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Teaching Shakespeare

Reading The Phoenix and the Turtle as a movie:

Abdul Sattar Jawad

Duke University

Teaching Shakespeare is really a challenge. Shakespeare himself, his language, subtlety of style, are some of the essentials that need be addressed effectively.

From my experience in teaching Shakespeare’s The Phoenix and the Turtle, within Mystical Literature, at Duke University and North Carolina Chapel Hill, I came up with many lessons. In teaching poetry, especially difficult poems, one needs a method other than the traditional one asking: What’s the poem about? Students should not go message hunting first with obscure and perplexing poems like The Phoenix and the Turtle. I met the same issue in teaching T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, a polyphonic and difficult poem. Some poems need be read as experience at first, then moving into their poetic characteristics, language, style, metaphor, in an intensive effort to penetrate its textual layers in order to construe the meaning. I found Shakespeare’s poem, due to its mysterious nature, complexities, and odd style, suitable to be read as a movie. There are voices, scenes, dialogue, tense situation, and drama, and film essentials.

However, before exploring the poem, we need to address the following points:

Authorship: It has been established that the poem was published in 1601 with Shakespeare’s name attached to it in Robert Chester’s book Love’s Martyr, dedicated to Sir John Salisbury. Chester’s book included poems by Shakespeare’s contemporaries, Marston, Chapman, and Ben Johnson, Shakespeare’s friend. It is the only poem that Shakespeare had written for publication with others. We have now massive and solid information about Shakespeare, his contemporaries, and life. Further, the poem was solicited by Chester to secure the contribution of the greatest poet of the time.

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Shakespeare’s language:

The poem carried Shakespeare’s signature in the rare words he liked to use, ‘precurrer’ for precursor, and his fondness of impressive words ending in”ive”- defunctive, for example Shakespeare used in The Phoenix and the Turtle words that are recurrent in his other works:

So they loved, as love in twainHad the essence but in one;Two distincts, division none:Number there in love was slain.

In the Sonnets he says;Let me confess that we two must be twain’Although our undivided loves are one.So shall those blots that do with me remainWithout thy help by me borne alone.In our two loves there is but one respect,Though in our lives a separable spite,Which though it alter not love’s soul effect,Yet doth it steal sweet hours from love’s delight.(Sonnet 36)

The Phoenix and the Arabian Tree

The Phoenix is a fabled Arabian bird ‘anqa’a’, male in Greek mythology, female in Shakespeare’s works, and one of its kind, which after living five hundred years makes for itself a funeral pyre, from the ashes of which rises a new phoenix. In ancient Iraq, the phoenix is symbolized by the horned and winged solar disk as portrayed in the Assyrian image below. Mesopotamian legends tell that the phoenix had feathers of red and gold, the color of the rising Sun. It had a wonderful melodious voice,

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which became mournful with approaching death. Other creatures were then so overcome by its beauty and sadness that they fell dead. Hesiod, the Greek poet wrote that the phoenix lived nine times as long as humans. It is not mere coincidence that Shakespeare called the crow:

And thou treble-dated crowThis could imply that treble, here means treble trebled.

The phoenix is associated with the Arabian date-palm that bears fruit for more than a hundred years and sets forth an offshoot before it dies. The palm tree is also the Muslim Christmas tree as in the Quran when God asked Mary to shake the trunk of the date-palm so that ripe dates fall to feed her baby Jesus:

“And the labor pains came upon her at the trunk of a palm tree, and she said, ‘O that I had died before this, and been forgotten out of mind, and he called to her from beneath her, ‘Grieve not, for thy Lord has placed a stream beneath thy feet; and shake toward thee the trunk of the palm tree, it will drop upon thee fresh dates fit to gather; so eat and drink, and cheer thine eye’( Quran, Mary: 19, 23-27)

In polytheistic Mesopotamia, religions that spanned the Akkadian, Assyrian, and Babylonian empires, the goddess Ishtar who was the goddess of fertility (prototype of Venus), was depicted standing alongside the palm tree which was considered sacred and cosmic.

