"Componit bustumque sibi, partumque futurum" (Claudian);
inasmuch as it is said to deposit a little worm, the colour of milk, in its nest, which becomes a funeral pyre,
"Fertur vermis lacteus esse color" (Lactantius).
Before dying, it invokes the sun:
"Hic sedet, et solem blando clangore salutat
Debilior, miscetque preces, et supplice cantu
Præstatura novas vires incendia poscit;
Quem procul abductis vidit cum Phœbus habenis,
Stat subito, dictisque pium solatur alumnum" (Claudian).
The sun extinguishes the conflagration, which consumes the phœnix, and out of which it has to arise once more. At last the phœnix is born again with the dawn—
"Atque ubi sol pepulit fulgentis lumina portæ,
Et primi emicuit luminis aura levis,
Incipit illa sacri modulamina fundere cantus,
Et mira lucem voce ciere novam" (Lactantius).
In my opinion, no more proofs are required to demonstrate the identity of the phœnix with the sun of morning and of evening, and, by extension, with that of autumn and of spring. That which was fabled concerning it in antiquity, and by reflection, in the Middle Ages, agrees perfectly with the twofold luminous phenomenon of the sun that dies and is born again every day and every year out of its ashes, and of the hero or heroine who traverses the flames of the burning pyre intact.
The nature of the phœnix is the same as that of the burning bird (szar-ptitza) of Russian fairy tales, which swallows the dwarf who goes to steal its eggs (the evening aurora swallows the sun).[325]
The solar bird of evening is a bird of prey; it draws to itself with its damp claw; it draws into the darkness of night; it has night behind it; its appearance is charming and its countenance alluring, but the rest of its body is as horrid as its nature.