Are closed at once in one perpetual night.
These Juno takes, that they no more shall fail,
And spreads them on her peacock’s gaudy tail.[[69]]
But the Christians, in their revolt against everything Pagan, regarded this bird, which like so many other facts and fancies of the ancient régime they could not destroy, from a new and different angle. They observed that although it lost (by molting) its splendid raiment yet as often it was re-acquired—manifestly a similitude of the resurrection of the devoted soul into renewed glories after death. The fact was true, of course of all birds, but it was most noticeable in this gaudy stranger from the land of sunrise; and, in addition, a belief was borrowed from the phenix that its flesh was incorruptible. Thus the peacock became in early Christian art a symbol of immortality.
In the general mental lethargy that marked the Middle Ages this elevated idealism was degraded; yet that somewhat of the bird’s traditional sacredness remained is shown by the fact that among the customs of chivalry, knights and squires took oath on the king’s peacock, which, stuffed and brought ceremoniously to the table, was a feature in various solemnities. Critics trace to this the Shakespearian oath “By cock and pye!”—to my mind a dubious gloss. “It is said of Pythagoras,” De Gubernatis[[54]] notes, “that he believed himself to have once been a peacock, that the peacock’s soul entered into Euphorbus, a Homeric Trojan hero, that of Euphorbus into Homer, and that of Homer into him.” Those who are familiar with classic literature may be able to continue the history of this literary metempsychosis down to the present. Hehn and Stallybrass elaborate their history of the peacock in custom and myth in exhaustive detail in their Wanderings of Plants and Animals.
A quaint relic of ancient ideas survives in the prevalent notion that the beautiful tail-plumes of the peacock are unlucky or worse, for it is widely feared that illness and death speedily follow putting them into a house, especially as affecting the health of youngsters. It occurred to me that this superstition, as foolish as it is baleful, was probably connected with the far-reaching dread of the Evil Eye, having in mind the gleaming ocellæ that decorate these splendid feathers, but Elworthy’s exhaustive treatise[[66]] on that dreaded visitation (especially feared among Italians) alludes to the matter only casually, and expresses the opinion that the alleged ill-luck is a relic of the ancient cult of Juno—a lingering fear that in some way her anger may be excited by the plucking of the feathers of her favorite bird; while the idea that so long as these plumes are kept in the house no suitors will come for the daughters points to the old attribute of spite or jealousy in love or matrimonial matters with which Juno was always accredited in Pagan times.
It occurs to me, also, that the fact that the revered peacock throws away (moulds) its quills every year suggests to a superstitious imagination that they may be distasteful to the bird, and hence something to be avoided by careful devotees. Nevertheless, on Easter Day in Rome, when the pope is borne in magnificent state into St. Peter’s, he waves over the heads of the reverent worshippers assembled there a fan (flabellum) of ostrich feathers on which have been sewn the eye-spots from peacock plumes, the latter, we are told, signifying the all-seeing vigilance of the Church—against foolishness as well as downright evil, let us hope!
No bird is more often employed symbolically in Christian art than the pelican, which, like the peacock became a representative of salvation through the self-sacrifice of Christ. How this developed from the supposed habit of resuscitating her nestlings by feeding them blood from her bosom, after they had been murdered by the father, is explained in another chapter. It is said that the story originated in Egypt, with reference to a vulture. St. Jerome, however, first gave it a theological application, teaching that similarly those dead in sin were made alive again by the blood of the Christ. The form—still familiar in heraldry—is that of a bird sitting by its nest with its beak depressed and tearing at its breast, representing “the pelican in its piety,” the last word here having its original meaning of parental care. It also became a pictured symbol of the Christ and of the Passion, “and more particularly of the Eucharist, wherein Christians are nourished by Christ himself.” Thomas Aquinas (13th century) is the author of a well-known verse of this import:
Pelican of Piety, Jesus, Lord and God,
Cleanse thou me, unclean, in thy most precious blood,