Below is the Sacred Assyrian Tree, the date palm tree, flanked by two images of a Neo- Assyrian king. Above the tree is the god Assur assimilated to the sun disk with wings and tail feathers. Legends also tell that the new born phoenix that rises from the ashes gathers the ashes and takes them up to the sun. In Egyptian mythology, the phoenix is associated with the God Sun.

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Assyrian King pointing to the phoenix symbolized by horned and winged solar disk.

The Sun, as a motif, is widely mentioned in mystical literature symbolizing divine radiance or God, the source of light. Interestingly, in Hinduism, the sun is considered as the “King of Planets”, giving them light and heat. Given this fact, the sun here offers a significant clue to the meaning of the poem and had been mentioned as such in most ancient civilizations, cultures, and mythology. This legendary bird is widely mentioned in Shakespeare’s works, with unclear meanings; rare, matchless, beautiful lover, wonder, marvel, paragon. In All’s Well that Ends Well, Act 1, Scene 1, 165, [Helena to Parolles of her virginity]:

There shall your master have a thousand loves,A phoenix, captain and an enemy,

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Shakespeare refers to the phoenix as ‘the Arabian Bird”, in Antony and Cleopatra. And in Cymbeline:

‘She is alone the Arabian bird’ In The Tempest:

‘Rare as phoenix’. In As You Like It:

‘From their ashes shall be rear’d A phoenix’In the first part of Henry VI:

‘My ashes, as the phoenix, may bring forth A phoenix that will revenge upon you all’‘From their ashes shall be rear’d A phoenix’

In the first part of Henry VI: ‘My ashes, as the phoenix, may bring forth A phoenix that will revenge upon you all’

In Sonnet 19-4:‘And burn the long-lived Phoenix in her bed’

And In A Lover’s Complaint, L.95:His phoenix down began but to appear.

In 1593, a poetic miscellany, The Phoenix Nest, was edited by R.S (presumably Richard Bear), one of the finest Elizabethan collections. It contains poems by Lodge, Breton, Raleigh, and others. The use of Phoenix in different works of art and literature was so popular that it was adopted as a sign over chemists’ shops because of its association with alchemists. It was also regarded as a symbol of immortality. The image of the Virgin Queen had developed and much of the symbolism in her portraits alluded to her unmarried status. This portrait was made by Nicholas Hilliard (1547-1619). Shakespeare himself identified the Queen with the Phoenix.

The PoemShakespeare’s poem is allegorical on the mystical nature of love, an obscure, enigmatic, but strikingly effective work that has provoked a great deal of critical speculation., which all poets recognize for the magical work it is: emblematic, touched by the vogue among the younger poets for the metaphysical, and reading like a surrealist text or painting.

The Phoenix as portrayed in Mesopotamia with red and gold colors, the Sun’s colors

Queen Elizabeth 1 with the Phoenix on her arm above the thumb.

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The Poet Laureate of England John Masefield (1878-1967), has eloquently delineated the poem in 1911 as an epitaph on dead love, more than a celebration of a living one:Glosses

LET the bird of loudest lay, phoenix, a rooster, and nightingale. Some scholars questioned the suggestion that the phoenix is meant here though it’s unlikely that it comes to attend its funeral. Others say that it is the new phoenix that resurrects from the ashes. Riverside’s editors say it’s clearly unlikely, but the The New Oxford Shakespeare editors proposed the Phoenix. On the sole Arabian tree, only one of its kind, the palm tree.Herald sad and trumpet be,To whose sound chaste wings obey.

But thou shrieking harbinger, owl, symbol of bad omen and deathFoul precurrer of the fiend, precursorAugur of the fever's end, prophet of deathTo this troop come thou not near!

From this session interdict session is a religious gathering as in a church especially in Schotland.Every fowl of tyrant wing, birds of preySave the eagle, feather'd king: The eagle was considered symbolically the king of birds and can look directly to the sun. The Romans used to fly the eagle from the emperor’s funeral to take his soul to the sun. Keep the obsequy so strict.

