Phœbus (Captain), the betrothed of Fleur de Marie. He also entertains a base love for Esmeralda, the beautiful gypsy girl.—Victor Hugo, Notre Dame de Paris (1831).
Phœnix (The), is said to live 500 (or 1,000) years, when it makes a nest of spices, burns itself to ashes, and comes forth with renewed life for another similar period. There never was but one phœnix.
The bird of Arabye ... Can never dye,
And yet there is none, But only one,
A phœnix ... Plinni showeth al In his Story Natural,
What he doth finde Of the phœnix kinde.
J. Skelton, Philip Sparow (time, Henry VIII.).
Phœnix Tree, the raisin, an Arabian tree. Floro says: “There never was but one, and upon it the phœnix sits.”—Dictionary (1598).
Pliny thinks the tree on which the phœnix was supposed to perch is the date tree (called in Greek phoinix), adding that “the bird died with the tree, and revived of itself as the tree revived.”—Nat. Hist., xiii. 4.
Now I will believe
That there are unicorns; that in Arabia
There is one tree, the phœnix’ throne; one phœnix
At this hour reigning there.
Shakespeare, The Tempest, act iii. sc. 3 (1609).
Phorcus, “the old man of the sea.” He had three daughters, with only one eye and one tooth between ’em.—Greek Mythology.
This is not “the old man of the sea” mentioned in the Arabian Nights (“Sindbad the Sailor”).
Phor´mio, a parasite, who is “all things to all men.”—Terence, Phormio.
Phosphor, the light-bringer or morning star; also called Hespĕrus, and by Homer and Hesiod Heôs-phŏros.