‘The Phœnix and the Turtle.’
In 1601 Shakespeare’s full name was appended to ‘a poetical essaie on the Phœnix and the Turtle,’ which was published by Edward Blount in an appendix to Robert Chester’s ‘Love’s Martyr, or Rosalins complaint, allegorically shadowing the Truth of Love in the Constant Fate of the Phœnix and Turtle.’ The drift of Chester’s crabbed verse is not clear, nor can the praise of perspicuity be allowed to the appendix to which Shakespeare contributed, together with Marston, Chapman, Ben Jonson, and ‘Ignoto.’ The appendix is introduced by a new title-page running thus: ‘Hereafter follow diverse poeticall Essaies on the former subject, viz: the Turtle and Phœnix. Done by the best and chiefest of our modern writers, with their names subscribed to their particular workes: never before extant.’ Shakespeare’s alleged contribution consists of thirteen four-lined stanzas in trochaics, each line being of seven syllables, with the rhymes disposed as in Tennyson’s ‘In Memoriam.’ The concluding ‘threnos’ is in five three-lined stanzas, also in trochaics, each stanza having a single rhyme. The poet describes in enigmatic language the obsequies of the Phœnix and the Turtle-dove, who had been united in life by the ties of a purely spiritual love. The poem may be a mere play of fancy without recondite intention, or it
may be of allegorical import; but whether it bear relation to pending ecclesiastical, political, or metaphysical controversy, or whether it interpret popular grief for the death of some leaders of contemporary society, is not easily determined. [184] Happily Shakespeare wrote nothing else of like character.