Let the priest in surplice white, The surplice white is loose ecclesiastical vestment of white linen worn by Roman Catholic priests. Was Shakespeare Catholic? Big question! (The swan death occurs only before its death. The white color fits the swan.That defunctive music can funeralBe the death-divining swan, According to legends, the swan could foresee its own death; only then could it sing.Lest the requiem lack his right. As conducted by the Roman Catholic Church, a mass sung for the repose of the souls of the dead.

And thou treble-dated crow, living thrice as long as the normal span of life or nine times according to Hesiod.That thy sable gender makest reproduce your gender (black offspring). The black color matches the funeral.With the breath thou givest and takest, (the crow or raven are believed to engender by billing, the young become black on the seventh day.'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.

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Here the anthem doth commence: Anthem is religious song of grief conducted by two voices or choir. Love and constancy is dead;Phoenix and the turtle fledIn a mutual flame from hence.

So they loved, as love in twainHad the essence but in one; They were separate, yet undivided. Essence, in theology means substance as denoting the Trinity, three persons in one.Two distincts, division none: Emphasis on the union in love, a mystical term.Number there in love was slain. Obliterated

Hearts remote, yet not asunder; remote in space, separate. Asunder: in two parts, (In the Book of Common Prayer: Those whom God has joined together let no one put asunder)Distance, and no space was seen'Twixt the turtle and his queen: Turtle doves are usually presented as feminine. In Chester’s poem, however, the turtle dove is male. All doves in Greek are feminine.But in them it were a wonder.

So between them love did shine,That the turtle saw his right true nature that which he owned.Flaming in the phoenix' sight; eyesEither was the other's mine. Merged in one another’s identity

Property was thus appalled, logical principleThat the self was not the same;Single nature's double nameNeither two nor one was called.

Reason, in itself confounded, The presence of Reason as a commentator on the fate of the two birds may owe something to Chester’s poem, in which a Pelican makes the final comments on the immolation of the Phoenix and the Turtle (Burrow).Saw division grow together,To themselves yet either neither, Each was its own beingSimple were so well compounded,

That it cried, How true a twainSeemeth this concordant one! In harmonyLove hath reason, reason none,If what parts can so remain.Whereupon it made this threne lamentationTo the phoenix and the dove,Co-supremes and stars of love, joint- rulersAs chorus to their tragic scene. Chorus is religious term.

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Threnos.

Beauty, truth, and rarity, constancy in love.Grace in all simplicity,Here enclosed in cinders lie.

Death is now the phoenix' nestAnd the turtle's loyal breastTo eternity doth rest,

Leaving no posterity: It could be a hint on Queen Elizabeth when she was 68 years and urged to produce an heir. It is tactless if so. It was the experience of their chastity in marriage. Chester’s poem ends with the birth of a new Phoenix.'Twas not their infirmity, (it was not a defect in them to leave no posterity but an emblem of their mystical eternal trothplight)It was married chastity. Abstinence in marriage

Truth may seem, but cannot be: Truth died with Phoenix and the Turtle.Beauty brag, but 'tis not she; true beautyTruth and beauty buried be.Fidelity and beauty as known to mortal perception are only illusory, for their ideal incarnation now lies buried with the phoenix and the turtle.

To this urn let those repairThat is either true or fairFor these dead birds sigh a prayer.

Love’s Martyr, by Robert Chester, was compiled in honor of Sir John Salisbury and his Wife, Ursula Stanley. Sir John was Esquire of the body to Queen Elizabeth 1, a remote cousin. At this moment, after the Essex rebellion, Southampton had been condemned to death, and was under suspense in the Tower.

Readings:The Poet Laureate of England, John Masefield (1878-1967) has eloquently put forward this method of reading the poem:

“In dark and noble verse, it describes spiritual marriage, suddenly ended by death…it is the work of great mind trying to express in unusual symbols a thought too subtle and too intense to be expressed in any other way. Spiritual ecstasy is the only key

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to work of this kind. To the reader without that key it can only be so many strange words set in a noble rhythm for no apparent cause.”

