"You are a stranger", sang the bird very agreeably, "and you were born in a world where I was born too. That secret inclination which draws us to our compatriots is the instinct urging me to desire that you should know my life.
"I see that your mind is trying to understand how it is possible that I can express myself to you in coherent speech, seeing that although birds imitate your words they do not understand them; but when you in turn imitate the barking of a dog or the song of a nightingale you do not understand what the dog or the nightingale means. From that you may deduce that neither birds nor men are any the less reasonable on this account.
"However, just as among you there have been found men so enlightened that they understood and spoke our language, such as Apollonius Tianeus, Anaximander, Æsop[61] and several others, whose names I will not repeat, since you have never heard of them; so among us there are individuals who understand and speak your language. Some, indeed, only know the language of one nation; but just as there are some birds which say nothing, others which twitter, others which talk, so there are still more perfect birds able to use all sorts of idioms. For my part I have the honour to belong to that small number.
"For the rest, you must know that in every world Nature has imprinted in the birds the secret desire to fly here, and it may be that this emotion of our will is the reason for our growing wings, as pregnant women produce upon their children the shape of things they have desired; or rather, like those who, passionately desiring to swim, have been seen while they were asleep to plunge in the current of streams and to cross, with more skill than an experienced swimmer, perils which they would not even have dared to look upon when awake; or like that son of King Crœsus who, by a vehement desire to speak to save his father, suddenly learned a language; or briefly like that ancient, pursued by his enemy and surprised without arms, who felt the horns of a bull growing on his forehead through the desire inspired in him by a fury similar to that of this animal.
"When birds reach the Sun they rejoin the republic of their race. I see that you are impatient to learn who I am. Among you I am called the phœnix; in each world there is only one at a time which lives there during the space of a hundred years; for at the end of a century, when upon some mountain of Arabia it has brought forth a large egg in the midst of the embers of its pyre, whose composition it has culled from the boughs of aloes, from cinnamon and incense, it takes wing and directs its flight toward the Sun, as a country to which its heart has long aspired. Before this it has made every effort to accomplish this voyage, but the weight of its egg, whose shell is so thick it needs a century to hatch, always delayed the attempt.
"I am sure it will be difficult for you to understand this miraculous production, and therefore I will explain it to you. The phœnix is a hermaphrodite but, among hermaphrodites there is still another very extraordinary phœnix, for...."[62]
He remained a half-quarter of an hour without speaking and then added:
"I see that you suspect what I have just told you is false; but if I do not speak the truth may I never reach your globe without an eagle swooping down upon me."
For some time it still remained hovering in the sky and then flew away. The surprise caused me by its recital gave me the curiosity to follow it; and since it cleft the air of the heavens with a flight which was not rapid I accompanied it easily enough with my eyes and gait.
At the end of about fifty leagues I reached a land so filled with birds that their numbers almost equalled those of the leaves protecting them. I was still more surprised that these birds, instead of taking fright at meeting me flew all about me; one sang in my ear, another spread out its tail on my head, and at last, after my attention had been occupied a long time by their little gambols I suddenly felt my arms held down by more than a million of all kinds, weighing so heavily that I could not move them.