nature.
Nature template (Sonnet numbers)
When the themes of The Phoenix and the Turtle are compared with the
principal elements of the Sonnet logic in the template, there is a direct correspondence.
Nature occurs near the centre of the poem, after the introduction
of the birds and the consideration of the implications of their
attempted unification, who do not respect ‘division’ or increase. Nature is
the only logical entity capable of consistently appearing double while being
single. Only by imitating nature and increasing could the birds achieve the
desired unity in ‘twain’. As in the increase sonnets, ‘Love’ has ‘reason’ only
when the birds conform to natural logic.
Increase, and the potential for love, provides the logical basis for the
‘anthem’ in nature. Then it occurs as ‘posterity’ in the Threnos, where the
birds are not so much accused of not leaving ‘posterity’ but of indulging in
‘married chastity’ which denies the logic of increase. The oath of marriage
is an ‘infirmity’ when it is used to counter natural logic.
The first line of the poem, where the ‘bird of loudest lay’ replaces the
deluded Phoenix, anticipates the logical role of the Poet of the Sonnets. The
‘bird of loudest lay’ acknowledges the logical relationship between a song
or poem as an erotic event, the act of sex as a good lay, and the potential
for offspring through laying an egg. The Poet understands the priority of
increase in nature, the priority of the female over the male, and the priority
of increase over truth and beauty to enable the expression of the erotic logic
of myth.
In the anthem ‘reason’, or the dynamic of truth from the Sonnets, is void
if natural logic is denied. Love is not possible, and the logical understanding
of nature is sundered if reason is confounded. Because of their faulty logic
the two birds are not able to achieve the desired ‘beauty’, or the sensation
of unity. Instead they die of stupidity. In the Threnos, ‘Beauty’ and ‘Truth’
are mentioned throughout because the possible record of the birds’ idealistic
wish cannot even be written down as a poem if the death of the birds
undivided leaves no posterity. The two birds have ignored the lesson articulated
precisely in sonnet 14. Their fate is logically the fate of all who believe
in idealistically conceived fantasies.
In The Phoenix and the Turtle, unity and diversity are logically consistent
with nature. Shakespeare’s insistence on the significance of increase, his
consciousness of the role of the Poet, and his consistent appreciation of the
relation of reason and truth and beauty, combined with a devastating critique
of over-wrought idealistic expectations, simplifies and clarifies the elements
of the early poems and prepares for the definitive expression of the Sonnets.
As these commentaries continue, they will accumulate evidence in
support of the arguments presented in Volumes 1 and 2, and demonstrate
the ability of the Sonnet philosophy to explain works previously inscrutable
to traditional explanation.
Back to Top
Roger Peters Copyright © 2005
Introduction
Venus and Adonis
Rape of Lucrece
The Phoenix and the Turtle
A Lover's Complaint
Love's Labour's Lost
Measure for Measure
Macbeth
Twelfth Night
Henry VIII
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