Masefield in this insightful quote sets the premise of discussion and interpretation.Yet, in analyzing the poem, one needs to consider the varied ideas expressed by other leading literary critics like William Empson, I. A. Richard, Colin Burrow, Katherine Duncan- Jones who approached the poem from different angles.

The Phoenix and the Turtle is a strange poem, which all poets recognize for the magical work it is: emblematic, touched by the vogue among the younger poets for the metaphysical, and reading like a surrealist text or painting.

It is an allegorical poem on the mystical nature of love, consisting of 13 quatrains -67 lines rhyming abba, followed by 5 triplets in trochaic tetrameter – an accented syllable followed by unaccented one. The poem tells of two lovers, the Phoenix associated with immortality, and a turtle (turtledove), a symbol of fidelity. Very much like the Sufi or mystical practice to annihilate the body in the love of God, the two birds burnt themselves to death in order to be forever joined in love. Love here is not corporeal or wordily, rather, it is divine. In mysticism such elimination is the first stage of purifying the soul.

The allegory celebrates an ideal of love in which an absolute spiritual union of the lovers, defying rationality, is purification or chastity achieved through death, the ultimate rejection of the earthly world. Thus, the association with historical figures seems losing ground in modern studies to the mystical approach.

The first five quatrains summon various birds on the funeral. The owl and other birds of prey were banned, because they were considered omens of evil. The Swan and crow were allowed due to their association with death.

The next eight stanzas incorporate the ceremonial “anthem”. The eclipse of worldly wisdom is celebrated in lyrical paradoxes or binary oppositions, adding more ambiguity to the already perplexing poem:

Two distincts, division none:

Number there in love was slain.

Hearts remote, yet not asunder; Distance and no space was seen

Here, one should note that during the 16th and 17th centuries, the “conceit” was so popular especially among the Metaphysical Poets and during Shakespeare’s life; the term was used as a synonym for ‘thought’. It might also denote a remark or idea of which Shakespeare is a master. This point has been examined by William Empson (1906-1984) who stressed the Metaphysical Style of the poem, and described it as exquisite but baffling poem.1Shakespeare remarkably used 1 William Empson, Essays in Criticism, 1966, 147.

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elaborate figurative devices and language of a fanciful kind incorporating metaphor, hyperbole, or oxymoron as exemplified in:

Hearts remote, yet not asunder; Distance and no space was seen

The conceits are particularly associated with the Metaphysical Poets but are to be found in abundance in the love poetry of the Tudor and Jacobean poets. Shakespeare in Sonnet 130 furnishes a well-known example:

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;Coral is far more red than her lips’ red:If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her headI have seen reses damas’d, red and white.But no such roses see I in her checks

Shakespeare in this poem, more than any other, excels in juxtaposing of images and comparisons between very dissimilar objects.

The concluding 15 lines; the threnos celebrate the fusion of beauty (the phoenix) and fidelity (the turtle).

The poem may be divided into 3 parts:

1) Part one summons convocation of the benevolent birds, with the swan as priest, to celebrate the funeral rites of the phoenix and the turtle.

2) Part two: the birds sing an anthem in which the death of the lovers is seen as marking the end of all “love and constancy”.

3) Part three: Love makes a funeral song to the phoenix and the dove.The threnos are written in an even more incantatory style than what proceeds; each of the 5 triplets has three rhyming lines, and the tone is one of grave simplicity.

READINGS:

1- Mystical:Ideal love transcends reason and thus represents a truer state than that in material world (Plato, ‘The ideal is the origin of the real’). The defeat of worldly wisdom is celebrated in lyrical paradoxes “two distincts”, “division none”, ‘love hath reason, reason hath none’ against the proverbial saying:” Love has no reason”

Critics have observed the Neo-platonic theory inherent in the notion of the turtle dove “flaming in the phoenix’ sight” (line 35) until they dissolve into one another, (Union with the Divine in mysticism). The allegory celebrates an ideal of love in which an absolute spiritual union of the lovers, defying rationality and common sense, chastely achieved through death, the ultimate rejection of the world. In death they were consumed by one mutual fire (line 24) and are now united in the funeral urn:

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Beauty, truth, and rarity,

Grace in all simplicity

Here enclosed, in cinders lie. (Lines 53-55)

The allegory shows Shakespeare’s deep knowledge of the mystical notion that ideal love transcends reason and thus to represent a truer state of being than that of the material world.

