Shakespeare frequently employs the ideas associated with the mythical bird in his writings, and seems to have thoroughly mastered all that could be said on the subject. Some half-dozen passages may readily be quoted as illustrations of this. In “As you Like It,” for example, we find the line, “She could not love me, were man as rare as phœnix;” and the idea of its unique character is again brought out in “Cymbeline,” in the passage, “If she be furnished with a mind so rare, she is alone the Arabian bird.” The destruction of the bird on its own funeral pile and the resurrection of its successor therefrom is several times referred to. In 1 Henry VI. we read, “But from their ashes shall be reared a phœnix that shall make all France afeared;” and in 3 Henry VI., “My ashes, as the phœnix, may bring forth a bird that will revenge upon you all;” while as a final example we may quote the line in Henry VIII., “But as, when the bird of wonder dies, the maiden phœnix, her ashes new create another heir.”
Richardson ascribes an age of one thousand years to the phœnix, and adds a detail that many of the older writers seem to have missed; according to him the bird has fifty orifices in his bill, and when he has built his funeral pyre he treats the world to a melodious ditty through this novel wind instrument, flaps his wings with an energy that soon sets fire to the pile, and so perishes. There seems a hint of this vocal and instrumental performance in “Paradise and the Peri” where the poet Moore refers to
“The enchanted pile of that lonely bird,
Who sings at the last his own death lay,
And in music and perfume dies away.”
The Alchemists employed the phœnix as a symbol of their hopes and vocation, and in Paracelsus and other writers many curious details of its association with alchemy may be found.
In the annals of Tacitus we find references to what is termed the phœnix period. According to him the phœnix appeared on five occasions in Egypt—in the reign of Sesostris, B.C. 866; in the reign of Am-Asis B.C. 566; in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphos, B.C. 266; in the reign of Tiberius, A.D. 34; and in the reign of Constantine, A.D. 334. It will seem from this that the phœnix cycle consisted of periods of about 300 years (another variation from the estimates of Pliny and other writers quoted). The old monastic writers draw ingenious parallels between our Saviour and the phœnix, both sacrificing themselves when their career is over, and both rising again in glory from their temporary resting-place. The fourth of the dates given above is at once the alleged date of one of these appearances of the phœnix and also that of the great sacrifice on Calvary.
Though it seems a tremendous drop from the mythical phœnix of Arabia and its dissolution in fragrant spices to the old Dun Cow in Warwickshire, yet the latter proved herself, if legends may be credited, a foe fully worthy of the prowess of a right knightly arm, and as deserving of our notice as the dragon-slaying of that valiant brother star of chivalry St. George himself. Sir Guy of Warwick takes a high place amongst the famous ancient champions, and Dugdale and other good authorities hold that the stories connected with his name are not wholly apocryphal, though doubtless the monks and other early chroniclers drew the long bow at a venture sometimes. Dugdale, in his “Warwickshire,” A.D. 1730, writes—“Of his particular adventures, lest what I say should be suspected for fabulous, I will onely instance that combat betwixt him and the Danish champion, Colebrand, whom some (to magnifie our noble Guy the more) report to have been a giant. The storie whereof, however it may be thought fictitious by some, forasmuch as there be those that make a question whether there was ever really such a man, yet those that are more considerate will neither doubt the one nor the other, inasmuch as it hath been so usual with our ancient Historians, for the encouragement of after ages unto bold attempts, to set forth the exploits of worthy men with the highest encomiums possible; and therefore, should we be for that cause so conceited as to explode it, all history of those times might as well be vilified.[10] And having said thus much to encounter with the prejudicate fancies of some and the wayward opinions of others, I come to the story.” We do not ourselves propose to “come to the story,” though it is all duly set down in Dugdale; though if the fact of Guy’s Danish antagonist being a giant could be fully substantiated, he might perhaps claim a place in our pages. The date of the combat seems to have been the year 929. The exploits of Guy were long held in high favour not only in England but abroad; we find a French version dated 1525, and the British hero is referred to in a Spanish romance which was written almost a hundred years before this. Chaucer evidently knew the story well, for he tells us that
“Men speken of romances of price,
Of Horne Childe and Ippotis,
Of Bevis and Sir Guy;”
while Shakespeare, in “King Henry VIII.,” makes one of his characters say, “I am not Samson, nor Sir Guy, nor Colbrand, to mow them down before me.”
In Percie’s “Reliques of Antient Poetry” is a long black letter ballad upon the exploits of Guy. It seems unnecessary to quote it in extenso, so we pick out a verse here and there, sufficient at least to show how doughty a champion our hero must have been:—