Some Shakespearean scholars interpret this Platonic idea as related to Christian concept of grace that God offers to believers and The Phoenix and the Turtle has been interpreted as a specifically Christian allegory.2

2- Religious:In Christian terms, the poem deploys the language of the Holy Trinity:

… Love in twain

Had the essence but in one,

Two distincts, division none;

Number there in love was slain. (Lines 25-28)

- The phoenix and the turtle were united by marriage as suggested by the echo of the wedding service from the Book of Common Prayer:” Hearts remote, yet not asunder” (line 29).

- The phoenix was a potential symbol of Christ, while the turtle was identical with the church, the Virgin Mary, or the soul. Thus, the union of the two might express the church’s betrothal to Christ.

- J.V. Cunningham has found in the poem the embodiment of scholastic doctrine. The mystical relationship of the lovers is identical with the existing between the three persons of the Trinity as expounded by Thomas Aquinas.

- There are several Christian, especially Roman Catholic notions, recurrent in the poem such as: “session (ecclesiastical gathering especially in Scotland), and as a theological term ‘the three persons in the Trinity are one”, surplice white, requiem, anthem, chorus, interdict, asunder ( in the Book of Common Prayer” Those whom God has joined together let no one put asunder” etc.

3- Political:- The poem may refer to the tragic love of Elizabeth and Essex. (A long favorite of Queen

Elizabeth who attempted to raise a rebellion against her on Feb 8, 1601 but failed and Essex was executed in March.)

2 See: Charles Boyce, Shakespeare: A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Poems, His Life and Times, and More, New York, Facts on File, 1990, p. 502.

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- An allusion to Sir John Salisbury to whom Robert Chester dedicated (Love’s Martyr) which included Shakespeare’s poem. Salisbury was knighted by the queen in 1601 for his loyalty during the rebellion led by the Earl of Essex.)

- By 1601 when the poem was written Queen Elizabeth was too old to produce an heir and would refuse to name her successor until her deathbed. Poems written between 1590-1601, were written in her praise, describing her as a phoenix that would generate her offspring or rise again from the flames of her own destruction. (Shakespeare ends his poem with the prospect only of death, the pair leaving no posterity. (Line 59). In this respect, he occupies the role of the owl, which was associated with the approach to death, in predicting the end of the Tudor dynasty. Thomas Holland in a sermon marking the anniversary of her accession said:

- “How rare a Phoenix the Queen of England hath been, and how bright a starre in these daies”.

- Shakespeare himself had referred to Elizabeth as such in his play Henry VIII when she is described as a “maiden phoenix” (Act 5, Scene 4, line 40)

- A dirge for Anne Lyne (1601) a Catholic recusant executed for harboring priests. - A reference to Lucy Harington, Countess of Bedford and her husband Edward Russell, third

Earl of Bedford. - The poem might refer to Shakespeare himself, being the ‘bird of the loudest lay” as he was

the most famous.- Or the Italian philosopher Giardano Bruno.- Symbols: The crow (line 17) might be George Chapman who published in 1594 “The Shadow

of Night”. The priest in surplice white (line 13) might be John Marston who would take holy orders in 1609.

Recent views:

Some scholars suggested recently that the poem may be a lament for Catholic martyr with its central pair modeled on historical figures such as Robert Southwell, Henry Walpole, or Anne Lyne. This is unlikely in a volume dedicated to Salisbury who needed to dissociate himself from Catholicism to secure Elizabeth’s continuing patronage.

It was suggested also that the poem is an essay on Platonic love.